website sales - does this seem right?
Discussion
There seem to be quite a few website/ecommerce people in this forum so hoping for a little guidance if poss:
For ecommerce websites I've read it's hard to estimate conversion rates but I can't help feel there's something not right with a site I have helped a friend with.
It's for motorcycle gear aimed at adventure/off-road, BMW GS types.
I've set up analytics although I'm not well up on all the terminology etc.
Since re-launch (from a poor site) 6 months ago with very little spend, the visitor stats have risen from 2000/mth to 5000 in April (3600 unique, 25k page views, 40% bounce rate if that helps) but there were only 21 orders in April.
Does that seem low for the amount of traffic? I appreciate it depends on a number of factors but just trying to get a rough idea how it is doing and what we should be aiming towards.
Cheers
For ecommerce websites I've read it's hard to estimate conversion rates but I can't help feel there's something not right with a site I have helped a friend with.
It's for motorcycle gear aimed at adventure/off-road, BMW GS types.
I've set up analytics although I'm not well up on all the terminology etc.
Since re-launch (from a poor site) 6 months ago with very little spend, the visitor stats have risen from 2000/mth to 5000 in April (3600 unique, 25k page views, 40% bounce rate if that helps) but there were only 21 orders in April.
Does that seem low for the amount of traffic? I appreciate it depends on a number of factors but just trying to get a rough idea how it is doing and what we should be aiming towards.
Cheers
uber said:
So much to take into consideration but do you know the source of the traffic, is he competitive, what's his shipping/return policy like , who are his competitors and how well are they doing?...
Thanks for the inputSource - Analytics groups it into 'organic' (3000), direct (800), referral (600 - mostly forums), Paid (400 - adwords). I don't know how to get details of the organic bit?
Competitive - yes I can research that and compare. He gets good feedback and sales on the strength of physical shop (see/try stuff on), involved in events, training and real world advice - That's not exclusive to him but it does help, especially with forums/referrals.
Shipping/returns - shipping is not next day it's 2-3 days. Standard returns - 14 days, customer pays shipping. Shipping is definitely something to work on.
Not sure how the competitors are doing.
How many are moving on from the home page? What percentage are entering the site at the home page?
You want to build up a map of what the majority of the customers are doing? Are they just hitting the home page, deciding the website isn't for them and leaving? Are they hitting the category pages but can't find the right product and leaving? Maybe they're getting to the checkout only to find large shipping costs and then leaving. Maybe there is a bug with the checkout on certain browsers which is stopping people from completing their purchases.
Also, Google how to set up an analytics funnel for the checkout process. You want to know how many of your visitors are 1) getting to the checkout stage and 2) completing the checkout phase.
If you post a link we can give feedback on what could be done to improve the conversion rate.
You want to build up a map of what the majority of the customers are doing? Are they just hitting the home page, deciding the website isn't for them and leaving? Are they hitting the category pages but can't find the right product and leaving? Maybe they're getting to the checkout only to find large shipping costs and then leaving. Maybe there is a bug with the checkout on certain browsers which is stopping people from completing their purchases.
Also, Google how to set up an analytics funnel for the checkout process. You want to know how many of your visitors are 1) getting to the checkout stage and 2) completing the checkout phase.
If you post a link we can give feedback on what could be done to improve the conversion rate.
You haven't provided anywhere close to enough information for anyone to even take an attempt at helping you here.
If the traffic is coming from a commercially orientated phrase, say for example 'buy motorbike gloves' then your conversion rate is horribly low. If its coming for a completely random phrase like 'picture of Valentino Rossi' then you wouldn't expect them to buy anything and there is nothing to worry about.
I wouldn't post your keywords here as they're commercially sensitive... but you do need to be sitting down with the site owner and go through the list in a realistic manner - which of them would you reasonably expect to turn into sales? For conversion tracking purposes you can pretty much rule out the random obviously non commercial ones.
If the traffic is coming from a commercially orientated phrase, say for example 'buy motorbike gloves' then your conversion rate is horribly low. If its coming for a completely random phrase like 'picture of Valentino Rossi' then you wouldn't expect them to buy anything and there is nothing to worry about.
I wouldn't post your keywords here as they're commercially sensitive... but you do need to be sitting down with the site owner and go through the list in a realistic manner - which of them would you reasonably expect to turn into sales? For conversion tracking purposes you can pretty much rule out the random obviously non commercial ones.
Simple check, get a popular item and meta tag it to death also make it easy to find, undercut everyone for a week. If you sell lots it's your pricing if you don't then people think the site is dodgy.
