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Are you living off your OsC store?


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Interesting that most of you thus far have mentioned opening your OSC store as an add-on or supplement to an existing brick-and-mortar store. I started this from scratch - as in this is my only store. I was thinking that if the website does really well, maybe in a couple of years I'll open a brick-and-mortar version. I don't know is that a naive thought? :rolleyes:

 

I've been open 3 weeks now, and besides the few "show of support" orders from friends and family, I've actually managed 1 real (as in I don't know them) sale. I have a magazine print ad coming out in the middle of the month, and am considering Google's Adwords once I see how much traffic I get from the magazine.

 

Any of you who are currently making a large percent of your income from your OSC store have any advice for a new shop? I've been searching the forums for tips, submitting to free directories, writing newspaper and magazine press releases (no luck so far, but it's early yet), and am now considering putting a few things up on eBay. Anything I'm missing? (Yes, I have metatags and SEO URL contributions installed.)

 

This has been an informative topic. Thanks! :D

Adrienne

 

http://www.FaeriesDance.com

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I've been open 3 weeks now, and besides the few "show of support" orders from friends and family, I've actually managed 1 real (as in I don't know them) sale.  I have a magazine print ad coming out in the middle of the month, and am considering Google's Adwords once I see how much traffic I get from the magazine.

http://www.FaeriesDance.com

 

I do not think that printed ads work for online-stores. People usually don't sit in front of a computer when reading a magazine, so they may have read your add but simply forget your url.

Adwords work fine. I've build a campaign for www.regi-shoes.com where I added an addition to the adwords url so I could exactly determine where the users came from. Then I modified a user tracking system which extracted the keywords the particular "AddClicker" used. Since I have a database of every word used on my webpage I add the words provided by addclickers that are not in my texts to the Shop (sometimes you simply miss important keywords). So after a while you get indexed with a lot of "rich" Keywords providing users the information they where searching for.

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I think it depends on the market as well though. For instance the urban/hip hop market are huge magazine readers. They're the reason that XXL and the Source magazines are the best selling US music magazines period. Outselling Rolling Stone magazine by a long shot. They're also heavy users of the internet as well and are more likely to visit and purchase from a web site they see in a magazine. As a matter of fact, the first (and only) print ads that I've seen for Zappos.com has been in hip hop magazines.

 

I think it depends on your market whether or not print advertising will work, if you've done your homework, you'll know.

 

I know for my site, Musica360, which focus' on latin music, print ads will make sense for me.

My Contribution

Music Download Store Template

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,4275

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Printed ads has worked good for us. It has not been fantastic but, then again, we have been advertising in quite small magz. (4000 copies)

But very targeted readers though.

 

We are yet to try ads on the web.

We will test Google and a large climbing site beginning this fall.

 

Zipper

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Don't discount traditional marketing. Print ads in magazines are our most successful advertising. This is probably because people don't know that they need our product - so very few people go looking for it on google.

 

If you sell a unique product, a great way to find which magazines may work for you is to see if you can get them to write a product review (or somehow mention your company). If you get a lot of response from the review then try advertising and see what happens.

 

You then need a way for your customers to let you know how they heard about you. We added a field to the customer information page. About 50% of our customers put something in the field. This way we can track a response rate back to the magazine.

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You then need a way for your customers to let you know how they heard about you. We added a field to the customer information page. About 50% of our customers put something in the field. This way we can track a response rate back to the magazine.

 

Thats not a bad idea. Making a field like "How did you find us?" in the registration form.

That is good info, even if you are not advertising at the moment.

 

It feels as though we are slipping from the topic just a little here.

 

Walkman--->

Are you making a living of your OsC store?

 

Zipper

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Thats not a bad idea. Making a field like "How did you find us?" in the registration form.

That is good info, even if you are not advertising at the moment.

FYI, in case anybody wants to implement that:

Dropdown Question Box for Create_account screen

 

Now back to topic.

Rule #1: Without exception, backup your database and files before making any changes to your files or database.

Rule #2: Make sure there are no exceptions to Rule #1.

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All of the above is why i find this place great, so many people willing to give out good free advice, just so newbies like me and others here have a chance of making our sites work.

 

Keep it up guys and a big thank !!!

 

Kind regards

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I can tell you that print ads are one of the best sources of traffic that we have. When a print ad comes out (we usually buy full page ads in certain mags) There is a huge spike in traffic to our webpage that usually turns into orders ;-)

 

Jud

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I'll second that... print ads have been one of my most successful advertising investments. I notice an increase in traffic, signups and sales when our print ads come out.

Dan

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you're right - we've branched the topic a bit. :-)

 

 

Yes, I make a living using Osc, but I really consider it making a living off a manufacturing business that gets part of it's sales from an OSC website. We also sell through retail stores.

 

We initially used a web interface that we developed. But it was starting to look pretyy dated as the web has moved into a broadband orientation (has anyone seen how painful it is to use dialup for the internet now?). OSC was part of an effort to make our website look more professional, make it easier to add products, and prepare for more on-line marketing efforts such as web advertising and using affiliates.

