Will my shopify website make enough money to buy a Ferrari
Discussion
I run a small manufacturing company up in Aberdeen and, because Pistonheaders are not driving their V8s fast enough, demand for oil and gas has dropped. So, we need to make things that appeal to other markets.
In this day and age, that probably means selling online but I know next to nothing about it. Apparently lurking in Pistonheads for years does not make you an e-commerce guru.
I've set up a website using Apple's ancient iWeb and it sucks pretty badly. I tried again using Shopify and its noticeably less rubbish but it doesn't seem to show up in google searches.
What's the Pistonheads collective wisdom here. Is Shopify a good medium for a website in addition to the shop front part of it? How do I get google to notice me. Is sport a good market to get into? Are people involved with coaching or running teams prepared to pay more for training equipment personalised in team colours?
Any advice and constructive criticism will be gratefully accepted.
https://tackletyre.myshopify.com/
In this day and age, that probably means selling online but I know next to nothing about it. Apparently lurking in Pistonheads for years does not make you an e-commerce guru.
I've set up a website using Apple's ancient iWeb and it sucks pretty badly. I tried again using Shopify and its noticeably less rubbish but it doesn't seem to show up in google searches.
What's the Pistonheads collective wisdom here. Is Shopify a good medium for a website in addition to the shop front part of it? How do I get google to notice me. Is sport a good market to get into? Are people involved with coaching or running teams prepared to pay more for training equipment personalised in team colours?
Any advice and constructive criticism will be gratefully accepted.
https://tackletyre.myshopify.com/
Hi guys, thanks for the speedy feedback. I've put the Ferrari order back a week.
I've probably become a bit blind to what I know about the TackleTyres and what I have forgotten to explain. Not helped by moving information from my original website designed in Apple's iWeb to the shopify site. www.tackletyre.com now redirects immediately to tackletyre.myshopify which might make it seem as if the domain is not set up yet.
I was quite impressed by Shopify as a platform so I'd hoped to forget about the original site.
What I clearly need to explain far better is what Tackletyre does better than existing products, how its construction enables this and why individuals or teams should buy them. Some of this information is included in the product details but I need to make it more obvious.
Most teams use tackle shields/bags for helping to coach and practise rugby tackling. These are large heavy bags similar to punchbags and they aren't very mobile.
TackleTyres encourage better head positioning in the tackle and will hopefully help reduce the risk of concussion. As they are made from foam they give a nice soft landing to players which helps build confidence to make tackles, especially in kids.
It would obviously be far more instructive to see videos of coaching rather than me saying it and this will be coming soon.
I haven't really concentrated on rugby on the site so far because I believe the biggest market for the tyres will eventually be (American) football where they are all learning to "Hawk Tackle" and finally taking concussion seriously. it would probably be clearer to have 2 different sites, one for the US and one for the UK
Although its a fairly new idea, I believe thought up by an Australian coach, there are already a half dozen or so companies making similar rolling tackle shields. Our USP is the ability to print them in any colours, with text, logos etc added as we use digital printing.
I know the site is not particularly ready now but I wanted to get some feedback before I start trying to promote it to rugby teams and I am very grateful for the help you have already given.
I've probably become a bit blind to what I know about the TackleTyres and what I have forgotten to explain. Not helped by moving information from my original website designed in Apple's iWeb to the shopify site. www.tackletyre.com now redirects immediately to tackletyre.myshopify which might make it seem as if the domain is not set up yet.
I was quite impressed by Shopify as a platform so I'd hoped to forget about the original site.
What I clearly need to explain far better is what Tackletyre does better than existing products, how its construction enables this and why individuals or teams should buy them. Some of this information is included in the product details but I need to make it more obvious.
Most teams use tackle shields/bags for helping to coach and practise rugby tackling. These are large heavy bags similar to punchbags and they aren't very mobile.
TackleTyres encourage better head positioning in the tackle and will hopefully help reduce the risk of concussion. As they are made from foam they give a nice soft landing to players which helps build confidence to make tackles, especially in kids.
