# What Leads To Sales?



## Tshirtcrib (Jul 21, 2006)

I have my own pitch to this, and it may be a little off so I wanted to post this question, *"specifically on a website, what are the main ingredients that lead to sales?"* Subtracting the concept of great t-shirts and advertising, from a website design aspect, what do you think is the most important item to higher on-line sales once the customer visits your site? Images of the t-shirts, site layout, site security, perception of high quality t-shirts and printing. Off hand what does everyone think? And *"If there was one thing about your individual website that you could change, what would it be?"* Just curious about every ones answers...


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

I believe that the perception of your brand in general has a lot to do with it. If your brand is perceived to be the "trend", they'll buy it just because of the name regardless of the design or shirt. By "perception of your brand", I mean everything that your name represents whether it is true or not, ie young, hip, edgy, cool. At least that's my though on selling directly to consumers, and may not be true. Because if I know it for sure, I would have been rich.


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

In my eyes site layout has a big impact on sales, I try to put at least 9 tees on my home page usually a 3x3 format. You want people to look at your site and immediately know what you are selling (that you sell t-shirts, what your target is and how they can buy them)


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Tshirtcrib said:


> *"specifically on a website, what are the main ingredients that lead to sales?"* Subtracting the concept of great t-shirts and advertising, from a website design aspect, what do you think is the most important item to higher on-line sales once the customer visits your site? Images of the t-shirts, site layout, site security, perception of high quality t-shirts and printing. Off hand what does everyone think? And *"If there was one thing about your individual website that you could change, what would it be?"* Just curious about every ones answers...


1. End goal - The goal of any ecommerce website is to SELL. If selling t-shirts is your goal, everything you do is with that goal in mind. It's amazing how easy it is to forget this and get caught up in making a great website "design" instead of showcasing your products in the best possible light. Make the payment process as simple as you can, so that they can go from point A (the first page of your site) to point B (completing an order) in as few "clicks" as possible. 

2. Usability - People are used to accessing websites in a certain way. If you change the rules with a "unique" layout or structure, you will lose customers. They are not going to learn an entirely new way of doing things just to be able to shop at your store. They are not going to read instructions on how to use your site. Instead, they will just become frustrated and leave. Also, make sure that there is nothing on your site that would make people want to leave prematurely (i.e. flash pages, music), and try to keep the loading time of each page as short as possible, under 10 seconds is best.

3. Information - There are so many sites out there that have great products, but no info on shipping, size information, or just plain "who are these people and what are they selling" kind of information. Include every question you think someone could possibly ask in your FAQ. Write an "About Us" page that describes you or your company and what you do. However, make sure you don't go off the deep end with the info you add to your site - everything has to be relevant to the customer.

4. Pictures - Big pictures of your products. One of the challenges with selling apparel over the internet is that people cannot touch your shirts like they would if they were shopping in a store. Regular size photos are ok for the product description, but make sure you also have VERY LARGE, high resolution product photos available as well.

5. Description - In addition to photos, a well-written description of each product is very helpful. Think about the last time you flipped through a catalog - each product photo is accompanied by a great description, not just to give the physical information about the product, but to help you imagine how it is going to make your life better.

The thing to remember about sales is that it's impossible to make someone buy something that they don't want or that doesn't fit their needs. Instead of trying to do that, the goal should be to take someone from being vaguely interested (through the appeal of the design + your marketing efforts) to deciding that they have to have it (and then purchasing it). The job of your website is to ensure that they are able to make that decision before they leave the site by providing as much information about your products as possible.

Hope that helps.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Excellent summary, Jasonda. Essentially the answer is: everything. Every aspect of a page can affect sales in some fashion, potentially. Sometimes small, subtle changes are enough to changes sales significantly.


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## m26gil (Jul 21, 2006)

Q: What leads to sales? 
A: Hard work.


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## kentphoto (Jan 16, 2006)

I read an article about not having extraneous links on your main page. And if you can, get rid of the navigation bar on the index page too. Any linkage taking viewers away from product, ie) about pages, info pages, links to other sites, should be scrapped. I did this to my index page, and it funnels people directly into a product page, where you can buy. The navigation bar is on every other page. 

I think it's a good idea. Many might disagree, but how often do we all visit a certain site, and get lured away by another link...never to return to the initial site?

I don't have any stats showing that this is working for me, but I think it makes the landing page look cleaner, at the very least.
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Oh, and completely get rid of splash pages. They're totally not needed, and only create extra clicks.


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## PartyClothes (Oct 19, 2006)

Referrals is a great way. Offer your existing customers a free t shirt for every 10 or so customers they refer.


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