No Sales At All!!

[chahinemm]

I've tried to make my site more of an "art gallery" type of thing, were the customers would not necessarily be looking for a bunch of stock images to print for advertising or use on their website, but rather more of something they would want to display in their home as "artwork". 

 

if i understand right i would say the images that u are offering is art right but the pictures u have i could google it and find something similar....

 

why no go and find artist or photographers or even art work like painting or similar that would be nice copied and offer unique product with different size paper.

 

In my opinion the current structure is not giving u a big advandatage over your competitors because they can provide the same thing...

 

The only thing is think out of the box and keep up the work. :) success comes to those who perceveire. (if its how its spelled :blush: )

 

sorry my english is not the best but i hope u get something out of my 2cents

 

chahinemm

[ChrisW123]

Thanks bruyndoncx, wizardsandwars, burt, radders, and chahinemm for the GREAT comments! I was going to try to reply to all of your comments, but I'm too tired to right now. :) Long day.

 

Anyway thanks, you all have great ideas and feedback. Basically I think the summary is, my site isn't targeted correctly to my target audience, and the images don't have a strong topic or theme. Frames, matting, and larger prints would be good options to offer.

 

Really appreciate the feedback! -Chris.

[cluboutfits]

I know that you are just starting out but think about what your product goes with. Sell the product in a photo frame of the buyers choice. No one wants just a photograph because then they have to go out seperately and buy the frame. Think about the idea of selling the photos printed on shirts, mugs, etc. I have seen that kind of thing at the mall. Just a couple of ideas.

[Guest]

Dear Chris,

read all comments in the os forum and since the page is already long with all kinds of comments, I decided to email you from here direct also.

My heart goes out to you - I have an online art gallery since 1993 and it took up until about 98 until I started "selling" actually.

But don't let this discourage you - a lot more is know now than it was in the first few years of the "online" craze.

 

I had no trouble at all with your pages - they do load in decent time (DSL).

What I do notice predominantly though is:

it is a turn-off to viewers if the watermark is so strong visible that they actual picture looks sliced i.e. fuzzy for the most part.

You don't give the viewer that "Wow" punch feeling.

Am not saying that chinging this will immediatly increase a] sales or b] more visitors - but it would certainly be more attractive and enticing the viewer to want to see more - i.e. stay longer on your site.

Your prices are fine.

If I can help you a bit to get more visitors, am glad to do that. We have an average hit count of 6-8 million per month. I am happy to give you an introduction to your website on our sites [we operate several domains by now].

Normally we do not ever offer such to anyone of course - but when I read your dilemma, I remember still all too well what this feels like. Have gone through it myself.

Take a look at our main site: http://www.abs-gallery.com, then choose either "Exhibitions" or "Buy art now", once you passed from the portal to the home page.

 

You have a pretty good domain name, but I see that you do not offer a "newsletter" - you should. This is one way that gives you the opportunity to be relative "agressive" to email teasers to potential clients.

 

Another thing I would suggest: since your domain name is suggestive "image critique" - make "use" of this:

start "critiquing" - whatever - images on your own site, images on other sites [and place the link to such sites right by your critique [similar as you see stuff done on about.com] and open up such critiques maybe in a "forum" format.

 

See, people have "nothing" to do on your website, other than looking at some images.

You need to offer some "inter-activity", something more than just pictures you want them to buy.

The competition especially in that field is huge and "global" - find your "specialty - i.e. critiquing for example.

And - most IMPORTANT: start forming "alliances" with similar websites, exchange links but only with selective sites and "promote" them too by giving them at first some good space where you maybe feature them. Don't be afraid that a few visitors will click those links and leave your site. If you have "good" links, and make it known that you always add a few new distinctive ones/interesting ones - the visitor will bookmark your site and return.

 

Don't allow to be discouraged - it will take some time. We did not climb to the top in Google.Yahoo etc. overnight either [try: Google search = keywords: international art gallery = result will be ABS-GALLERY.COM]

It is not my intention to brag here - only to show you that some things work well and maybe could help you.

Kind regards,

Michele :rolleyes:

 

 

.....................

