# Traffic From Facebook but No Sales? What's your Conversion Rates?



## Bunker (Sep 25, 2016)

I ran an ad on FB and Instagram for a new t-shirt design and have it available for pre-order on my site. 

- Spent $37
- 9,000 people reached
- 145 clicks to product page
- .25 cents per conversion
- 1.30% conversion rate
- Highest precent of placement - is Audience Network. I have it running all placements but I have FB auto running where it's placed. I have a very low percentage shown on FB though.

My target market is very niche specific.

The shirt is listed at $34 + Free Shipping in US for those that pre-order now. I have a pre-order cut off date of Sep 28th. I have one graphic printed on the sleeve, one on the front and hem tag at the bottom. I also have specs of the t-shirt size along with the normal size guide. I am using Bella Canvas 3001U shirts.

What I can't understand if 145 people click on my ad because they appeared to like this t-shirt. Why did no one purchase? What are typical conversion rates?

My website is super clean, I am using Shopify and the t-shirt is on a white background that lays flat with a few wrinkles in the shirt to give it depth. Like what A&F does with their shirts, it is super nice quality mock up.

Also to see if the pre-order was an issue, I took that off and made it available as a straight purchase. I kept it like that for about 25 visits to the page. Still no one made a purchase.

My site is working great and I did get a few folks from my email blast purchase some shirts. So I know that's working fine.

And on my Instagram account I have over 100 likes of this tee shirt.

Can anyone shed any light on this perhaps or has similar experiences?

What are you conversion rates on running ads on Facebook and Instagram? I know not everyone is going to purchase after they visit the site but I would think at least I should have gotten 1 out of that.

Thanks for any advice and feedback.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Pretty simple.....You are not reaching people who like your shirts enough to pay 34.00...Was your price visible before folks clicked through to your page?....It may be when they got there and realized the price, it was more than they were willing to pay...


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## Bunker (Sep 25, 2016)

royster13 said:


> Pretty simple.....You are not reaching people who like your shirts enough to pay 34.00...Was your price visible before folks clicked through to your page?....It may be when they got there and realized the price, it was more than they were willing to pay...


Yeah good point. I didn't put the price in the ad. I'll do some experimenting with it. Possibly take out the free shipping and drop the price a couple of dollars. That would put it in the 26 dollar range. 

I started out looking at tailgate tshirts and that's were i felt my price point was. 

Thanks


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## crizalide (Apr 18, 2016)

Hey,
I think the problem is the price
why you didn't offer also different type of t-shirt? not everybody likes sleeve shirt
did you offer different size of shirt? different colors of design? different color of shirt?
i think you should focus more on sell lot of shirts than make good profit first, be ok to make less first and build your market and later on you can work on the big profit.


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## BrianEFisher (Oct 31, 2015)

I had ran some similar ads and types of shirt campaigns. What I found out is anytime people see PRE-ORDER most think it won't be made or someone is running a scam to collect larger sums of money. People want their items right away so they can show friends. If its a trending subject this is true because they worry it won't be relevant anymore when they receive it. I ran the same shirts later because I liked the design just in posts with the price and I was getting orders without ads.

Just my 2 cents and what I have experienced. Best of luck

BEFV


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## NoXid (Apr 4, 2011)

As mentioned, price was probably at least part of your issue. And, yeah, pre-order is not helping.

I played around some with FB ads, got traffic, but no sales. So maybe I didn't know what I was doing ...

Anyway, on Etsy, I have averaged 1 sale for every 100 to 200 visits, depending on time of year, etc. I think something along those lines is typical, so 148 clicks might on average get you one sale.


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## Blue92 (Oct 8, 2010)

I cannot remember ever paying more than @ $20 for a t-shirt. That covers quite a few "branded" shirts for OSU and other entities.


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## Bunker (Sep 25, 2016)

Thanks all very good points. I am only offering the shirt in one color (heather gray) from sizes ranging from S-3XL. I need to check with the company that's printing them (real thread) to see if I can mix up the run with different color options. I think that would help as someone pointed out. Also for my next one before I place it in the site for sale, I'll poll my newsletter subscribers on get their feedback for colors and graphics. Maybe create an incentive for them by giving away a tee if they participate.

So far I've sold 4 from an email I sent to my followers on my social media channels that signed up to receive newsletters, a list of 75 folks. I launched my site/brand 5 weeks ago with my core product as higher end jackets. I am a retailer for a mfg of jackets. My brand is all about Made in USA and then I have a personal story behind my brand. T-shirts will be more of a secondary product.

