Hi Guys,
So my wife and I have opened a new online store about a month ago. I am wondering if anyone knows how to grow a business or get more exposure. We would love to know what you guys think of our shop and how we can grow. It is a drop shipping business.
This is our current website. Any criticisms, ideas or feedback you guys could give us will be greatly appreciated.
Don't get sucked into forking out $1.000 a month for SEO
Don't offer freebies on ozbargain
Thank you for your response. Can you be a bit more elaborate as to why we shouldn't give freebies?
In general Freebies aren't the best way to grow a new brand as it does not generate any customer investment - if you get something for free you subconsciously assign 0 value to it, as it didn't take you any effort. Freebies can work for established brands as people are already invested in the brand.
EXAMPLE:
An example would be a $10 product which costs you $10 to ship. Normally I'd view this shipping as expensive (1/2 the total cost) where as I might view $15 +$5 shipping reasonable, even though its the same product and same total cost to me. In the same way a Free shipping sale its effectively 50% off but you don't feel like you're getting a discount. As a freebie but pay shipping its the same but you don't really value the product. if you did a 50% off sale people think they are still getting a good deal, and if you subsidise shipping on orders over $100 or something during sales then people also get perceived value with volume sales.
Awesome advice. We will find away to implement that last part. Much appreciated :)
so you have a social media page setup already yeah?
Thanks for the response yes we have Facebook and Instagram.
You have no phone numbers/address on your website. Are you an Australian site?
Yes we are an Australian website.
Need I go on? Maybe have a sale on red flags, you seem to have enough…
"allow up to 5 weeks postage" red flag
Australian website yeah ok.
australian company?
so looking at this you don't actually have any stock on hand.
you're drop shipping?
or ordering stock via a 3rd party site and then sending it on?
It is a drop shipping business.
It's in the OP just fyi
doh me being lazy again and not reading.
If you're trying to get growth then you're at the stage of the business where you won't be profitable. You don't just put up a website and start making millions of dollars (I'm sure you're aware, I'm just spelling it out). Look at the growth stage as an opportunity to provide win-win scenarios. Run discounts to lower gross profit margins such that hopefully you're breaking even and just losing time. You should be able to undercut established stores
Things I would think through:
I like the look of the website, I see the free shipping until Halloween and approve. I personally like sections that separate new arrivals and a sales section (I don't know what the turn over is, but in general there are benefits to clear out existing lines by having intro price —> normal —> clearance price to help protect against manufacturing variations/minimise warehousing or money wasted on unsold sizes and styles.
Best of luck with the business. Remember the sell isn't just the product ESPECIALLY with kids stuff.
Babymart! Get your Babymart here!
I know it is a drop-shipping business, but I think at least taking your own photos of the items is a good start. Looks more genuine, and also stops people reverse image searching easily to see how much you pay Alibaba or whoever.
I also think the shipping time is an issue - the kid could outgrow it before it arrives! Given it is cutesy/emotional stuff, maybe it would work better as a market stall or similar?
find a kmart mum
pay them, send them samples and get them to spook ur product
done
Facebook Mums groups.
Edit: is this one of those 2c Shopify drop-shipping 'stores' that are popping up everywhere because a YouTube video said you can earn thousands of dollars a month from home?
How not to market:
Don't spam your store in comments on old posts and think we don't notice
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/6509441/redir
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/6509437/redir
Lol and these were posted before this post 😂
Congrats! One of the best way is instagram to promote your products and then a stall at thoses baby/kids show like essential baby and toddler show, one fair baby, baby and pregnancy show,…and find some mums to try out your products: mouth to mouth work great but avoid kids who already promote other products on instagram as most of time the parents didn t really care about your product. They just want it for free. Good luck.
looks like you're on Shopify.
are you on a free account? You wont get indexed if you're on a free account..
A few comments as constructive feedback (I work in the industry, involved with eCommerce site building/marketing for large corporates)…
There is no indication at all that this is Australian and there is no information whatsoever about who runs it, no contact details, no address, no "About Us" which you'd typically see on a website. Makes me think it's some website from China or something.
Also, the linked Facebook page has a totally different name called "Tiny Tots The Label", also a concern if i was a buyer. A company/brand will normally keep the same name across all media.
The company logo looks like it was done by an amateur (sorry, just being honest) and doesn't give a good impression. I'm guessing you did that yourselves to save some money.
The Shipping info talks about potential "Customs" issues and that you won't do anything about it except check a status, which tells me the products are not warehoused locally (yes, i know you said it's drop shipped) and you won't help and it's out of your control - that would steer me away too. A retailer who says shipping issues are out of their control is totally unacceptable from a customer service (and probably legal) perspective. If a package ends up getting lost you must issue a full refund or replacement asap to the customer. For this reason alone I would never buy from your site if i was a prospective customer as it sounds too risky.
On your Facebook page there is also no information whatsoever about the company.
As a minimum you need a phone number for customer service. No one wants to deal with an unknown website where there is like a web link or email to customer service, we all know how many websites just ignore it. Providing a phone number and customer service hours (like 8am - 8pm Australia wide) will help. Online chat is also good to provide, as long as you answer within less than a minute, maybe you cannot do that yet.
Prices seem quite high, the items are very similar to what is sold at Kmart, but the prices are about twice as much (plus shipping). Seems your target audience is the same demographic that would shop at KMart/Target/BigW, it will be very difficult to compete at the prices you have listed. If you had original items you may be able to charge higher prices, but the items are similar to those sold in discount stores globally.
Search Engine Optimisation - Your site doesn't appear anywhere i could find in a Google search for "baby clothes". I was not surprised. It's would be very difficult to get your site to appear on the first page of Google search results at this point. You can do some paid advertising with Google and try to cross pollinate your site with others, but to be honest I'd focus on fixing your fundamental issues before spending any money on that.
Do something that others are not doing. Make yourself stand out by being different. Right now your site looks like an AliExpress site, of which there are hundreds, offering the same things at less than half the price and with free/low shipping from China a lot of the time.
No offence, but I would not purchase from this site as it would ring too many warning bells for me and there is nothing that would draw me to buy as compared to KMart/Target/BigW etc. for half the price. Overall the site also seems like it doesn't focus on the customer. Be also careful that some of your comments are not breaching Australian law, i think they are (around shipping losses not being your responsibility). AliExpress is offering better customer service guarantees as compared to your current site, just as a comparison.
Good luck. You are in what is an extremely difficult space to compete in. Make yourself unique, have products that people cannot get elsewhere, focus on customer service, have prices competitive and work hard on marketing to your target audience.
Thank you so much for such brilliant feedback we really appreciate your honesty, we are currently revising our logo.
Don't