I like lots of contact info and reassurance, do you have PayPal as a option? It's huge these days people love it.
Ill post more after my cornies
I like lots of contact info and reassurance, do you have PayPal as a option? It's huge these days people love it.
Ill post more after my cornies
Thanks for all the comments and offer of help, that's given me quite a bit to think about and look in to.
I wasn't sure about posting a link - I didn't know if it was ok with rules or if competitors might read it so tried to go with principles rather than specifics.
Wouldn't be too hard to trace via my profile and the info page on the website built as a project by my teenage son!
I only gave a basic account as I wasn't sure what info/analytics were relevant and didn't want to waffle on.
Based on some other threads (eg ecommerce must haves) I have worked on the 'reassurance' side of things, added paypal, improved delivery & returns info. Contact and address info has always been good as there is a physical shop. In fact shop sales are up and I think that's a lot to do with customers finding the improved website and making a journey to try/see stuff - some from a long way.
It sounds from here that it should do better so I need to go about finding why. I'm sure we've probably made some typical school boy (novice) errors!
To try to answer some points - if I read the analytics right for April:
Eg homepage had 2600 views with 1900 entrances, bounce rate 25%, exit 31%.
Average 5 pages per session.
66% new, 34% returning
2100 sessions lasted under 10 secs. 900 lasted 60-180sec. 800 lasted 180-600sec.
I thought analytics told you where the traffic came from (phrases/keywords) but if the majority just states 'organic' how can you tell?
Thanks again
I wasn't sure about posting a link - I didn't know if it was ok with rules or if competitors might read it so tried to go with principles rather than specifics.
Wouldn't be too hard to trace via my profile and the info page on the website built as a project by my teenage son!
I only gave a basic account as I wasn't sure what info/analytics were relevant and didn't want to waffle on.
Based on some other threads (eg ecommerce must haves) I have worked on the 'reassurance' side of things, added paypal, improved delivery & returns info. Contact and address info has always been good as there is a physical shop. In fact shop sales are up and I think that's a lot to do with customers finding the improved website and making a journey to try/see stuff - some from a long way.
It sounds from here that it should do better so I need to go about finding why. I'm sure we've probably made some typical school boy (novice) errors!
To try to answer some points - if I read the analytics right for April:
Eg homepage had 2600 views with 1900 entrances, bounce rate 25%, exit 31%.
Average 5 pages per session.
66% new, 34% returning
2100 sessions lasted under 10 secs. 900 lasted 60-180sec. 800 lasted 180-600sec.
I thought analytics told you where the traffic came from (phrases/keywords) but if the majority just states 'organic' how can you tell?
Thanks again
Google have been cutting down on the keyword info they give you - in some cases not providing it for 90%+ of visitors. Its far from ideal but if you have thousands of visitors then even getting 10% of them will give you a starting point to analyse from.
Bounce rate on its own isn't a brilliant indicator of much either. ie if you Google 'what time is it in country x' then land on a website that perfectly answers that query, most would bounce immediately. But they got exactly what they wanted. The thing there is they don't hit back and click on other results, which is a million times worse (as now Google realise you're irrelevant for that phrase). Flip side of that is if your site is particularly hard to navigate people might be loading 5 pages as they can't find what they want, then give up and go back to Google again.
Bounce rate on its own isn't a brilliant indicator of much either. ie if you Google 'what time is it in country x' then land on a website that perfectly answers that query, most would bounce immediately. But they got exactly what they wanted. The thing there is they don't hit back and click on other results, which is a million times worse (as now Google realise you're irrelevant for that phrase). Flip side of that is if your site is particularly hard to navigate people might be loading 5 pages as they can't find what they want, then give up and go back to Google again.
To me, the top half of the home page is great. The bottom half is quite dull and does nothing to entice me to look further into the website.
In my opinion, the home page should be full of interesting doors to lead the customer into different sections of the website. The second (third) row of the home page does that quite well, introducing the various different types of worktops you do. But for an ecommerce site I'd like to see more products, offers, pictures, etc.
Look at the best companies in your sector, try copying what you think they do well.
In my opinion, the home page should be full of interesting doors to lead the customer into different sections of the website. The second (third) row of the home page does that quite well, introducing the various different types of worktops you do. But for an ecommerce site I'd like to see more products, offers, pictures, etc.
Look at the best companies in your sector, try copying what you think they do well.
jammy_basturd said:
introducing the various different types of worktops you do.
Sorry, I shouldn't have been so cryptic - worktops is a sponsor's site and I agree - I'll let him know!The one I have been helping with is the warehouse on the info page
KFC - I see what you mean. Complex and have to be careful.
