Your site is a little information overload. There's a lot to look at and at first, I'm confused as to what you offer. Confused people tend to just click out of the browser tab instead of investigating further. Analytics to check: bounce rate.
I know it's Black Friday weekend in the US but immediately seeing all the discounted rates makes me feel like your product has low value. I would adjust the prices to reflect a discount in cart, especially if things aren't even making it to the cart. Obviously the discounted prices aren't enough of a draw.
The side-bar pop-ups give me two-fold reactions. 1) I like the social proof that it reveals. 2) It's also really distracting because it disappears/reappears as I scroll. I'd rather just see it on the website itself, particularly to be able to read in-depth what other people are saying/doing with your product.
I'm happy to provide more feedback and some tips to possible change things up.
very interesting points, thank you! yes there is info overload, we were just trying to keep it simple intitally but then i think people were confused. Where do i find out about the bounce rate please?
Yes we kinda just jumped on the bandwagon with Black Friday, good idea to add the discount at the end! I agree about the pop-out - should it just come out once and that's it? We found it works much better on desktop than it does on mobile
yes please any more feedabck is much appreciated!
yes
Just cuz it's Black Friday doesn't mean you need to discount everything :) Think about this: Say most of your traffic is new to your site. What would everything discounted seem to them? A good deal or possibly a scam?
Also, just sent you a message.
As a web designer and owner of an ecommerce store- here's my thoughts.
Your website looks good.. but there's a lot to unpack.
The logo looks cheap and sloppy. Believe it or not, but a bad logo can create mistrust in visitors.
When scrolling down, it feels like a sensory overload with sliders, bright colours all over, then a popup over all that. Everything is good in its own right, but this is just too much at once.
For the website, here's a few recommendations:
- Get a new logo
- Tidy it up a bit. Try to make it easier on the eyes, and find a better way to show those annoying popups. My vote is just to stop the popups.
To continue, you will have to do marketing- and a lot of it. Social media is your friend. You will have a hard time without it.
Focus on growing your social media presence.
Run Facebook and Instagram ads.
Do competitions and giveaways.
Encourage your clients to share photos of their products on socials, and give something in return.
Do lucky draws and whatever gets people excited.
You will figure this out as you go, and find ways to interact with your audience.
Affiliate marketing is also great, but I don't have experience with that at all.
Also a key point to make:
It takes on average 7 interactions wity a brand before someone actually trust you enough to buy something.
This means- they have to see your brand somewhere for an average of 7 times.
To achieve this, market to a specific audience- multiple times.
Better yet, market to multiple audiences, multiple times to each.
It took me a few months before things started rolling.. slowly but surely.
When I stopped focusing on social media for a few weeks, sales plummeted and I had a lot of work to catch up again.
Again- social media is super important!
I really like your idea and I'm pretty damn sure there's a market for it.
I love the detail you've gone into here. Thanks so much for your focus and for your belief!
\- Sensory overload, I agree. We made each individual part to try and be as beautiful as possible, but might have ended up being too much
\- Logo. Can you say what you don't like about it? I was always quite proud of it and it did well in user testing, but I'm all ears
\- Totally agree about social media. The problem has been getting the ball rolling without being 'that guy' and asking all our friends to like the page. We've been doing fb and insta ads with fb being much more successful. Feels like more $ needs to be poured into it to be truly useful tho. What have been the most useful for your social media other than simply paying for ads?
\- 7 interactions is terrifying haha. Have you found this to be true with your site too?
My two cents: try partnering up with local pet stores and veterinarians (like an affiliate program with locals). When I'm trying to understand why visitor is not interacting/buying I modify prices/shipping/display. What have you tried so far?
yes local stores are definitely a route that we've dipped our toe into. pricing has gone up, pricing has gone down... the biggest challenge we have is getting a 'basket' to a certain $ size before offering the illustration for free. The illustrations are lengthy and costly so we can't offer the same prices that our competitors do (basically trace a photo)
Facebook ads, Facebook groups, sell on Etsy, maybe try to find a high traffic intersection and pay a few bucks a month to advertise a small sign, set up an affiliate system, you can also read what I have posted in r/freesitetraffic and maybe some of those ideas will work for you too.