It would obviously be far more instructive to see videos of coaching rather than me saying it and this will be coming soon.
I haven't really concentrated on rugby on the site so far because I believe the biggest market for the tyres will eventually be (American) football where they are all learning to "Hawk Tackle" and finally taking concussion seriously. it would probably be clearer to have 2 different sites, one for the US and one for the UK
Although its a fairly new idea, I believe thought up by an Australian coach, there are already a half dozen or so companies making similar rolling tackle shields. Our USP is the ability to print them in any colours, with text, logos etc added as we use digital printing.
I know the site is not particularly ready now but I wanted to get some feedback before I start trying to promote it to rugby teams and I am very grateful for the help you have already given.
Thanks again gentlemen. You are all helping me learn more and clarify my thoughts before I start to promote TackleTyre to rugby teams. Hopefully I can get my website showing up in google searches by then as this seems to be slow going. I've tried getting Facebook shares but constantly annoying friends, and friends of friends, only gets you so far.
I have paid for a Google Adwords campaign but this seems far from intuitive and the campaign management site seems very, very slow. Perhaps it would work better in Chrome.
I think the general consensus I am seeing is that the www.tackletyre.com website needs to explain the product far better and that some coaching videos of TackleTyre in action would probably be the best way to go about that.
In addition it would be nice to personalise and customise the tyres from within the website. I have seen this done on many sites, uploading images, typing text etc but does anyone know if it's possible within Shopify?
I think digital printing offers great advantages in this regard but the website is not getting that across so far.
I have paid for a Google Adwords campaign but this seems far from intuitive and the campaign management site seems very, very slow. Perhaps it would work better in Chrome.
I think the general consensus I am seeing is that the www.tackletyre.com website needs to explain the product far better and that some coaching videos of TackleTyre in action would probably be the best way to go about that.
In addition it would be nice to personalise and customise the tyres from within the website. I have seen this done on many sites, uploading images, typing text etc but does anyone know if it's possible within Shopify?
I think digital printing offers great advantages in this regard but the website is not getting that across so far.
Thanks 2ono! Commission will be paid in the form of beer!
I accept this is a very niche product but it's probably a bigger niche than I realised at first. There are round 2000 rugby clubs in England, usually with half a dozen or so teams. I've trialled Tackletyres with my own club's Mini rugby players, who are just learning to tackle, and they all seem to enjoy practicing with it.
The less niche market is probably in the USA where "Football" is a huge market. But that might require buying 2 Ferraris, one for the US and one for here.
I accept this is a very niche product but it's probably a bigger niche than I realised at first. There are round 2000 rugby clubs in England, usually with half a dozen or so teams. I've trialled Tackletyres with my own club's Mini rugby players, who are just learning to tackle, and they all seem to enjoy practicing with it.
The less niche market is probably in the USA where "Football" is a huge market. But that might require buying 2 Ferraris, one for the US and one for here.
Hi Mike, that looks pretty slick and polished to me. I think the consistency helps. I'm going to have a better look at your site at the weekend.
How have you found Shopify to deal with? Do they pay promptly?
Hopefully after Saturday's coaching session at Deeside Rugby I will have better photos and videos for my website.
We are looking for more players if anyone fancies it!
How have you found Shopify to deal with? Do they pay promptly?
Hopefully after Saturday's coaching session at Deeside Rugby I will have better photos and videos for my website.
We are looking for more players if anyone fancies it!
I may have to change the title to "will my shopify website make me enough money to buy a 5 year old MX5".
I wonder if there is a price point at which people with little interest in rugby other than watching some of the 6 nations would consider buying a TackleTyre for their kids to play with in the back garden. Being able to personalise it or have a fun design might just make that a little more likely.
I wonder if there is a price point at which people with little interest in rugby other than watching some of the 6 nations would consider buying a TackleTyre for their kids to play with in the back garden. Being able to personalise it or have a fun design might just make that a little more likely.
Edited by ttfun on Thursday 8th September 22:52
Thank you to everyone who posted in this thread, your responses gave me plenty to think about.
