Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Ignoring your pricing, have you asked people face-to-face if they're likely to want to purchase products with your "often offensive" phrases? It may be simply that your site is good for a quick laugh.

Jay, thanks for the response. We did a market survey prior to launching and it appeared that there was a demand for this genre. The only thing is that we don't just offer our preset designs. We also offer the option to personalize all of our merchandise and we can make custom logos and designs at very competitive prices.

Thanks again for the response. :)

First, what is a ton of traffic?

Second, are you sure about the 3.5 bounce rate. I have never seen a site that had any reasonable traffic get only a 3.5 bounce rate.

Third, Your site can be confusing. All of these Personalized products links go to the same place and have nothing to do with the product shown. That would be enough for me to leave. Check the bounce rate on that page. https://www.naughtnotions.com/store/store_results.php?ShopByOccasion=120&am...

Third, Jay may have a point. It is not everyone who walks around in an offensive tee shirt. Not that most of your sayings are that offensive, but still it narrows your customer pool.

Fourth, your products are the same as people can get on Zazzle and many other sites. So you are one of many sources. That means you have to market harder to a very targeted consumer and that means spending money.

Lastly, your prices are out of line with the market. I have a client that sells a tote bag, with an image on it kids can color, for $4.75.

It looks to me you are part of a service that allows you to set up a store and then the service creates the products and ships them to the customer. The service takes the lion's share of the price. In my experience these never work well because in order to make enough profit you have to change too much.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Harry. Unfortunately, analytics doesn't have any info on the bounce rate for that page. I just added that design, so there isn't enough info yet.

That is a good idea on the personalized link page. It was basically just an email form for them to let me know if they wanted something different. But, I will make a custom one for each product. :) Thanks for that.

No, I am not part of any service. I started this company from scratch, and I am not affiliated with any other company. I can understand how you might feel that way, but, that is incorrect. :)

All of your suggestions have been very helpful! I am going to look into some things. :) Thanks, again!

How do people find your site? Where do they see your advertising? What do you promise them in the advertising?

I think it's possible that the homepage doesn't deliver what your advertising copy promises, so they just hit the back button, or perhaps click on some link on your homepage, then leave. (I don't believe the 3.5% bounce rate. No site has a bounce rate that low.)

My guess is that if you had better message match, and if you had images on your website that show happy customers (i.e., humans wearing or using your products), you'd improve sales dramatically. Right now the site lacks any sense of a benefit promise. It's all focused on what you sell, not on the benefit a customer would realize.

I use Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Twitter Promo, and I advertise locally, also through Constant Contact, manual promos on Facebook and Twitter.

I don't really have any images of happy customers as we haven't had customers. lol I launched on the 25th of June, but haven't made a sale other than my sisters (which are on the about us page...one wearing our spaghetti tank).

Re: the bounce rate, I can only go by what analytics tells me.

59 people visited this site
Visits: 65
Unique Visitors: 59
Pageviews: 512
Pages / Visit: 7.88
Avg. Visit Duration: 00:02:41
Bounce Rate: 0.00%
% New Visits: 83.08%

83.08%New Visitor
54 Visits
16.92%Returning Visitor
11 Visits

These are yesterday's stats.
Does that help?

My adwords (and negative keywords) are geared at what I can offer. I even had an adword rep optimize it for me to ensure that was the case. so, i'm really not sure in that respect.

KSA,
Thank you so much for your detailed response. I am so glad that you mentioned the shipping/return info...it made me realize that there should be an actual Customer Service Tab that did not make it over when we launched the store. I will get the put back in asap. Thank you!

Re: the about us page. I was just being honest about who we are, but I don't want to sound irresponsible or unreliable. What would you recommend highlighting?

The site is actually organized in 3 diff ways. You can pick by the major group, by specific item, or by design on the left menu. I will make that clearer in the instructions. :)

I will change the order of the designs. :) I had them by the newest first, but you may be right about the alphabetic thing. :) Anything is worth a try.

Thank you again! And, no, we aren't a scam. lol :)

KSA,
Thank you so much!! I can't express how grateful I am for your advice and tips. I am going to implement some of those now! :)

Actually, if you click on the designs link at the top of the page, you can then click on the designs and they will take you to what is available. I am going to add text to the top of each of those pages to inform consumers of that. They probably don't know that the design images are actually clickable links. :)

I will also work on the about us page. :)

Thank you again!! :)