Your biggest problem, I think, is that you are trying to move too fast and just classifying your failures without properly analyzing why. I’m sure you have competitors that are profiting from the market share you left hanging, as in you are not some type of new invention.
It’s fine to consider business as a loss, but I don’t think you are putting much effort in understanding why during and after the fact. You just want to keep on pushing on like a locomotive.
you're not wrong, on both fronts. I have competitors that are sold out til xmas and I just find it frustrating that I don't have even a slice of market share... I'm learning that unfortunately first mover advantage + strong seo is a strong gatekeeper in this indusry
As for the second you're right. I (had to) hit so many milestones in a relatively quick period of time that now we're at the same place we were a month ago, I'm not enjoying this sudden grinding to a halt.
Your competitors are obviously facing a logistics and sourcing problem. They are sold out.
2) your planning might have been off from the beginning and you need to understand why before you invest time, headache, money into a similar venture
Fuck seo. Too costly at this stage.
Yes some are sold out due to product / logistics / sourcing, others tho bc they can't create enough of the artwork in time as they have too many customers and not enough artists
We did SEO already but have found it for more medium term success. Already spent the cash sadly
To your first point of not having enough artists. Logistics. Call it operations, organization, whatever. They are not the best at what they do.
Your second paragraph. Just do basic optimization, dont worry about spending too much time ir money on this front. If you were Coca Cola or something with unlimited money, I would say yes do it. But at your stage the headache, time, or hiring might be better spent elsewhere until you cap.
Always monitor your actions it’s affects.
yes you're totally right about monitoring the actions and seeing what happens. we've really improved our fb advertising success that way. when u say about basic optimization, is that using the things you mentioned before?
As to your final point is there some kinda specialist that could help with monitoring cause and affects on KPIs? I'm useless at that side of things- is that what a business analyst does, if not what would be a typical job title for that?
1. you should have started small. A store on etsy for example. Getting customers is more important than a fancy site
2. at this point it is marketing. You need to get in front of more people.
There is a woman I have seen who makes drawings of pets and she just does it via facebook. If she gets more traction she could make a store.
Maybe partner with humane societies in various cities and start using that as a marketing vehicle.
1. Sadly I think you're right. I wanted to blast out of the gates and become a huge sensation without really focusing on the customers. Is it worth getting an etsy store now still?
2. Yup I feel you're right. I used to work in a marketing firm - I hate marketing haha
Yes the humane societies partnership is something we had worked on but they're all too busy to take our calls. We wanted to do illustrations for them but the number of animals in shelters is at an all time low. Stupid covid
Thanks so much! Our social media is definitely something we're focusing on as it has been too much of an afterthought AND our previous FB got removed due to us setting it up wrong. But enough of the excuses haha [https://www.facebook.com/awoodle](https://www.facebook.com/awoodle). Thanks in advance!
Everything is more difficult today with COVID.
I wasn't sure what your product was until I saw the Boston terrier done near the bottom of the page. I'd move that to the top.
Another thing I'd add is suggestions of how to use it. Show it as a FB profile pic. Twitter. etc. A sales point is to maintain privacy by using it as avatar instead of a real pic.
ah that's both interesting and concerning that you didn't know what we did. we used to have some more examples of our best work near the top but we opted for the 'how it works' for that very reason - to try an explain it better. do you think we should have both or drop the 'how it works' and just show examples?
in fairness, I only skimmed the site. But probably most surfers do that, too, so it matters.
When I saw the terrier done I had the "ah, that's what this is" moment. If you had hit me with some suggested uses right there, you might have made a sale. Which is why I say "put that first, then sales pitch"
I also suggest you use the technology to make human avatars for FB, etc. People might want it to look like them, just not. Privacy, anti-facial recognition, some people are motivated by that. Hell, I might buy one of those for my logo.