In the past few months I have had to learn quite a lot in fields (sometimes literally) where I had no previous experience but hopefully we now have a website that allows people to learn about the benefits of our rolling tackle trainers a bit more easily.
I think the biggest issues have always been trying to develop a website on a budget of £0.00 with no real technical expertise and also the point brought up by Wacky Racer about how big the market might actually be.
At the moment we have kept with the site in Shopify as it looks far more modern than our iWeb attempt, I had never really thought about it that much before but the look and feel of websites has changed so much over the past 10 years. There is no doubt that having a few thousand pounds to spend on professional web development would have been money well but spent but unfortunately it wasn't an option.
Technodup made a good point about getting across the benefits of the product but this is actually much more difficult to address than I realised when we started developing TackleTyre. Luckily it's been the most enjoyable aspect to deal with.
In order to explain the benefits of a rolling tackle trainer to coaches, players and parents it's necessary to understand a bit about teaching and learning the game. This has lead to me helping out at training sessions with my sons Mini rugby team and its been a joy to watch 8 year old boys and girls learn the game in general and how to tackle, especially when they show real enthusiasm for a product that you have designed and made yourself.
We now have a website that is far from perfect but it does show how our TackleTyres can help teach kids good rugby technique while having lots of fun. There are other similar tackle trainers on the market ( it was an Australian coach who came up with the original idea a good few years ago) but ours are unique. Or, through a clever bit of coding on the site allowing anyone to create their own design, as unique as a customer wants them to be.
Feel free to give any additional comment, I'm sure there is still plenty more improvement to be made but I am now fairly hopeful that my website could make me enough money for a pre-loved MX5.
https://tackletyre.myshopify.com
www.tackletyre.com
In the past few months I have had to learn quite a lot in fields (sometimes literally) where I had no previous experience but hopefully we now have a website that allows people to learn about the benefits of our rolling tackle trainers a bit more easily.
I think the biggest issues have always been trying to develop a website on a budget of £0.00 with no real technical expertise and also the point brought up by Wacky Racer about how big the market might actually be.
At the moment we have kept with the site in Shopify as it looks far more modern than our iWeb attempt, I had never really thought about it that much before but the look and feel of websites has changed so much over the past 10 years. There is no doubt that having a few thousand pounds to spend on professional web development would have been money well but spent but unfortunately it wasn't an option.
Technodup made a good point about getting across the benefits of the product but this is actually much more difficult to address than I realised when we started developing TackleTyre. Luckily it's been the most enjoyable aspect to deal with.
In order to explain the benefits of a rolling tackle trainer to coaches, players and parents it's necessary to understand a bit about teaching and learning the game. This has lead to me helping out at training sessions with my sons Mini rugby team and its been a joy to watch 8 year old boys and girls learn the game in general and how to tackle, especially when they show real enthusiasm for a product that you have designed and made yourself.
We now have a website that is far from perfect but it does show how our TackleTyres can help teach kids good rugby technique while having lots of fun. There are other similar tackle trainers on the market ( it was an Australian coach who came up with the original idea a good few years ago) but ours are unique. Or, through a clever bit of coding on the site allowing anyone to create their own design, as unique as a customer wants them to be.
Feel free to give any additional comment, I'm sure there is still plenty more improvement to be made but I am now fairly hopeful that my website could make me enough money for a pre-loved MX5.
https://tackletyre.myshopify.com
www.tackletyre.com
Hi EPS, Tackle Tube have been making theirs for a little while now and are probably more established in terms of Google searches. We have started using Google Adwords but I'm not sure if that's the best way to become more prominent. We do have a Facebook page and using their ads aimed at rugby teams might work better.
We do allow our TackleTyres to be personalised and designed online so as far as I am aware that's a unique selling point we offer. It might be that the website doesn't make that point succinctly enough
We do allow our TackleTyres to be personalised and designed online so as far as I am aware that's a unique selling point we offer. It might be that the website doesn't make that point succinctly enough
I actually used Dan Cottrell's blog quite a bit for ideas and information on how to teach good tackling techniques. It's a really useful resource. I will email his BetterRugbyCoaching blog and see if he we can offer a couple of TackleTyres as a competition prize.
