Converting Visitors to Sales - Google Analytics
 

we run a website that sells high-end signed limited edition books.

this is the geographical layout (Google Analytics) from today, Jan. 29th.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1170125129.jpg

most of these people are visitors from the #1 Stephen King fan-based website on the internet. A contest to give away several 1st editions have people on a scavenger hunt to find answers to several questions.

Here's the problem:

Most of these people are SK fans/readers. However, what we offer are very expensive items and I fear that most of these people can't afford anything, given by the conversion rate.

How do I sell something to these people? anything... today was the largest 1 day volume , with 160 unique visitors and 800 pageviews.

Any advice/ideas would be highly appreciated... Thanks!!

what was the conversion rate if you don't mind telling

very low conversion rate. haven't really calculated based on # visitors/pageviews, etc...but it's 1-2 orders a month.

Why not offer some products that would appeal to these visitors?? But as Wayne stated, that's not a whole lot of visitors so it may not be worth the hassle.

I wonder what the "true" number of real, potential customers actually is? I have a site that I study as well, and am continuously baffled by the high level of traffic, yet comparatively low number of sales. I've suspected that "many" visitors during a typical day are probably search spiders, indexers, competition, etc, etc. Would be interesting to find some real data out there regarding this.

have you tried e-bay?

we have a store on ebay as well... the fees are a killer though. it's not atypical to have 50% of net profit be Ebay/Paypal fees.

Just to give you an idea on numbers... according to Google analytics, for the month of Jan, there were 926 visitors on our website with 4,100 pageviews... result was 1 order. this is a poor conversion ratio.

however, as Wayner pointed out, it's a niche market..how many people actually buy that Ferrari or Lamborghini? maybe 1 buyer every 1,000 visitors/lookers is a good ratio for this business.


Motion, good point...I would be interested to find that as well.

Check out these two website for the same company. Which one do you think gets more sales? BTW, they both have the same traffic:

Sorry...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1170170484.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1170170498.jpg

The second one as the first is so difficult to read.

i would think the second one... it's easier on the eyes. the black text on white background is good contrast. the black background is hard to read and uninspiring.

Yep, #2 increased sales dramically for them. The thing is, this guy is really good at design and layout but has no clue as for as web marketing is concerned. I'm not implying a correlation just an observation is all. Do you deal in all sorts of rare, signed books or do you stick to one type?

Check out your Marketing Optimization section and see what your Keyword Conversions and stuff are. Depending on the cost of the words, you could setup an AdSense account to target the keywords that people type most often before clicking your link. AdSense can cost $$ though if lots of people click but don't buy anything.

Wayne is dead on: 160 unique visitors a day isn't much. If you really want to sell stuff, especially online, you need high traffic.

If you don't mind, you might want to include what site it is here, as certain members might be able to give you tips to increase traffic, or the layout to increase sales.

Look at where your principal sources of traffic are coming from, besides the bookclub website, and then optimize for that. Are you a member on the book club site? If so, post there OFTEN on SK issues and include your URL with some good marketing in your signature line.

With the limited details, it's hard to say for sure, but here are some guidelines:

• Layout: A nice, clean, easy to navigate layout tends to sell more. Take Lube's example, I'd bet the second layout generates a MUCH better conversion ratio. Don't have a lot of flashy crap that visitors get attracted to. You're trying to sell something, so you want to keep them ON YOUR SITE and off someone else's, for as long as possible.
  
• Optimization: There are TONS of sites on the net, and a relatively small number of people shopping for SK items, so you have to market to them as effictively as possible. Search Engine Optimization is important, and is different for each search engine, so look at the stats and decide which one you want to optimize the best for. In the same vein with layout, make sure your site isn't cluttered with things that would distract your viewer from clicking BUY ME NOW or whatever.
  
• Traffic: Traffic is huge. You _need_ traffic to sell, because the more traffic you have, the more people see your wares. It's like physical store placement, stores on a well traveled street sell more. You can get traffic by Search Engine Optimization, posting on related forums, finding SK interest sites and asking the webmaster to put a link up (text/image/ whatever) to your site, attending book club meetings. Try to think of different ways to get targeted traffic to your site.
  

BTW, I don't link how GA shows referrers. I use ExtremeTracking.com to track for referrers and like it much more. YMMV.

SlowToady, the website is www.veryfinebooks.com

I would tend to agree that the web may not be the market for your products.

Your homepage cycles product on reload. Not sure why this is beneficial to you.

When I hit it the 1st time the cheapest item was $450, subsequent hits got me sub $300 products. Some of your books are north of $2k. If I'm coming here and seeing prices like that I'm probably leaving pretty quick.

You do have items priced in the $30 and up range.

I would focus on a layout that does not give people sticker shock when they 1st arrive.

As far as the higher priced items they appeal to a serious collector. How much of the purchase experience for this consumer is related to "touching and feeling"?

Or put another way how likely is someone to plunk down a grand or so for something that they can't do a PPI on? Don't have any advice on how you deal with that other than trying to build a name and reputation within that collector community.

I'd recommend building a couple of different sites with different target objectives, ex: one that publishes the lowest priced items 1st and has a special prominent "featured" high ticket item then do some A/B splits on the traffic and see what it does to conversion and depth/length of visit.

the "touching and feeling" is all done through images and good detailed descriptions of product condition. there is no physical store where you can walk in and see the product.

with regards to price, it's like walking into a dealership that sells Ferraris , Lamborghinis and Porsches. Of course you would expect "sticker shock"... if you want something cheap, go buy a Ford...

the problem is my niche market may be too small for what I'm trying to do . I look at my competitors and they've been around for a while so I know the business model works and the formula works.

btw, what is significant daily visitor traffic?