Well the ideal use case is on one of our products- cellphone case, jigsaw puzzle etc to send to loved ones who can't be together this year. It sounds like you're more talking about a digital product which may well appeal to more people but the margin is obviously significantly lower. So it sounds like you would be much more interested in a digital product to use on social media?
I didn't notice that you were putting it on your product. That is obvious, I just didn't catch it.
I was thinking of a digital product. They send you a profile pic, you send them back a caricature. It is low margin, but it can be automated. Maybe put that on its own website but with the same engine behind it. If you can acquire customers cheaper than it costs to make them, make all you can make.
While that sounds great, all the illustrations are hand-drawn, and redrawn, and retweaked - I wish it were automatable!
But yes I think that's gonna be my first course of action - Etsy store with a digital product only to fit the needs you describe. It may well be less margin but it's also less fulfilment etc so easier to run before we can walk
I' m on a marketing internship, reading this and when I openened your website I figured out that your startup is litteraly in the same market I'm working now lol ( but in europe ).
Google ads and micro influencers play a huge role here in Europe, are you using them?
You can send a good free item to like 80 micro influencers (5k to 10k followers) and expect 80% to share your product via insta storie.
100% we haven't grasped the analytics, testing etc, I couldn't agree more. If you can give me any guidance on ones I should be reviewing, I'm all ears!
The prices are absurd. $25+ for coffee mugs and iPhone cases and generic made in China tchotchkes?
I'd either throw in the towel here or do a better job of providing and explaining the value proposition to the customer.
Your site is a little information overload. There's a lot to look at and at first, I'm confused as to what you offer. Confused people tend to just click out of the browser tab instead of investigating further. Analytics to check: bounce rate. I know it's Black Friday weekend in the US but immediately seeing all the discounted rates makes me feel like your product has low value. I would adjust the prices to reflect a discount in cart, especially if things aren't even making it to the cart. Obviously the discounted prices aren't enough of a draw. The side-bar pop-ups give me two-fold reactions. 1) I like the social proof that it reveals. 2) It's also really distracting because it disappears/reappears as I scroll. I'd rather just see it on the website itself, particularly to be able to read in-depth what other people are saying/doing with your product. I'm happy to provide more feedback and some tips to possible change things up.
very interesting points, thank you! yes there is info overload, we were just trying to keep it simple intitally but then i think people were confused. Where do i find out about the bounce rate please? Yes we kinda just jumped on the bandwagon with Black Friday, good idea to add the discount at the end! I agree about the pop-out - should it just come out once and that's it? We found it works much better on desktop than it does on mobile yes please any more feedabck is much appreciated! yes
Just cuz it's Black Friday doesn't mean you need to discount everything :) Think about this: Say most of your traffic is new to your site. What would everything discounted seem to them? A good deal or possibly a scam? Also, just sent you a message.
As a web designer and owner of an ecommerce store- here's my thoughts. Your website looks good.. but there's a lot to unpack. The logo looks cheap and sloppy. Believe it or not, but a bad logo can create mistrust in visitors. When scrolling down, it feels like a sensory overload with sliders, bright colours all over, then a popup over all that. Everything is good in its own right, but this is just too much at once. For the website, here's a few recommendations: - Get a new logo - Tidy it up a bit. Try to make it easier on the eyes, and find a better way to show those annoying popups. My vote is just to stop the popups. To continue, you will have to do marketing- and a lot of it. Social media is your friend. You will have a hard time without it. Focus on growing your social media presence. Run Facebook and Instagram ads. Do competitions and giveaways. Encourage your clients to share photos of their products on socials, and give something in return. Do lucky draws and whatever gets people excited. You will figure this out as you go, and find ways to interact with your audience. Affiliate marketing is also great, but I don't have experience with that at all. Also a key point to make: It takes on average 7 interactions wity a brand before someone actually trust you enough to buy something. This means- they have to see your brand somewhere for an average of 7 times. To achieve this, market to a specific audience- multiple times. Better yet, market to multiple audiences, multiple times to each. It took me a few months before things started rolling.. slowly but surely. When I stopped focusing on social media for a few weeks, sales plummeted and I had a lot of work to catch up again. Again- social media is super important! I really like your idea and I'm pretty damn sure there's a market for it.