Ok the Paypal logo is wierdly pixelated against the black background
Padlock next to Secure payments
I looked at WD40 chain lube
Description says 100ml - picture is 400ml
Clicked on the delivery link and bam a new window opens (not good) with a page full of text
I then read that the delivery cost is £7.85 for a £7 product (Amazon 400ml £8.88 free delivery, ebay 400ml £8.45 free delivery)
"Return the goods within 14 days of receipt to be entitled to a full refund of the product price (excluding any shipping fees originally charged)."
This is ILLEGAL - you have 7 working days from delivery to notify return and must be refunded the initial delivery cost
and at that point I gave up
Padlock next to Secure payments
I looked at WD40 chain lube
Description says 100ml - picture is 400ml
Clicked on the delivery link and bam a new window opens (not good) with a page full of text
I then read that the delivery cost is £7.85 for a £7 product (Amazon 400ml £8.88 free delivery, ebay 400ml £8.45 free delivery)
"Return the goods within 14 days of receipt to be entitled to a full refund of the product price (excluding any shipping fees originally charged)."
This is ILLEGAL - you have 7 working days from delivery to notify return and must be refunded the initial delivery cost
and at that point I gave up
Good points Cuneus - thanks for taking the time to look/report.
Reasons/amendments as follows (Not excuses!)
Paypal logo was taken direct from paypal logo store. When it looked odd and there weren't any options with backgrounds I left it. Now changed.
Padlock next to Secure payments - ok
WD40 100ml - picture was 400ml. This was my copy/paste error. I don't believe there can be many if any others but will check. I spent a lot of time double checking model variations, updates and new versions to make sure I used the right images - but I am human.
Delivery link (new window) next to price was set up by BT when they built the site and I never checked it - that was bad and now removed
Returns policy - I saw that wording on more than one other site and took that as normal/standard. Lesson learned - do my own research (DSRs now consumed). Only put it on a few days ago and now removed. Big thanks for that.
Delivery:
Delivery charge is £7.85 for any individual order except where a free delivery code has been set up. The owner wanted to keep it simple and sees things like a can of wd40 as an 'add-on' to a main order, or one of a number of items to make up an order.
One problem is that the BT system isn't very flexible for delivery options. I can set up free delivery above a certain price or a fixed price - that's it. I can set up several fixed prices but there is no way to allocate them by product, weight or anything else. I imagine this is so you can offer 'standard' at one price and 'fast' at another. The only other variation is by country eg EU and that is currently fixed at £50 to cover all sizes/weights!
Need to work on this and guess I will have to get on to BT about it.
Hopefully will begin to reduce the number who give up
Reasons/amendments as follows (Not excuses!)
Paypal logo was taken direct from paypal logo store. When it looked odd and there weren't any options with backgrounds I left it. Now changed.
Padlock next to Secure payments - ok
WD40 100ml - picture was 400ml. This was my copy/paste error. I don't believe there can be many if any others but will check. I spent a lot of time double checking model variations, updates and new versions to make sure I used the right images - but I am human.
Delivery link (new window) next to price was set up by BT when they built the site and I never checked it - that was bad and now removed
Returns policy - I saw that wording on more than one other site and took that as normal/standard. Lesson learned - do my own research (DSRs now consumed). Only put it on a few days ago and now removed. Big thanks for that.
Delivery:
Delivery charge is £7.85 for any individual order except where a free delivery code has been set up. The owner wanted to keep it simple and sees things like a can of wd40 as an 'add-on' to a main order, or one of a number of items to make up an order.
One problem is that the BT system isn't very flexible for delivery options. I can set up free delivery above a certain price or a fixed price - that's it. I can set up several fixed prices but there is no way to allocate them by product, weight or anything else. I imagine this is so you can offer 'standard' at one price and 'fast' at another. The only other variation is by country eg EU and that is currently fixed at £50 to cover all sizes/weights!
Need to work on this and guess I will have to get on to BT about it.
Hopefully will begin to reduce the number who give up
cuneus said:
Yeah sorry if it came across as very negative and good on you for taking it in the spirit which it was intended!
Those delivery charge restrictions are a PITA and it's a big issue that will make people abandon a cart
Those delivery charge restrictions are a PITA and it's a big issue that will make people abandon a cart
BT said that the options are on there - pain to find but now have them. There are additional options to set delivery by:
Basket total
Weight in basket
Number of products in basket.
Is weight the one to work with and do you have tips?
Cheers
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