Quote: (05-26-2018 08:40 PM)Mikestar Wrote:
My father owns a business. He has been working on it hard for over 10 years. He sells his own hand-made products (fine jewellery) in a shop where he rents space. Luckily sales have been getting better since he started selling it there, as for the past couple of years it has been a great struggle.
A couple of years back he launched a website to sell his products, putting a lot of money into it. He got it designed, of course had google adwords and keyword optimisation etc. Despite this, physical sales for the past 7 years have probably accounted for about 95%, despite putting so much effort and money in to this website.
I have been helping him with this business whenever required since the beginning. He told me that if I made a website for him and helped him with it I would get paid. Online sales pose many more advantages - no cost of a physical shop, location independence and a global reach so I think that getting online sales would be ideal.
The website is practically a failure in terms of bringing in clients despite good products and a good design. Most of the clients are made through friends, connections and visitors to the physical shop. My dad does not know too much about online marketing and this is where I could step in as a young, tech savvy guy.
My question is how can you make a website which can attract clients from all over the world and in general get more sales online? What are the keys I need to know when it comes to attracting an audience to a website?
Any advice would be appreciated. It's a shame that the website did not work out but maybe if I learn a few things I could re launch it, market it much more and attract more clients, that would be my aim but it would be good to hear from experts, I am pretty sure that many dudes here own an online e-commerce business who I could learn from.
Quote: (05-26-2018 08:54 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:
I imagine selling fine jewelry online is difficult because he’s competing with the big boys as well as ebay and amazon. When people buy jewelry, they either go to the physical store to look at it before dropping cash... or they order it online from a well-known and reputable vendor. Breaking the barrier into this hyper competitive space is going to be quite difficult, I imagine. I could be mistaken, though.
I wish I could offer advice, but instead I am here to join the question and ask about a hypothesis I have. Please do not interpret that question as a claim that it would work and if the hypothesis conflicts with some facts in a way I did not see, please set me straight. By the way my interest is because I want to develop a location independent retirement business. (For which reason I also perused your location independence thread, Clean Slate, and thank you for creating it. thread-56733.html )
The hypothesis is simple: few people will visit your site and even if they do they won't purchase not only for the competition CS mentioned but also because they have no reason to trust you. Buying jewelry sight unseen is difficult even if your photography is excellent; especially so if it is not cheap jewelry. But suppose people come to your page because you are posting good articles about the subject, for instance describing how good jewelry is made, comparing styles, idk. (Did I mention I know nothing about jewelry?) Now that you got the visitors, perhaps it will be easier to sell them, or they might refer others to your site because now they "know you" and perhaps trust you.
Any comment will be appreciated.