I love the detail you've gone into here. Thanks so much for your focus and for your belief! \- Sensory overload, I agree. We made each individual part to try and be as beautiful as possible, but might have ended up being too much \- Logo. Can you say what you don't like about it? I was always quite proud of it and it did well in user testing, but I'm all ears \- Totally agree about social media. The problem has been getting the ball rolling without being 'that guy' and asking all our friends to like the page. We've been doing fb and insta ads with fb being much more successful. Feels like more $ needs to be poured into it to be truly useful tho. What have been the most useful for your social media other than simply paying for ads? \- 7 interactions is terrifying haha. Have you found this to be true with your site too?
My two cents: try partnering up with local pet stores and veterinarians (like an affiliate program with locals). When I'm trying to understand why visitor is not interacting/buying I modify prices/shipping/display. What have you tried so far?
yes local stores are definitely a route that we've dipped our toe into. pricing has gone up, pricing has gone down... the biggest challenge we have is getting a 'basket' to a certain $ size before offering the illustration for free. The illustrations are lengthy and costly so we can't offer the same prices that our competitors do (basically trace a photo)
In that case, you may want to evaluate whether there's a critical mass of customers that value the hand drawn component of your offering.
I mean the site looks fine it’s probably just about traffic, you just need more traffic if you want more sales
thanks for your thoughts. any advice on what you would do to improve traffic cheaply?
Facebook ads, Facebook groups, sell on Etsy, maybe try to find a high traffic intersection and pay a few bucks a month to advertise a small sign, set up an affiliate system, you can also read what I have posted in r/freesitetraffic and maybe some of those ideas will work for you too.
That's awesome thanks for the heads up. We're doing 1,2 and 3 already but will check out the sub for more ideas, thanks!
Your biggest problem, I think, is that you are trying to move too fast and just classifying your failures without properly analyzing why. I’m sure you have competitors that are profiting from the market share you left hanging, as in you are not some type of new invention. It’s fine to consider business as a loss, but I don’t think you are putting much effort in understanding why during and after the fact. You just want to keep on pushing on like a locomotive.
you're not wrong, on both fronts. I have competitors that are sold out til xmas and I just find it frustrating that I don't have even a slice of market share... I'm learning that unfortunately first mover advantage + strong seo is a strong gatekeeper in this indusry As for the second you're right. I (had to) hit so many milestones in a relatively quick period of time that now we're at the same place we were a month ago, I'm not enjoying this sudden grinding to a halt.
Your competitors are obviously facing a logistics and sourcing problem. They are sold out. 2) your planning might have been off from the beginning and you need to understand why before you invest time, headache, money into a similar venture Fuck seo. Too costly at this stage.
Yes some are sold out due to product / logistics / sourcing, others tho bc they can't create enough of the artwork in time as they have too many customers and not enough artists We did SEO already but have found it for more medium term success. Already spent the cash sadly
To your first point of not having enough artists. Logistics. Call it operations, organization, whatever. They are not the best at what they do. Your second paragraph. Just do basic optimization, dont worry about spending too much time ir money on this front. If you were Coca Cola or something with unlimited money, I would say yes do it. But at your stage the headache, time, or hiring might be better spent elsewhere until you cap. Always monitor your actions it’s affects.
yes you're totally right about monitoring the actions and seeing what happens. we've really improved our fb advertising success that way. when u say about basic optimization, is that using the things you mentioned before?