 

 

Maybe I'll redo them all then.  10% quaility was probably to little in quality.  I'll resave them at maybe 30%.  Thanks!

I think it's because I have my thumbnail size a little larger then the osc default.  So this causes the voucher gif, which was probably designed to look good at that original size, to look bad now.  Thanks, didn't even notice that.

This may very well be the problem.  I offer only 8x10 because that's all my printer will handle.  So, what I'll do is offer larger sizes and have them printed at Kinkos or wherever the best place is to this done.  Then, if I find that this IS the problem and people begin buying larger sizes, then I'll invest in a new printer that can handle the larger sizes and do it myself.

 

EXCELLENT IDEA!  Thanks!

I've only had two people register, ever!  Well besides me off course. :)

I think this is another thing I'll do, which is to make the images themselves for sale.  Then the customer would download them.  And maybe offer packages of 10 or all of them, etc., at a discounted rate.  The problem with this is I don't think there's a contrib for this here (I've checked).  Does anyone know of one elsewhere that's in PHP, that maybe I could tweak myself to fit osC?

 

Thanks, -Chris.

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:sweating: :sweating:

[ChrisW123]

Thanks Michele for the great comments!

 

I took your advice on one of your suggestions, about the watermark, and made it more transparent looking, not as tall, and moved it to the bottom of the images. It makes a BIG difference and looks a lot better. I'll try to incorporate your other ideas when I have time.

 

Your site is awesome, great job, I LOVE it. :)

 

-Chris.

[linuxmaster1979]

When I get to your home page, I'm not not clear of what the purpose of the site is... what you're selling, provided services... etc.

 

2 recommendations... include the pricing underneath your images in your featured boxes. It shows that your selling products and that it's not just a stock photo site.

 

The other is to work on your home page text, specifically the H1 tags. Make it clear from the second they get to your site what products you sell.

[Guest]

Hi Everyone,

 

After about 3 months of my website being live, I haven't sold any products at all.  :(  So I'm wondering what the problem is, and I'm looking for help to figure it out.

 

Here's more details:

 

1) My site is photography related, and sells printed photographs in an 8 x 10 print size.  I have about 160 images in various "galleries" for customers to choose from.  The price is $28 for each print which isn't out of line from other sites I've looked at, and selling for less really would not be worth my time because of the work involved.  At first I was selling them for $18 but no purchases, so after looking around at other people's prices for similar images, I found my price was low and raised it to $28 (still below "the norm").

 

2) I've done everything I can think of as far as contributions added, attention to detail to make the site as easy and attractive as possible to use.  I only have PayPal as a payment option right now, but I don't think that is the problem because only 2 customers have ever created an account so that means the rest would never have even seen the payment options to see only PayPal.

 

3) For this month and last month I had 727 "unique visitors" to my site according to my webhost logs.  So as odds go, shouldn't at least a few of those (some robots probably) have purchased something?

 

So basically I think the problem is one of these things:

 

1) The website is too hard or annoying to use.  Colors, layout, etc. are not appealing to most users.  For checkout, I use something similar to "Checkout without account" but is my own "hack".

 

2) The product itself (8 x 10 prints) is not attractive to customers.

 

3) The price of the prints is off (it's too high or low).

 

So if interested, please take a look and let me know what you think the problem could be given the info above:  Image Critique

 

Thanks, -Chris.

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Hi chris,

 

Your site look good. The quality is fine. It is probably "technically almost perfect".

 

You built it thinking it will attract its market.

 

The basic marketing questions of

 

who is the intended customer...

 

why do people buy product such at yours (industries that use Photograhy are:)

 

How:

 

When:

 

Where:

 

Answering these five little question opens the road to discovery...

 

such as:

 

- Marketing Research - This there a Market?

Who else is selling a product or service like yours?

Who is their presentation geared to

-What part of that Market Share do you want or think you can appeal to?

 

what kind of marketing/selling that you are actually doing...

it is not personal sales

it is not a commodity

and it is not a service

its a product for who and why...

