# Online Sales vs Offline Sales



## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

I created an e-commerce web site a while back and put a lot of work into the design and listings. I get a good amount of traffic but the conversions on visitors are currently at 0.

My offline sales are doing just fine but I am not sure what the issue is online. I should be closing 10-20% but no sales are coming though.

What am I missing? Maybe there is a bug in the online system, but it shows no new orders, no failed order and no products in carts.

*Help?*


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## poker (May 27, 2009)

Have you asked a friend or family memeber to make an order thorugh the site to see if it works? Just pay them back.

Why do feel you 'should' be closing 10-20%? 

How long has the site been up?


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## Dennis Graves (Apr 27, 2009)

10%-20% would be an amazing closing rate, but I guess possible if you have targeted your advertising perfectly. 

Are you sure the traffic isn't Search Engine robots crawling your site?

Do you have a newsletter for your customers to subscribe to and have any subscribed?

The first thing I would do is follow poker's advice and have someone go through the ordering process on your site and make sure the order goes through.


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## myk5 (Jul 28, 2008)

Online sales is a different animal than retail sales. I lost my job because the site I was webmastering wasn't bringing sufficient sales to cover my salary - and this failure timed with the current recession. 

It's possible the designed t-shirt is easier to buy retail and seems more a waste of money when bought online. Certainly online, there's little opportunity to verify the quality of the t-shirt and the print quality as well - and such could be a selling proposition in retail.

I checked your site and your tees, while ambitious and well designed, they are heavily branded. Which means locally your brand may have a popularity that is absent outside your locality.

General e-commerce advice is to collect email addresses for a mailing list and to give your mailing list special offers to buy stuff online - buy one get one half off, or free shipping or a percentage discount if you know the discount password.

That's after you verify your shopping cart is working.


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

10-20% would be an amazing conversion rate. You are looking at more like 1% conversion for the norm.


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## Basikboy (Aug 28, 2007)

I have seen a BIG decrease In my online sales since the beginning of the year, this Is happening to most businesses because of the economy. I believe alot of people can no longer use their credit cards due to no funds or just can't pay their bills? I'm thinking It is now easier for them to shop offline with cash Instead? Just a thought.


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## greyhorsewoman (Jul 19, 2007)

I agree, a lot of activity can be attributed to search engines. You don't even have to have a family member do a purchase, I run one through our websites every now and again to be sure things are working right. 

We also noted a 50% decrease in traffic/sales earlier this year, but it seems to be picking up a bit lately.


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## s2ksaad (Apr 26, 2009)

how do you guys market your websites, if you dont mind me asking... my name is saad and i've been lurking for some time... decided to post. hi everyone.


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## lburton3 (Aug 14, 2008)

As an online retailer, you should expect about 1% conversion rate, especially with t-shirts as specifically branded as yours. With this struggling economy, that rate may be even less than that. I was lucky enough to jump in the game recently, so the way I look at it, things can only get better from this point onward.

One of the biggest hurdles with starting a new t-shirt or clothing company is that nobody can totally trust your brand because they don't really know anything about it; additionally, the fact that you are selling online puts up somewhat of a barrier between the customer and the product. Though it's easy to purchase something online, the customer cannot get a feel for the product they are buying as they could do in a retail shop (try it on, feel the fabric and garment construction, etc). I have found that using trusted brands, like American Apparel, adds some ease of mind for the customers shopping online.

Something else to note is that your traffic is generally more targeted offline than it is online. If your products are selling in a retail store, the average person who walks into that store is already familiar with the underlying theme of the products in the store (ie - skateboarding apparel in a skateshop). On the other hand, if you are selling online, somebody may click a link to your online shop without even knowing that you sell clothes prior to clicking. Yes, adds up as traffic for your website, but you can hardly expect one of these visitors to make the jump and purchase one of your shirts.


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## myk5 (Jul 28, 2008)

s2ksaad said:


> how do you guys market your websites, if you dont mind me asking... my name is saad and i've been lurking for some time... decided to post. hi everyone.


Well I cut my teeth on t-shirt marketing online.

There's two parts of online marketing, the marketing you pay for and the marketing you 'earn' by being given a high placement on native search engine rankings.

Google adwords is a pre-eminent way to advertise online, and it does work! The more general your key words the more competitive and expensive they will cost. Also someone searching for a general word or phrase is most often getting information, the online consumer ready to buy will search for the specific kind of shirt they want. So you get better sales conversion using key words and phrases that really are specific to what you're selling, it's more affordable too. 

As for native search engine rankings, what Google wants to reward with high search engine rankings are what they believe to be the 'best' websites. From their point of view one website is better than another if it has more unique content, has a greater number of other websites linking to it as a resource and has better specific content related to the key words used in the search.

Html tricks for key word targeting include using the key words in the title of the html page, in the name of the html file itself, and in html header specifications.

Having a blog on your website and updating it regularly is a great way to 'grow unique content' and blogs have unfair advantages as google will crawl a site with a blog every time a new post is made.

Blogs are also a great way to get backlinks, by leaving on topic thoughtful comments that include your company url on other people's blogs -as long as the blog allows people to get SEO credit for links accompanying good comments.

Making a post to this forum is excellent SEO if the link to your website is in your signature. Every post is a new backlink, but in addition, this forum is *on topic* for a t-shirt business : google gives such links more importance.

I actually wrote some articles on t-shirt design and submitted them to an article database - anytime someone uses your article to add content to their own website, it gives your site a backlink. Because some unscrupulous 'black hat' SEO folks create automated blog sites (that automate the updating of the site with material from article databases) just to promote an affiliate link - an article with the right keywords can get distributed on far more websites than it should.

Well, this topic goes on and on and on - but you get the idea.

For a t-shirt site, you want google to include your designs on google images, and ideally each design would have it's own page and with some written description to help google send the person looking for your shirt, to your page.


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## ReThink Clothing (Jan 15, 2008)

like said 10-20% is outrageous for online sales. Amazon puts that up and better, but **** its amazon. You really have to realize that online sales take time and getting people online talking about your store really helps. Recommendations from blogs are quite helpful.


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## trytobecool (Jan 21, 2009)

Ask any of your relative to go through payment. you can always refund them back just to check if system works?

-For Conversion, I guess you might need to be more specific in terms of design to market targeted ppl? I love your designs & have been on your blog as well several times. its really a great brand. One more thing I would keep in mind is updating site or blog regularly. I went to your site before 3 months & even now. I can see no difference.
2 things i must say..
-Change your homepage photos(2) once in a while to make site lil updated.
-I think you should atleast add 1 Design a month to keep site updated & have your current customers a chance to buy something new...else they will just go to other online saler for their needs. after all, they all need is tee from anywhere/somewhere?


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## intercontex (Apr 6, 2009)

There is really no formula to determine what a conversion rate should be for any apparel brand. Apparel purchasing is more emotional and spontaneous than many other products. Some lines have higher conversion rates than others (obviously), but it does not mean that if you set up a web site or have product in a store it will automatically sell at an X rate of return. 

In the end, the overall concept behind your brand, the quality of your product, and its relevance in the current market will be the deciding factor. It will help to increase exposure via print/online media, celebrity product placement, and editorial press. You will definitely see a connection between increased exposure and sales. Start by working with free promotional opportunities online (i.e. blogs, social media, etc.).

Good luck.


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