I accept that rugby trails a long way behind football/soccer as a participation sport and the market will always be fairly limited however there are a few thousands rugby clubs in the UK so its not a tiny market. There is also a huge and growing market in the USA where the Seattle Seahawks proved the value of rugby style tackling in football, not just as a way of reducing concussion injuries.
I accept that rugby trails a long way behind football/soccer as a participation sport and the market will always be fairly limited however there are a few thousands rugby clubs in the UK so its not a tiny market. There is also a huge and growing market in the USA where the Seattle Seahawks proved the value of rugby style tackling in football, not just as a way of reducing concussion injuries.
Lots of good advice, thank you. New logo and better examples of personalised TackleTyres to come shortly.
Not sure what more I should do to get over the point that people can design their own layout on the site but its clearly not working so far. We've had over 100 visitors to the site in less than 24 hours and no one has tried to design their own layout.
Not sure what more I should do to get over the point that people can design their own layout on the site but its clearly not working so far. We've had over 100 visitors to the site in less than 24 hours and no one has tried to design their own layout.
"A man is not complete until he's married... Then he's finished" says the plaque my wife kindly bought me for my man cave.
No website is ever going to be complete but I think mine is finally just about OK enough for exposure to the outside rugby playing world. I'm genuinely impressed by the help and knowledge commenters in Pistonheads have shown and I feel it has helped improve my website considerably, though I'm sure there is still plenty of room for improvement.
However, as they say, perfection is the enemy of "good enough" so it's time to try and sell some TackleTyres!
This is the sort of thing we have made for ourselves -
And this is the sort of thing that visitors can design on our website -
Many thanks to all who have offered help so far, now to help tacklers prepare for the Lions tour to NZ !
www.tackletyre.com
No website is ever going to be complete but I think mine is finally just about OK enough for exposure to the outside rugby playing world. I'm genuinely impressed by the help and knowledge commenters in Pistonheads have shown and I feel it has helped improve my website considerably, though I'm sure there is still plenty of room for improvement.
However, as they say, perfection is the enemy of "good enough" so it's time to try and sell some TackleTyres!
This is the sort of thing we have made for ourselves -
And this is the sort of thing that visitors can design on our website -
Many thanks to all who have offered help so far, now to help tacklers prepare for the Lions tour to NZ !
www.tackletyre.com
Hi there, I've received your email and sent a reply. As i've said in the email we are happy to design these for you if you don't feel comfortable doing it on the website.
i was going to design some with a nice roaring lion on the front but I'm not sure that would be so popular after today's showing.
i was going to design some with a nice roaring lion on the front but I'm not sure that would be so popular after today's showing.
Hi twoblacklines, constructive criticism is always welcomed especially when it shows some thought from a different perspective. I'm curious why your experience on landing at the website is so different from mine though.
When I land on the website's main page it shows a little boy in a rugby strip with his arms wrapped round the TackleTyre with a video of him performing a pretty good rugby tackle immediately underneath. Immediately beneath that is a description of the foam construction which gives a nice soft landing compared to a hard rubber tyre.
There is a bit of a problem trying to talk about football to a mixed US and UK audience which I think i could only really be resolved by having 2 different websites.
Are you looking at the website on a mobile device? That might explain some of the difference. I am looking to change the Shopify theme to one that is more mobile friendly so that might help.
300k of revenue to the US sounds good though!
When I land on the website's main page it shows a little boy in a rugby strip with his arms wrapped round the TackleTyre with a video of him performing a pretty good rugby tackle immediately underneath. Immediately beneath that is a description of the foam construction which gives a nice soft landing compared to a hard rubber tyre.
There is a bit of a problem trying to talk about football to a mixed US and UK audience which I think i could only really be resolved by having 2 different websites.