 

 

Selling on line is like any other kind of selling you have to "drive the customer to your site" . That's your marketing plan ... how do i plan on telling people about my product; getting them excite about what I am offering, etc...

 

 

The simplest marketing approach is start with who you know let them know in writing about your online service....

 

Start with a contact list of influential folks you already know.

 

Hope that helps...

 

also do the meta tags and the search engines and the associated directory listings...

 

Do the Guerrilla marketing thing or get some who can... and you can get the book it is a helpful tool for marketeers, "Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson" .

 

best regards,

[ChrisW123]

Great ideas Durgasmiles, thanks for the marketing tips. I guess I never really did any of that but it's probably time to. :)

 

linuxmaster1979, My idea for the site was to keep the purchasing "hype" low and give the customers a gallery type of feel, without all the prices and the Buy Now buttons everywhere. But this may be the wrong approach. I guess I'll add the prices back in the Featured Products, What's New box, etc.

 

Thanks for the tips!

[outputcentral]

This may very well be the problem.  I offer only 8x10 because that's all my printer will handle.  So, what I'll do is offer larger sizes and have them printed at Kinkos or wherever the best place is to this done.  Then, if I find that this IS the problem and people begin buying larger sizes, then I'll invest in a new printer that can handle the larger sizes and do it myself.

 

 

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Ok, from a former photo lab owner who is trying to figure this store thing out... you just listed your problem. These aren't quality prints from a photo lab that will be around in 30 years, these are inkjet prints or color copies that nobody wants to frame or pay much for.. (I sell color copies for < .50 ea) If you want to sell anything take it to a digital photo lab and print off a gloss color photo print. advertise that, you might have a better chance. Your cost per print will probally be less too.

Lou B)

[ChrisW123]

You don't need a photo lab to make high quality prints!

 

My Canon i950 ink jet printer has 4800 x 1200dpi print resolution, which I believe is enough to make a quality 8 x 10. With the right paper and inks you can make prints that when protected under glass with archival materials can last 100 years or more.

[outputcentral]

You don't need a photo lab to make high quality prints! 

 

My Canon i950 ink jet printer has 4800 x 1200dpi print resolution, which I believe is enough to make a quality 8 x 10.  With the right paper and inks you can make prints that when protected under glass with archival materials can last 100 years or more.

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Oh I know, I have inkjet capability to 52" wide, but you need to give that kind of detail to the website viewer. (and btw kinkos uses dye based inks which are only good for 5 or 6 years on display.)

Thats what I was saying... tell the prospective buyer....

Now how the heck do I set this thing up :)

 

Lou

[Guest]

It never ceases to amaze me how people come to the world of e-commerce with the "If you build it, they will come" attitude.

 

This isn't a field of dreams. You are working against 100's of millions of other web content out there. You are nothing more than a speck of dust in a universe of choices for web surfers.

 

I was a long time web designer before I stumbled onto "The Recipe" for my hot sauces. One of the recurring themes I kept hearing from new customers wanting a website built was "why aren't more people hitting my site?". I got to the point where, as an intro to my services, I was making a little speech to them about the fact that the web ISN'T a field of dreams, more like a swamp of noise. Unless you can make more noise than the others in this swamp, you will never sell anything.

 

In order to "make more noise", there are several factors you have to hit upon. All of which have been hit upon by others here, and Chris, if you haven't yet read all the posts with an eye of seriousness, go re-read them again.

 

Things like:

S.E.O.

A Fast Loading Site

Offer something more to potential customers (frames, larger format prints, etc.,)

Significantly lower prices than your competitors (think Wal-Mart)

Totally unique content (kittens with big eyes, puppies, nakked women,,, men,,, whatever,,,, TOTALLY UNIQUE is my point)

 

I've since stopped working at web design (and DTP, and video production) to devote all my time to the sauce, and I can tell you that after 5 years of workin' my ass off, I'm getting approximately, 300 visitors a month to my site, and I've just sold and shipped my 35th order yesterday. In other words, it's damn hard to make a go of it unless you have something SO unique, SO addictive, that people cannot live without it, you will probably always be dissappointed with your web sales.