I am having graphics designed by a graphic designer and by the time I include all my true expenses, it's coming out to $25 per shirt based off a min qty of 50. This includes $6 for shipping and then various other expenses. My shirts are costing around $13 bucks for a run of 50, Bella Canvas 3001U - Made in USA. Which includes inside label printed, graphic on the front, graphic on the sleeve and then a hem tag at the bottom of the shirt, fold and poly bag and shipped to me.

So my profit it around $9 bucks if I sell at $34. The sales price is $34 and retail price shows $42. I am positioning these shirts as limited editions. Selling 50 will make a profit of $450.

I need to work on getting my costs down so I can offer a competitive price point. I need to look at buying blanks from mfg and printing locally. Also I am assuming that t-shirt season is slowing down since fall is here. So I've got s few things working against me I need to work on.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Bunker said:


> This includes $6 for shipping...


That is about twice what it should cost.....Unless your packaging is way out there...


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## john221us (Nov 29, 2015)

Is your target market all men? Women generally won't buy a men's style for themselves. A couple of days ago, we printed a design on a men's shirt as a sample (because it was cheap) and showed it to a group of women for feedback and basically it was one big distraction. All the comments were about how they couldn't where that style of shirt, instead of commenting on the design, as we had asked.


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## drdeath19134 (Mar 23, 2009)

you might want to learn how to print it will drop your price a lot!


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

royster13 said:


> That is about twice what it should cost.....Unless your packaging is way out there...


Well, Printful charges $5.50 for t-shirts and $8.00 for hoodies. Go figure...

It looks like many vendors thinking on their prices and all kind of rates goes: if you can live without this, please do. And I think I will adopt exactly the same approach if only to save myself from having to worry about what may come to be essentially nothing.


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

Wow, this site can't even do their own quotes correctly these days? What a downhill...


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## ExcelGuy (Aug 15, 2016)

KaymaXX said:


> Well, Printful charges $5.50 for t-shirts and $8.00 for hoodies. Go figure...
> 
> It looks like many vendors thinking on their prices and all kind of rates goes: if you can live without this, please do. And I think I will adopt exactly the same approach if only to save myself from having to worry about what may come to be essentially nothing.


Shipping from Gooten is $3.65 USD via USPS. 
Also, consider your artwork cost as a business expense and don't add it to the price of every shirt. Besides you should only pay for the design once.

Sent from my SM-A500W using Tapatalk


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

ExcelGuy said:


> Shipping from Gooten is $3.65 USD via USPS.
> Also, consider your artwork cost as a business expense and don't add it to the price of every shirt. Besides you should only pay for the design once.


I am wrecking my brain right now trying to set up my shipping rates with Printful through Shopify. One wouldn't believe the complexity that they both create for what should be quite simple options, the way I see it. I am into like my third day of trying to work this out, believe it or not. And all I want is simple flat rates for one or maybe two shipping options within the US.

Also, companies can charge substantially less for shipping than it actually costs them to ship. Amazon is probably the best of examples.

When speaking of vendors I meant their product and shipping prices. I picked Printful for fulfillment and my costs with them seem to be quite high.

As for the artwork, I do my own, not an issue here. Thanks.


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## djque (Feb 5, 2013)

KaymaXX said:


> Wow, this site can't even do their own quotes correctly these days? What a downhill...


no its not that. It's that most of us are printers and own or own equipment and don't go thru places like printful. That's why most answers go unanswered.


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

djque said:


> no its not that. It's that most of us are printers and own or own equipment and don't go thru places like printful. That's why most answers go unanswered.


Well, haha, I was talking about THIS site, they misquoted their own link there but that's perhaps it was my first post and they are very hard on new posters. Overall I was just being sarcastic as there seem to be a lot of all kind of issues here lately. Thanks.


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## djque (Feb 5, 2013)

KaymaXX said:


> Well, Printful charges $5.50 for t-shirts and $8.00 for hoodies. Go figure...
> 
> It looks like many vendors thinking on their prices and all kind of rates goes: if you can live without this, please do. And I think I will adopt exactly the same approach if only to save myself from having to worry about what may come to be essentially nothing.


That's about what you get after you sell a tshirt or hoodie after there cut. If i still a shirt for $25 I'm making $25.00 not $4.50 and so on. People get into tshirts thinking oh its a get rich business. Cause they see these bs ads. Well they don't realize that the ones that are making big profits own there equipment and print there selves. I just did a 40 tshirt order for $480. $400 of that was profit. Now I'm waiting on another 56 for $600 which $550 is profit. But i own all my equipment.


