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Thanks Guys,
Stuart – I have a question. My website has more than 500 pages and I tried the website which says I need to pay $20 for generating the sitemap. I am ok with it but since my website content constantly changes, does it mean I will need to pay $20 every time I want to make a change to the XML sitemap?
Up0Does anybody here have any online retail experience that they would love to pitch in?
Yes, I do and I guess many of us do. One thing about it – it is not a passive income. You constantly need to work on it in order to keep the thing running. Analysis of competitors, customers, new products on the market etc. It is no different to a full time job.
Great fun though
Up0Some of the companies I had a chance to deal with (although not as a small business owner but a manager within a mid size company)
CRM Australia www.crmaus.com.au
Direct IT http://www.directit.com.au/Up0Managing director… it really reflects what I do
Simple but effective. It does give an idea of the company size when “managing director” does most of the work.Up0I would suggest the following approach
1. Assess your actual cost on particular product/service
2. Check what your competitors are charging for the same/similar service
3. Consider your positioning in the market (i.e. where is your business standing, location, target market etc)
4. Decide whether you want to undercut your competitors, offer the same price or higher.
5. If price is to be higher, determine how you are going to sell it to the target market against cheaper competitors. After a few weeks review your strategy and see if it worked. If not – review the price (go back to step 1).Up0We are online retailers as well. My wife also is a stay at home mum and has more time for our son.
Up0So… do you think choosing the right target group (in my case women aged 20 – 40 interested in children, parenthood, toddlers, babies etc.) is not the right way to attract the followers? If so, what is?
Up0Promoting page is good to get followers. It is quite easy to get a few hundred of them within just a few days.
Boosting posts helps you reach people. However, so far I have not seen many sales from it. At this stage there is no ROI. I think I may not be doing something properly though.
As for Facebook ads – I have seen them but never knew how to create one. Is it any different to promoting page and boosting posts?
Up0I have just liked your page to learn more about your business.
Up0The best initial stock? Zero
See how many of your suppliers can do drop shipping. If you want to start stocking, take product management approach – assume how many weeks of stock you want to hold and forecast how many of particular products will sell based on sales history of let’s say 6 months.Up0My customers purchase from me, they sign up for a newsletter and then I send one, and only about 25% of them even open it, fewer than 5% take any action
What you are describing is pretty standard and well known to marketers as “click through rate” or “open rate”. The rates that you describe do not sound that bad. Google Adwords marketer explained me the other day that most businesses initially get 0.5% – 1% conversion rate – that is, out of 1000 clicks to their website they get around 5 – 10 orders.I noticed the same with my website which is why you need to run campaigns around yours constantly. Many customers do not return as there are plenty of stores online and they simply forget about yours unless you don’t remind them often enough. Remember not to do it too often though as you may be perceived as spammer.
Up0Hello,
I would recommend two separate websites for several reasons:
1. Customers do not get confused and go to the website of their country
2. It will be easier to manage stock, sales, e-mails, customers etc. You will have a clear differentiation which will help you operationally
3. You will most likely pay tax in different countries and having separate websites will help you track all information related to doing your tax.
4. Stock in UK and in AUS will be stored in different currency. From my experience, I would say it will be easier to do it in two separated systems rather than one combined. For that you would most likely need two separate websites.Up0Slowly – but this is nothing unexpected. I started getting regular sales around 2 months after launching the website, mainly thanks to numerous small campaigns in Adwords, Facebook and baby websites. However, the store is not profitable at this stage and I am expecting it not to make profit for the first 2 – 3 years. The gross margins on sales are good but the cost of advertising still remains higher. I have created a 3 year marketing plan for the company which assumes it will take time before I properly assess all media involved in my marketing strategy and until I start seeing the results of SEO activities that I am performing. Anyway, the loss is not big and I have a well time full time job so I can give it some time.
Naomi – what does your business sell?
Up0Thank you everyone for the reviews. How does the product range look to you? Obviously, I am trying to grow it but does it look useful for you as parents (all parents used to have babies after all
).Up0Hi, not sure if this is still actual but I would be happy to discuss.