 

It took a lot more time than we expected customizing Osc to meet our needs than we expected -- but we're very happy with the results.

 

 

 

P.S. We use a modified drop down contribution. We wanted something simpler for our customers since we have so many possible seources. We added a text field to one of the customer information files and then added a section for "Referral Source / How did you hear about us:" on the create_account.php page.

 

We then implemented the drop down contribution on the orders.php page. So the customer types in whatever they want, and then we select the best fit from the drop down list when we fulfill the order. This makes it simple for the customer, but gives us the full capability of the drop down contribution.

 

 

 

P.P.S BTW, we manufacture automotive seat covers.

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Excellent topic.

 

I know when I started out with osC last year that there was very little info on actual turnover/orders/making a living kind of information.

 

I am pleased to read the replies to this thread but am still a little dismayed at the number of posts compared to the number of osC users.

 

You read the figures of who is using osC/who is online and look at the number of live store entries but the bottom line is "is it working?"

 

In my case yes. I am a bricks and mortar store owner and have now been selling online with osC for just over a year and although probably not making a lot of profit yet, I have invested in a warehouse (small industrial unit!) to fulfill the online orders and am increasing the turnover in the shop due to the website.

 

Am I living off it? Well, in a time when retailing in general in the UK is in a big slump, particularly the gift industry and when many gift shops are closing, I am holding my own and expanding. Sure I cannot buy the Lamborghini yet but still - osC is working and increasing trade.

 

One thing that is highlighted from this thread is that maybe there are rather more osC designers/developers on the forum than retailers and this is something I think the osC team should think about. OsCommercer is a great piece of software but it is only as good as the sales it generates. The main aim of the team should be to create sales.

 

It does work in my view and I hope that future releases continue to work in the same fashion.

 

Cheers,

Rich

Only Dead Fish Go With The Flow......

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I think they key point is osC is simply one part of the equation.... the most important and crucial factor is MARKETING. It's how you market your online business as to the success of it.

Dan

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I suspect that a lot of the shop owners are hiring their installation / customization out to other folks, and that those programmers / installers are the ones that more often frequent the forums. Certainly that is not always the case, but I'm positive that it happens frequently.

 

Personally, my main osC store has turned into a popular brick-n-mortar store. That, to me, is a good thing.

 

-jared

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When i first started the website around 7-8 mts ago i thought i would set it all up and sit back in my house and watch all the orders come in, how wrong i was.

 

So my next step was how can i get my products on show without spending 1000s setting up a brick and mortar shop?

 

First i tried a boot sale, bad move as people have no money at them and if you have priced something up at ?20 you get offered 10 pence : ) ..

 

Second move, i found a popular arts and craft market in london and set up a stall there, i have been doing it for around 4 weeks the first three weeks i only paid the rent with the profits but this weekend i started to make a small profit.

 

After only 4 weeks i have given out 100s of business card, people all over the world that comes to the market can now see and feel the products i sell, people keep saying that i saw your stuff last week and thats why i back today and that is happen more and more, and by giving out cards i am getting more hits on my site.

 

So what im trying to say is that even if you can not afford a real shop, you really should get your product out there so people can see what you are selling and this business is all about "word of mouth" and "trust" and you don't need a fortune to start...

 

i am still not making any real cash from this, but most of the people i have spoken too that have a good business all say that the first 1-2 year none of them do not make an real profit but after two years if you are still going then you sould be ok.

 

Sorry i went on a little but im not very good at expressing myself...

 

Kind regards

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OsCommercer is a great piece of software but it is only as good as the sales it generates.  The main aim of the team should be to create sales.

 

 

I disagree.

I think the main aim for the team should be to make the best, easy to install/use software possible. What you do with it is totally up to yourself.

You can not claim that Ms. would write documents in Word for you, only because they have made a good software for that purpose.

 

Congrats. on your expansion online, btw. :)

 

Zipper

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I think the main aim for the team should be to make the best, easy to install/use software possible. What you do with it is totally up to yourself.

You can not claim that Ms. would write documents in Word for you, only because they have made a good software for that purpose.

 

 

Hi Zipper

 

I understand what you are saying entirely and their is no doubt that to create sales from osCommerce there is an awful lot of hard work and continual investment in time needed.

 

However, in line with your reference to Word, I am sure that if it was not well suited to writing documents, it would not be so popular. (I fully appreciate their are plenty of other alternatives that are not generally shipped with every new computer but you get my point).

 

I just feel that there are an awful lot of programmers and designers on these forums (naturally) who need to keep the sales aspect in mind. A beautifully designed and visually appealing site is no good if nobody can find it, or it is not easy for a customer to use - get these two right and then it is back to the retailer to set the prices competitively. There are a whole host of aspects but they are all aimed at one thing - sales.

 

Cheers,

Rich

Only Dead Fish Go With The Flow......

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Just going back to previous posts, in particular, jcall and romany, it is interesting to read about people going the opposite way to me and starting up online before setting up the bricks and mortar store.