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## cdh (Nov 4, 2015)

djque said:


> I just did a 40 tshirt order for $480. $400 of that was profit. Now I'm waiting on another 56 for $600 which $550 is profit. But i own all my equipment.



That's a hell of profit margin...how can you do 56 shirts for $50. That's 89 cents a shirt....


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## drdeath19134 (Mar 23, 2009)

he posted: _56 for $600 which $550 is profit._


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## cdh (Nov 4, 2015)

drdeath19134 said:


> he posted: _56 for $600 which $550 is profit._


exactly how can you print 56 shirts for 89 cents a shirt....I don't know about you but I can't even buy a blank for that price much less print it.


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## ExcelGuy (Aug 15, 2016)

cdh said:


> exactly how can you print 56 shirts for 89 cents a shirt....I don't know about you but I can't even buy a blank for that price much less print it.


I haven't looked into extensively but blanks are cheaper when you buy bulk. I'm starting with a POD vendor because I don't want to have 100 shorts that may never sell.
Tho I'll be buying a small heat press next week and see how it goes.

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## ddelgrande (Mar 11, 2015)

One of the more successful stores on etsy is called Zen Threads. They are doing very, very, well.

When I looked at their store 18 months ago they had sold 90,000 T-shirts (they sell other stuff but it's almost all T-Shirts). Today they have sold almost 120,000. 

18 months ago the price of their shirts was typically $18 for an American Apparel in over a dozen colors. 

They have sense raised their prices to $22. 

I have looked at other T-Shirt sellers on etsy and it seems once you go above $20, sales just drop off a cliff even though the designs are excellent. 

Bottom line is I don't think there's a whole lot of people who are willing to buy an expensive t-shirt online, at least not from a well know designer. 

I myself can't see buying a "t-shirt" for $34. It's a t-shirt after all.


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

Setting up my Printful Shopify store right now again. Deleted the app the other day and almost have gone a different route altogether only to find out the Teespring Shopify app essentially not working.

What do you feel prices for simple designs like that on an American Apparel 2001 t-shirt delivered should be?

Thanks, appreciate any help.
Andre


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## ddelgrande (Mar 11, 2015)

KaymaXX said:


> Setting up my Printful Shopify store right now again. Deleted the app the other day and almost have gone a different route altogether only to find out the Teespring Shopify app essentially not working.
> 
> What do you feel prices for simple designs like that on an American Apparel 2001 t-shirt delivered should be: https://kaymaxx.com/products/short-sleeve-mens-t-shirt?variant=25844534345
> 
> ...


$18 to $22 based on Zen Threads pricing. Note they only print single colors, mostly black/grey but they do have white and a few other colors.


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## CEGraphics (Sep 15, 2016)

following...


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## KaymaXX (Apr 14, 2012)

ddelgrande said:


> $18 to $22 based on Zen Threads pricing. Note they only print single colors, mostly black/grey but they do have white and a few other colors.


Thanks, I checked them out on Etsy. Well, while their one-color print t-shirts are indeed priced at $22.00 there's also a $4.00 shipping charge on top of that. That brings it to $26.00 delivered.


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## ddelgrande (Mar 11, 2015)

KaymaXX said:


> Thanks, I checked them out on Etsy. Well, while their one-color print t-shirts are indeed priced at $22.00 there's also a $4.00 shipping charge on top of that. That brings it to $26.00 delivered.


Yeah, I'm surprised they raised their prices so much. I check to see how they're doing every couple of months and their prices 3 months ago were $18 plus the shipping. 

I guess they've built up a clientele that will pay more. 18 to 22 dollars is quite a jump in price but if you can get away with it more power to you!


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## ExcelGuy (Aug 15, 2016)

ddelgrande said:


> One of the more successful stores on etsy is called Zen Threads. They are doing very, very, well.
> 
> When I looked at their store 18 months ago they had sold 90,000 T-shirts (they sell other stuff but it's almost all T-Shirts). Today they have sold almost 120,000.
> 
> ...


Could be because it was Etsy. People don't want to spend a lot on shirts from Etsy maybe.

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## ddelgrande (Mar 11, 2015)

I think that's a valid point. I would like to know what websites are successful selling t-shirts for more than say $30 that are what I'll call "boutique" sellers (meaning not national brands, well-known designers, or venture funded startups).


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## aidensnd (Apr 24, 2016)

Ship via USPS First Class instead of Priority and you'll save yourself $3 per shirt....


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