The 150-200 visitors in 1 day is a good day. Most of the time it's only 20-50 a day...OR with the # products listed, and traffic, 1-2 sales per month is pretty damn good!!??? This is what I'm trying to figure out...maybe i'm not being realistic on expectations.

Thanks.

The overall site design and layout is pretty good, although you might want to think about the placement of the Lilja's Library banner. To me, a banner near the top of the page like that says "CLICK ME!" which leads a visitor, and potential customer, away from your site. I'd think about maybe putting it under the under the books and before the feedback form. Then, if they don't see anything that appeals to them, they can click it (but not before).

Also, maybe try having the books on the main page show the lower priced books. I realize your customers are probably used to seeing higher prices than the rest of us, but if they see $800 right off the bat, they might think "wow, this is $$$." Just a thought.

In that same vein, you might want to have the default sorting for your books pages (eg, signed first edition) be "Price: Low To High" to avoid potential stick shock. That way, they can see exactly what is in their price range.

I think I might have one or two other ideas for you, but I have to go to programming class...

I appreciate you taking the time to give me feedback. any other ideas are welcome. I do some programming myself so I might be able to get it done..


with regards to price, For each category, you can do a sort by "Price:Low to High".. so someone looking for items under a certain price can sort them in this manner.

I agree about the banner up on top, it's inviting visitors away from my site.

thanks.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by on-ramp
the "touching and feeling" is all done through images and good detailed descriptions of product condition. there is no physical store where you can walk in and see the product.

I realize there is no store, was posing the question of whether or not the hands on experience is an issue. I'm not into collector books so I don't know the answer to that.

with regards to price, it's like walking into a dealership that sells Ferraris , Lamborghinis and Porsches. Of course you would expect "sticker shock"... if you want something cheap, go buy a Ford...

When I walk up to a Ferrari dealer I know who they are and what they sell and know that it will cost a lot. I have no idea who veryfinebooks.com is. I have no expectation of what pricepoint to expect. I may have wandered in from a google search but was not actually looking for a high end book dealer. I might buy a $30 book spur of the moment but the $500 and up books will scare me off before I ever know you have cheaper stuff.

the problem is my niche market may be too small for what I'm trying to do . I look at my competitors and they've been around for a while so I know the business model works and the formula works.

My feeling also, which is another reason to expand your customer base to the less expensive books as well.

btw, what is significant daily visitor traffic?

The 150-200 visitors in 1 day is a good day. Most of the time it's only 20-50 a day...OR with the # products listed, and traffic, 1-2 sales per month is pretty damn good!!??? This is what I'm trying to figure out...maybe i'm not being realistic on expectations.

That's a tough one to answer, depends on a lot of variables particular to your business.

Conversion rates are sickeningly low... If you're doing 1-2% I'd say you're getting a phenomonal conversion...

Just for reference...

Vertical Conversion Rate (%)
Catalog 6.1
Specialty stores 3.9
Fashion/apparel 2.2
Travel 2.1
Home and furnishing 2.0
Sport/outdoors 1.4
Electronics 1.1
All verticals 2.3

However in your case you've realized that the browser you've brought over is not your demographic target, so you shouldn't expect even a 1-2% rate... Much lower... Nothing to worry about unless you want to start selling SK novels?

Re: Converting Visitors to Sales - Google Analytics
 

Looks like many people are coming to your site as "dreamers"... like someone else said, the same way we'd visit a Ferrari site.

What about branching out to other products that could interest your "dreamers"? Things like pictures, posters etc. Something that these dreamers can purchase while they save to buy a limited edition book. You understand the market better than any of us... what else could these SK fans be interested in?

What kind of use are you getting out of your newsletter? Are you able to measure the number of customerswho open it, and then the percentage that click through to your site?

Also, you want to look at how you're using your prime real estate... that "value statement" and banner ad are pushing your featured products down too far. FWIW, most people will skip that "value statement" and look at the products

Also, each product has the description in blue, and then that "blurb" underneath. I would:
-lose the blurbs on the main page
-Make a larger "More info" button, and move it underneath the product image
-put the price undereath the image

Also just noticed that the top of the page has low value links like "Book Grading Definitions", "Book Terms" etc. Move those down in your left nav, and list your main product categories up there.

I'm thinking of adding a special "Sale Items" page featuring the lowest possible price on selected items.
It will be a "members only" section where you need to register to have access...so people will be forced to sign up to the newsletter.

Bad idea?

Yes, bad idea. Never a good idea to make people register, unless there is a very tangible benefit to them. Asking them to buy something does not seem like a tangible benefit to me. Members-only sites that offer discounted products have never taken off on the Internet.

On second-examination, natfarnow is spot on with his recommendations. Good tips.

I'd check your GoogleAnalytics Bounce rates, those will tell you what percentage of your visitors leave from the page they enter on. If it's a lot, you have a visitor retention problem..it's a bit, and they stay and browse..they might not be able to afford it.

Is there anyway you could potentially diversify your product line with lower priced items, to bring in a little $$ more often than you bring in the high dollar sales?

If I visit your site, I want to find what I'm looking for in 5 seconds.

This is where your effort should be:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1170359410.jpg

More here:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
(not my site, btw... just have the same first name)

You don't have to go far to find a good example. Wayne uses his top & left nav very effectively, and avoids clutter in those areas

You might re-design the logo in the header, and use horizontal nav. in the header instead of vertical nav. down the left side.

Possibly move the "Featured Section" above the email newsletter sign up.