 

I do think that selling online is has some great things going for it, including being relatively cheap to setup (no comparison with starting a store) and it is a great leveller. There is nothing to stop someone setting up in a specialist area and immediately going head to head with a much larger setup. It is so easy for customers to find item they want on the internet and compare prices/delivery/avaialability almost instantly.

 

The only thing that worries me about selling online (and its certainly going ok at present) is precisely the above. If it is easy for you to get into a market it is also very easy for someone else to.... overnight. For that reason I personally believe that if you can use it as a means to get into some kind of bricks and mortar setup or move from drop shipping to stockholding, things should become more stable. Just my view. :D

 

I guess what ModYourCar says about marketing is very true - it is a crucial factor.

 

Anyhow good luck to you all with the businesses,

 

Cheers,

Rich

Only Dead Fish Go With The Flow......

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True, Richard. In our case, we started our store as a hobby (scrapbooking for my wife, programming/tinkering for me), not even considering that we might want a brick-n-mortar store. That need came about when we were too big to fit in our house anymore. We wanted to wait, though, until the online store could completely support the physical store. When that happened, we got a great opportunity to open just in the type of location we dreamed of.

 

It is certainly easy for anyone else to set up another online shop. That is true for auto parts, groceries, books, and every other market. That is precisely why the store should not be the only reason that people come to your site. Anything you can do that will grab your target market, to keep them coming back, is useful. Customer service, forums, galleries, news articles, new product mailers, advertising, etc. Having a store, no matter what kind of store that is, no matter what products you sell, is just a small part of being successful.

 

-jared

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Anything you can do that will grab your target market, to keep them coming back, is useful.  Customer service, forums, galleries, news articles, new product mailers, advertising, etc.

 

-jared

 

Yikes, You just reminded me of all the work I have left to do on the site!! :D

 

You are absolutely right though and I would like to think that as time goes by, as long as you work hard the customer base will grow, giving you your well earned head start on any new opposition.

 

Good luck with the bricks and mortar store, I am sure you will find this brings you a lot of new challenges but hopefully a lot of pleasure and a bit of profit :thumbsup:

 

Cheers,

Rich

Only Dead Fish Go With The Flow......

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  • 2 weeks later...

All I can say is that with the right attitude an online shop works. The benefit which you have when using oscommerce is that the community is quite active.

 

I started my shop in january 2005. I started from scratch. Currently we are having 100 new clients every week and still groing strong. We have an average of 15 orders a day. We calculated that we need at least 100 orders a day (average order is about ? 25) to make a living out of it.

 

As for the advertising. I would say that you should start with online ads. Use google and overture as well as price comparing sites (use the froogle contrib for this). Why start with online ads first? It will result in immediately clickthoughs to your website. Try to do this on 5 or 6 different places (websites) in the beginning. Once you sales are picking up, go for mag. ads. This is just to make ppl to see your logo and name, so they will rememeber when they see it on the www.

 

But, the best way to make your shop succeed is to give better service and support then your competitor. This is the key to a good (e)business. Don't focus to much on the website in the beginning. The thing you pay attention to is not the same the customer is paying attention to. You see ugly images, not enough contribs and so on. The customer sees low pricing and good service. Remember this.

 

For those who are interested to see our online shop pm me.

 

Cheers,

 

Danny

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Experiences with Price Comparison Sites

 

Having relied mostly on word of mouth to promote my shop for the last few years I decided to have a go at price comparison sites this year.

 

At first sales were up strongly and I thought it might be down to these adverts. Then when the econamy slowed and things quietened down I found the time to install the affiliate contribution to track performace of froogle and kelkoo. What a surpirse I got! I was expecting that visitors from these places would be much more likely to buy as they had already seen the details of the product and the pricing and presumably wanted to buy as that is what these sites are about.

 

I noticed the conversion rate was really low so I checked up what was happening. Some of the froogle hits were from MSN's spider so I removed those. That improved the rate a little. I also noted that my tracking code still hadn't percolated through to my most popular entries so my results are still not yet correct yet. Oh yes I should probably mention that we did have the best prices in the items that were being clicked on. I don't think people were abulking at creating an account but that is the next think to check - which page they left on.

 

Still puzzled I then read up a bit on conversion rates and discovered that 10% was considered normal in some businesses. I got a bit frightened here since shopping.com seems to have more than doubled the minimum bikd on my categories. On these conversion rates I would actually make a loss on anything they sold for me!

 

So anyway I'm going back to customer recommendations! I'll try to extend the affiliate scheme to real customers and be even more caring towards the existing cutomers!

 

Anyway I always try new things for the fun of it

David

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has anyone found it very difficult to keep on top of prices etc. I set osc up for a computer business and our wholesaler stocks well ovoer 1000 products and changes prices weekly, I found it extremely difficult to go through 1000 items and actually find images and get the description looking good etc. Then to find that my shop decided it didnt want to work correctly when registering people..

 

So just a hint to everyone, do not over modify your osc store with contributions, make sure they work together

 

how has everyone else gotten their store stocked quickly. i am interested in peopel working with large stores

Don't die with the music in you!!!

 

Failure is just another boundary to sucess!!! But that doesn't mean your getting somewhere...

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