Are you looking at the website on a mobile device? That might explain some of the difference. I am looking to change the Shopify theme to one that is more mobile friendly so that might help.
300k of revenue to the US sounds good though!
Hi DSLiverpool, thanks for the comments and good luck with your losing weight, I've had a good look through that thread! I'm trying to do a bit more coaching and realising just how unfit i am trying to keep up with 9 year olds.
We are on Shopify's standard package which probably has pretty limited reporting however even that can show that relatively few people out of the several thousand site visitors go so far as adding anything to the shopping cart. About half of those proceed to the checkout and from there less than half make a purchase. Shopify seems to be able to automatically generate emails to those abandoned checkouts but I usually try to be a bit more personal and send an individual email hoping to provide an extra bit of encouragement. Can't say it's really worked but it's worth a try.
Maybe that's down to the website not appealing but I think it's also down to the visitors not really being the intended audience and instead just being mildly curious. I suspect if the site visitors comprised several thousand youth team coaches we would have had far more sales.
What has surprised me is how few people have tried to personalise their own TackleTyres, I thought it might be kind of fun even if no purchase was made. It's a very clever app called Qstomizer and the programmer, Ramon is pretty quick and helpful. Unfortunately it doesn't look like many rugby coaches are in touch with their artistic side.
We are on Shopify's standard package which probably has pretty limited reporting however even that can show that relatively few people out of the several thousand site visitors go so far as adding anything to the shopping cart. About half of those proceed to the checkout and from there less than half make a purchase. Shopify seems to be able to automatically generate emails to those abandoned checkouts but I usually try to be a bit more personal and send an individual email hoping to provide an extra bit of encouragement. Can't say it's really worked but it's worth a try.
Maybe that's down to the website not appealing but I think it's also down to the visitors not really being the intended audience and instead just being mildly curious. I suspect if the site visitors comprised several thousand youth team coaches we would have had far more sales.
What has surprised me is how few people have tried to personalise their own TackleTyres, I thought it might be kind of fun even if no purchase was made. It's a very clever app called Qstomizer and the programmer, Ramon is pretty quick and helpful. Unfortunately it doesn't look like many rugby coaches are in touch with their artistic side.
joshcowin said:
Firstly great product!! One I can see selling.
As you know the target market is huge, schools, universities and clubs.
Of those universities seem to have the largest budgets.
Schools have to be seen to make rugby as safe as possible.
Personally I would leave the pictures off the tyres and just go with the official logo and colour for the club/school/uni
Please keep us posted, I'm in the South East, anything I can do to spread the word let me know!
p.s. Youtube seems to be a massive social influencer I don't know if there are any vloggers/youtubers who would use your product but it may be worth a try (see what I did there)
Hi Josh, we have sold a couple of TackleTyres to a team in Hastings if that is close to you. The more people that can see them in action the better.As you know the target market is huge, schools, universities and clubs.
Of those universities seem to have the largest budgets.
Schools have to be seen to make rugby as safe as possible.
Personally I would leave the pictures off the tyres and just go with the official logo and colour for the club/school/uni
Please keep us posted, I'm in the South East, anything I can do to spread the word let me know!
p.s. Youtube seems to be a massive social influencer I don't know if there are any vloggers/youtubers who would use your product but it may be worth a try (see what I did there)
The point you made about safety is very important even though we originally got into developing TackleTyre to make defensive drills more fun.
The main advantage of a rolling tackle trainer is that it makes it easier to coach the importance of getting the tackler's head in the correct, safe position. With a static tackle bag it doesn't really matter if the tackler puts his head on the wrong side and we can see with Courtney Lawes against The Highlanders for the British and Irish Lions that getting it wrong can be very damaging, even for professionals who should know better...
https://youtu.be/LzZDGMq8Rk0
When relatively young players like George North have their careers threatened due to concussions it should be obvious to coaches that minimising the risk of head knocks ought to be a high priority. We are hoping to demonstrate that safe tackling is still effective and learning how to do it is still fun.
Here is how Courtney should have positioned his head...
https://vimeo.com/181416493
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff