Separate Online store presence.

[jellybirddesigns]

Hi all,

I have a separate online store for my cushion covers, but have had extremely poor sales in comparison to Ebay.

So, I was wondering the following:

For those who have separate online stores -

a) Do you offer the same products at the same price as what you sell for on Ebay?

b) Do you have SOME products on offer on Ebay and then include a note in the purchase directing them to your website where you list many more products?

I just don't know why my website sales are so dismal in comparison to Ebay.

At this rate it's not worth renewing my domain when it comes up in 6 months. In an ideal world I would love to be getting sales through both Ebay and my store, but not sure how else to drive it.

Has anyone managed to get good sales through both Ebay AND a separate online presence?

[clarry100]

We sell on our own website and on etsy.
At the moment after about 7 months from launching the others their sales combined have not reached half of eBay sales.
It takes time.
We do your b. Above but have tried unsuccessfully advertising on Google ad words, shopping and at the moment Facebook. Trying to figure out what we are doing wrong. Takes time but all I can say is keep at it. Don't give up.
Its all about the traffic volume (among some other things) and despite eBay traffic falling in this past year they still do have it.
We joined a Facebook group (don't think I can mention it on here) where we have found lots of helpful people who are working with us to fix the issues.
We will get there and if you persist so will you.
We knew nothing about launching a website when wesstarted but are learning heaps as we go.
Hope this gives you a little of our experiences so far.

[jellybirddesigns]

Thanks Clarry.

Trying to get sales outside of ebay is pretty frustrating.

I also have a Facebook business page which has over 300 likes, and a "Shop" button which displays my products and links directly to my ecommerce website. Did a whole Adwords campaign a while back and got heaps of people onto the FB page, but there is no interest in actioning sales.

Also sell on Etsy - had have 3 sales in 3 months, so hardly anything to write home about.

I agree - it's hard to figure out what you're doing wrong.

I'm wondering though if it's a trust thing - in other words, people are less inclined to buy off random, unknown websites because they cannot accurately guage the level of -

1) customer service

2) reliability

3) quality of product etc.

However, by buying from you on Ebay, they can go by your feedback, comments and stars, which makes them feel as though you are reliable and trustworthy.

[joethenuts]

somebody will kmow for sure  but i dont think you can advertise your web store on ebay

[clarry100]

Joe -- No you can't do that. Ebay dont like it.

But we always put a little flyer into every ebay package we mail out.

What they don't know don't hurt them.

Our etsy and website venues have been running about 50 sales each per month.

This month is down on that tho.

We have 220+ products listed on our website and about 120 of the best sellers listed on etsy. We will increase this soon.

And between our two ebay basic stores we have all 220+ products listed as you can't have duplicates listed on ebay.

Our ultimate aim (dream!!) is to have our website be responsible for about 80% of total sales volume.

At that point we can make a decision to pull the pin completely on ebay if they make it too hard for us to trade on there and just walk away from it. But for now we will soldier on and see where it all takes us.

[digital*ghost]

First, a disclaimer - I don't yet have an independent website, one is in the works, but it'll be a couple of months before it is up and running. I have a Facebook page, and get a trickle of new 'likers', maybe one or two a week, currently sitting at less than 150 in total, and I am the absolute worst at maintaining it (full disclosure: my last FB business post was over a year ago).

The reason why I have chosen to respond anyway, is because I am a keen observer of other businesses who run successful sites and pages, and some of my observations may (or may not) help.

The golden rule, just IMHO, when it comes to FB pages (especially for items that are on a more personal level), is don't use Facebook to advertise, use it to engage. 

Some examples - ask people what kind of designs or colour schemes they would like to see. Ask people how they've used your products. Run competitions where people submit things like how they've used your products (if applicable) and award a prize of some sort. Solve other kinds of problems - eg post home decorating ideas, interesting colour palettes / schemes. 

A lot of this kind of stuff is transferable to a website blog, as well. That is, quality content that people want to know (as opposed to stuff people can buy) is what gets good google rankings near as I can tell. For extending your range and maybe increasing customer base, you could try adding DIY kits or patterns, with tips and tutorials for special techniques on the blog so you pick up people browsing for "how to.... " as well as people looking to buy. 

Over time, and with some dedicated work, I think Facebook pages can be just as good, if not better, than an eBay Feedback profile, because it lists stats like how often and how quickly you respond to messages, and buyers can also leave general reviews. If someone posts a public comment that happens to be a complaint, other people can see how you respond to and deal with it (and you get more than 80 characters to do so :D). Facebook pages and how they are handled / maintained etc have actually both encouraged and discouraged me to buy from specific websites in the past. 

When I do have my store up and running, It will have mostly the same stock, but I do OOAK items as well so I have to spread them around between everywhere I sell. Most prices will be the same, or lower, than the third-party site prices. I kinda feel like uniform item pricing is probably the best way to go, but deals, offers, coupons etc can vary between sites, so overall sometimes one may be cheaper than another for different things. 

[clarry100]

Yes DG. I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying.
Being a bloke I'm lousy at the touchy-feely engagement stuff that I know is where the power of Facebook marketing is. I just never seem to know what to say/do.
My wife is Chinese and is possibly worse at it than I am. So between us we are pretty much hopeless at this side of things. Lol.
So I am doing the best I can to try and emulate what I see on other pages but am never really sure /confident about it.
Lots to learn yet but I certainly agree with you that's for sure.