 

My personal opinion is that anyone and his pet dog can produce high quality 8X10 color prints these days. A digital camera, and a Xerox 8400, and you can have color lab quality prints. All for less than $2000!!!!

 

My final point in all this is, website sales are a good thing for a few extra sales to add to local retail, or wholesale sales. But web sales cannot be the sole income for most people or businesses. I have wholesale sales, AND local retail sales that make up for the costs of doing business, and the website is just a little gravy.

 

===

Monty Fritts, owner

MyHotSauces.Com L.L.C.

http://www.myhotsauces.com/

Home of the Lizard, and 15 international awards for flavor!

===

[ChrisW123]

Yeah I'm going to add some new features such as frames, matting, larger print sizes, and sell the images themselves I think. And maybe try to figure out how to allow other photographers to upload their own images, etc.

 

The only thing is it takes time, and with a full time job, this is really just a hobby right now. :)

 

Thanks for the tips.

[Guest]

There are two kinds of people who buy photos/images: (1) Those who want to decorate - you have to sell you product with large print and frame. (2) Those who look for stock footage - you have to sell your product in digital format.

 

Very few people will buy just the print. I buy photos and images only in digital formats.

 

You may also consider to target your product to a specific community. My store is an example. Though the community is not large, but it easier to do the marketing. Sales so far is quite solid. You can take a look at my website 3DTime.

 

I don't think changing the look of the web will bring a significant difference. It helps. As long as your website looks professional, it will be fine. The key is do you have a defined customers that you can reach or they can reach you.

 

 

James

[ChrisW123]

James, nice website. That's a pretty good idea selling those animations. Do you make them yourself? One problem, when I hit "Top" in your Breadcrum, I go to your webhost's vDeck screen. You should remove Top, and change "Catalog" to "Home".

 

Anyway, yes, I'm going to begin selling the images themselves, in addition to the prints (larger prints as well). I just need to figure out how to set it up so that I can sell the different resolutions. I'll have low, med, and high resolution.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[Guest]

Chris, thank you for letting me know the link problem. We have a team to create those animations. I believe that we sale those animations way much too low compared to other similar products (10 tmes lower). But this way we have built up a group of loyal customers who will buy whatever we have. The only problem for us now is that we do not have enough time to produce. Creating an animation requires a lot of work and time. But downalodable digital format is a good way, because once setup, virtually no further work will be involved and you can sale it in a very low price.

 

Low price is not the key. As Monty said, you have to have something unique and something in demand. We have been much more lucky than Monty. In about 4 months, we've got a customer base in hundreds. But still, we cannot live on this. We all work in spare time on this project.

[Guest]

This might be a minor point, but if you view your site with Firefox, it doesn't look so good (it is hard to read the print because the background doesn't display). At least not when I look at it. On the other hand, IE displays it just fine.

[Guest]

This might be a minor point, but if you view your site with Firefox, it doesn't look so good (it is hard to read the print because the background doesn't display).  At least not when I look at it.  On the other hand, IE displays it just fine.

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BTW, I assume you know that your images can still be saved using Opera. At least they have the watermark on them.

[ChrisW123]

Low price is not the key. As Monty said, you have to have something unique and something in demand. We have been much more lucky than Monty. In about 4 months, we've got a customer base in hundreds. But still, we cannot live on this. We all work in spare time on this project.

Your prices seem very reasonable. Animations for just $5 seems like a great deal. Good luck, hope you do well.

 

BTW, I assume you know that your images can still be saved using Opera.? At least they have the watermark on them.

I didn't realize that Firefox doesn't show the background color! Thanks for the heads up. I just recently changed the color to a "black theme" and didn't test Netscape or Firefox. I think I know what the problem is... I usually use a website that gives you colors, etc., to get my website colors, and I've noticed that it seems to suggest colors in "increments" instead of a broader range of colors. And this time I used Photoshop, instead, to get my colors (finer adjustment ability) and it appears that this has caused some incompatibility with Firefox.

 

However I can't test right now, because for some reason my website isn't responding. Probably my webhost service having problems, AGAIN. :) Gotta love this stuff.

 

I'll check it tomorrow, thanks.