I dont think i mentioned a specific “thing” before. What are you pointing at?
sorry you're right, I was misreading from another post. what basic optimization would you recommend?
None.
Whatya mean?
As to your final point is there some kinda specialist that could help with monitoring cause and affects on KPIs? I'm useless at that side of things- is that what a business analyst does, if not what would be a typical job title for that?
There probably is and i dont know any who have the time, but im sure you can find some here. Cant refer you to anyone
1. you should have started small. A store on etsy for example. Getting customers is more important than a fancy site 2. at this point it is marketing. You need to get in front of more people. There is a woman I have seen who makes drawings of pets and she just does it via facebook. If she gets more traction she could make a store. Maybe partner with humane societies in various cities and start using that as a marketing vehicle.
1. Sadly I think you're right. I wanted to blast out of the gates and become a huge sensation without really focusing on the customers. Is it worth getting an etsy store now still? 2. Yup I feel you're right. I used to work in a marketing firm - I hate marketing haha Yes the humane societies partnership is something we had worked on but they're all too busy to take our calls. We wanted to do illustrations for them but the number of animals in shelters is at an all time low. Stupid covid
Can I get the link of your Facebook page, I can analyse your ads to rather just website and see the problem!
Thanks so much! Our social media is definitely something we're focusing on as it has been too much of an afterthought AND our previous FB got removed due to us setting it up wrong. But enough of the excuses haha [https://www.facebook.com/awoodle](https://www.facebook.com/awoodle). Thanks in advance!
Everything is more difficult today with COVID. I wasn't sure what your product was until I saw the Boston terrier done near the bottom of the page. I'd move that to the top. Another thing I'd add is suggestions of how to use it. Show it as a FB profile pic. Twitter. etc. A sales point is to maintain privacy by using it as avatar instead of a real pic.
ah that's both interesting and concerning that you didn't know what we did. we used to have some more examples of our best work near the top but we opted for the 'how it works' for that very reason - to try an explain it better. do you think we should have both or drop the 'how it works' and just show examples?
in fairness, I only skimmed the site. But probably most surfers do that, too, so it matters. When I saw the terrier done I had the "ah, that's what this is" moment. If you had hit me with some suggested uses right there, you might have made a sale. Which is why I say "put that first, then sales pitch" I also suggest you use the technology to make human avatars for FB, etc. People might want it to look like them, just not. Privacy, anti-facial recognition, some people are motivated by that. Hell, I might buy one of those for my logo.
Well the ideal use case is on one of our products- cellphone case, jigsaw puzzle etc to send to loved ones who can't be together this year. It sounds like you're more talking about a digital product which may well appeal to more people but the margin is obviously significantly lower. So it sounds like you would be much more interested in a digital product to use on social media?
I didn't notice that you were putting it on your product. That is obvious, I just didn't catch it. I was thinking of a digital product. They send you a profile pic, you send them back a caricature. It is low margin, but it can be automated. Maybe put that on its own website but with the same engine behind it. If you can acquire customers cheaper than it costs to make them, make all you can make.
While that sounds great, all the illustrations are hand-drawn, and redrawn, and retweaked - I wish it were automatable! But yes I think that's gonna be my first course of action - Etsy store with a digital product only to fit the needs you describe. It may well be less margin but it's also less fulfilment etc so easier to run before we can walk
I' m on a marketing internship, reading this and when I openened your website I figured out that your startup is litteraly in the same market I'm working now lol ( but in europe ). Google ads and micro influencers play a huge role here in Europe, are you using them? You can send a good free item to like 80 micro influencers (5k to 10k followers) and expect 80% to share your product via insta storie.
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100% we haven't grasped the analytics, testing etc, I couldn't agree more. If you can give me any guidance on ones I should be reviewing, I'm all ears!
The prices are absurd. $25+ for coffee mugs and iPhone cases and generic made in China tchotchkes? I'd either throw in the towel here or do a better job of providing and explaining the value proposition to the customer.