[garfield_53]

I have a seperate online store as well as my five ebay stores. Online store took a while to build up, but now I have regular customers who buy monthly.

I tried all the advertising avenues, adwords, google etc, but a lot of cost for little sales, yes got clicks to website but not conversions.

I found the best way to promote my store was giving ebay buyers a discount voucher to use at my store which generally amounted to the same value as the fees I would have paid on ebay for that sale. Also using facebook advertising for clicks to website generated sales.

I post on my facebook page weekly generally about new products or sale items, which promotes interest in my website and currently have a couple of thousand followers, this has been built up over the past year. Whenever I am running a promotion on my store I post it to my facebook page and find that a lot of my followers share the post which generates new people visiting my store. I also pay for facebook advertising for a week every month to make sure I am reaching new people.

Running competitions on your facebook page and using facebook advertising to promote the competition is also quite useful. You can offer a prize of a voucher to be used on your website for anyone who signs up for your newsletter, likes your page or purchases an item from your store. On facebook you need to be sure that when the winner is decided that it is posted on your wall.

Having your SEO's right on your store is imperative so that the bots can crawl your website and index you to the search engines.

You need to have Google Analytics so you can measure where your traffic and sales are coming from so for future you can focus on what you know works.

All of the above has to be ongoing, you are only as good as your last post, people forget very quickly so you have to get onboard with promoting your store all the time. Join groups, post your website in those groups that allow it.

Promoting your store never ends, it is ongoing and new ads must be fresh and interesting.

[saarzi]

**bleep**. I just wrote the longest post and accidentally deleted it. Im not writing it again. Lol

Your own website is a full time job. You simply cant just have great SEO, do some adwords every now and thing, stick up a Facebook page and ask family and friends to like a share... and expect anything to come of it.

SEO doesnt even matter for most websites, because most websites in the world DONT get the majority of their traffic from Google, like you wont. Not to begin with anyway. They get it from interest groups, sharing on social media, etc.

I got 3000 likes on Facebook, 3500 followers on Instagram, about the same on Pinterest, and over 75,000 readers on tripadvisor....... all in 2 1/2 months, from scratch. I have over 50k visits to my site a month (nothing to do with Ebay, my Ebay stuff is a hobby, otherwise my listings would look MUCH better! lol).

The industry standard conversion rate for retail is around 2.3% (sometimes less). That means, out of every 100 people who view your products, around 2 will buy one. If you only have 300 likes on Facebook, you can expect only a small percentage are actually going to view your website, and out of THAT, only 2 % will buy.  If all you have done with your Facebook page is created it, asked your family and friends to share and like, and youve not targeted your customers properly, you can expect significantly less. In otherwords, ZERO.

You need to work full time on dragging traffic to your site for a while. You do that by engagement (as ghost said), NOT by trying to sell stuff. 

I got 3500 followers on Instagram, for example, by working on Instagram ALONE, for 3-4 hours a day, for TWO MONTHS straight. COMMMENTING on other peoples posts (not liking, no one sees a like - you want to be visible). Id average around 300 comments a day, and my target was gaining around 50 followers a day. I wouldnt stop commenting and engaging until I had reached that goal each day. Also, I did it sneakily... I targeted certain posts, with a certain amount of views and likes, and phrased things so as not to look like I was selling anything, but make them want to check out my profile.

anywhoo..

1. know who your perfect customers are. Who EXACTLY buys your product. their likes and interests, where they hang out, how they like to communicate etc etc. Then, target THEM, and only them (otherwise you are working too hard for a too low conversion rate). They might not be who you want them to be. They might not be who you believe or *think*  they should be. Do your research. Play to the people who are handing over the money.

2. go out and DRAG them in, as above. Your website address should be plastered in every damn forum and group on the internet that is relevant to what you are selling (assuming youre allowed to post your website in each group, and are sneaky about how you introduce the link, and how you get people to the store - dont do hard sells). You should be ALL OVER similar interest groups on Facebook. Be prolific, answer questions, ask questions, create conversation, and be in the centre of those conversations.

3. Get published on other peoples pages. bloggers who deal with interior design, interior deisgn websites, cushion websites, I dont know Lol The more links you have from these types of *quality* sites back to your own site, the higher you rank in Google, and obiously the more traffic youll get regardless. (The ranking thing is a little more complicated than that, but you dont need to know right now). Go out and contact them. Find people to work with you.

3, FULL TIME. You should be working on this hours a day for the first 6 months. Customers are what pay you - you have your product, you have your branding (I assume), you now need to spend your time on what brings the dollars in.

All thats assuming you want to make a good living from this and its not just a hobby.  

[funkyflamingo*]

I have been selling vintage on ebay for quite a while, and thought it would be great to have a website to, which was launched 2 months ago.  I haven't  used paid advertising, but people are finding me, especially through ebay.  I guess they see my my logo, and assume I have a website. They then google it and ring me directly for items.  

I do have a facebook page, which I update now and then but spend very little time on.  Instagram which I love and spend a lot of time on this as it is instant, and people are aware of new items that I have, or ask me questions. Many people sell  their products through Instagram and is a great way to advertise their Etsy, ebay, and website,  and are quite sucessful.

Pinterest is also a great way to get your item seen through images, as people look for pictures they like and then click the photo's to see if there is more information on the product. 

It really is all about marketing, and being found easily.  Ebay is great for traffic, and can support you while you get your traffic up on your website.  

All I know is, you spend so much of your day on the computer, marketing,and listing!