Advice on SINGLE product eCommerce success.

[AlterJoule]

Hello All,

I have a single product that fulfills a large need in a niche market. I'm putting it on eBay and Amazon and have begun building an Opencart eCommerce site as well.

My question...Since I am only selling one item what do you think is the best way to showcase the product without turning off the customer? Will it turn the customer off if they only see one item for sale on the site? Should I place related items and say "sold out"?

My item is needed in singles and multiples. I was thinking of simply placing four pictures of the item in different quantities. For example:

1 item-$40.00-Picture of the item.
2 items- $76.00-Picture of two items.
3 items- $112.00- Picture of three items.
4 items- $144.00- You get the idea.

Or has anyone had success by simply having a single picture and buy offer in the center of the site with a drop-down menu of the available quantities and discounts?

Thank you.

 

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[niftyg]

I would work on promoting landing pages for the product via Facebook or Google Adwords. Try video landers, etc. Simple enough, should give you some results.

I'm not sure if you would get many sales linking to the purchase page.

 

[AlterJoule]

So you suggest a landing page, call to action and get a sale that way? Thank you. Good suggestion.

 

[RazorCut]

I would dispense with the regular shopping cart formula. Build the site around the one product. Think of your site as an Audi R8 Specialist rather than a supermarket that has only one product in one of the aisles and all the other shelves are bare.

There are lots of successful sites out there that just sell 1 product. Check a few of them out for inspiration. You should be able to just use the relevant sections of code from your cart in a custom page and it will still work. Check out elance or similar if you can't do it yourself.

 

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[AlterJoule]

Another user turned me back on to Magento. Seems like the best choice for the features and scale I'll need it to have and handle eventually. I'll screw with it and if I absolutely can't get through it I'll use the bankroll I build from eBay and amazon sales to hire it out.

 

[jazb]

Dropship the rest of the inventory so you become a complete store

 

[LightHouse]

I would dispense with the regular shopping cart formula. Build the site around the one product. Think of your site as an Audi R8 Specialist rather than a supermarket that has only one product in one of the aisles and all the other shelves are bare.

There are lots of successful sites out there that just sell 1 product. Check a few of them out for inspiration. You should be able to just use the relevant sections of code from your cart in a custom page and it will still work. Check out elance or similar if you can't do it yourself.

This is essentially what I was going to say, ditch the big cart and build the site around the single product with an option to buy more then one. You don't need most of the features you think you need. It's really quite simple, just get sales.

 

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[AlterJoule]

Good enough for me. Thanks everyone.

 

[mrsilva]

Isn't Magento for "big" companies only?

Anyone with experience on Shopify?

 

[AlterJoule]

No. I think it's just robust enough to handle big business if it comes down to it.

 

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[mrsilva]

No. I think it's just robust enough to handle big business if it comes down to it.

robust?

you need to see Magento's portifolio then: Nike, Olympus, Rosetta Stone, Office Max....

 

[AlterJoule]

Am I missing something? What points or advice do you have in regard to the post? You asked if Magento was for big companies only??? I'm not aware of that being a rule .....Can we keep on track here?

 

[mrsilva]

Am I missing something? What points or advice do you have in regard to the post? You asked if Magento was for big companies only??? I'm not aware of that being a rule .....Can we keep on track here?

Not missing anything. Sorry if I was not clear.

I was just trying to clarify some points. Maybe someone reading could answer and help your thread.

But a while ago when I was looking into e-commerce platforms I noticed that Magento is used for big companies. So people like you and me would have to pay BIG money. I don't think is your case. Is not a rule, but you wanna grow your business right? Only one product. So you don't need any big and fancy software.

I haven't used any platform. But I like Shopify. That's why I asked if anyone had experienced with. They could share their story and help you make a decision.

 

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[AlterJoule]

No, Magento has a free open source option. I'm looking for a solution that can handle my single item and expand when necessary. I'm small now but that doesn't cut it. I'm looking to scale up everything I pursue. Otherwise what's the point.

 

[pickeringmt]

My business only has 3 products at this point, so I went with WooCommerce. Simple and Cheap.

If things grow, I'll consider something else. I think it is kinda unrealistic to try and build something for a scale you won't need to worry about for a long time.

As far as pictures go, focus on a few really solid product photos (different angles, quantities, etc.) and use pictures that illustrate your product in action - for example if your product was lighter than the competition, show an elderly lady carrying it and smiling. Just try to find creative ways to get your product into interesting pictures that will reinforce it in the customer's memory.

 

[LightHouse]

Not missing anything. Sorry if I was not clear.

I was just trying to clarify some points. Maybe someone reading could answer and help your thread.

But a while ago when I was looking into e-commerce platforms I noticed that Magento is used for big companies. So people like you and me would have to pay BIG money. I don't think is your case. Is not a rule, but you wanna grow your business right? Only one product. So you don't need any big and fancy software.

I haven't used any platform. But I like Shopify. That's why I asked if anyone had experienced with. They could share their story and help you make a decision.

This isn't true, and furthermore, don't hand out advice if you have 0 experience with it.

Magento has a free community edition, its one of the few that still works well and has a community building for it. You can use it for large and small e-commerce shops and anything in between.

However, in this case, it is overkill. Wordpress with woo commerce or even a simple buy page would suffice, you can always transfer data when you need to move up to something that has more features.

The reality is, you don't need any features at all for a single product you just need a way for people to buy. Most folks over complicate the whole thing, thinking too far in the future. Sell a lot of product and cross that bridge when you come to it, things will have changed by then anyway.

 

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[wilddog]

Isn't Magento for "big" companies only?

Anyone with experience on Shopify?

I've said it before. Almost all paid shopping carts do not let you touch the checkout API. Most of them have shitty multi-paged checkouts or crammed single page checkouts.

Magento lets you customize EVERYTHING allowing you to even optimize the checkout API.

 

[AlterJoule]

@LightHouse

I guess the way I'm seeing it is like this..And tell me if my thought process is wrong, after all, I'm asking for advice.

Magento, Opencart, Shopify, whatever the name, probably has many features that most startups don't need. But it's free, I can just as easily set up a single-page, with a single item on it and never touch the features until necessary if they ever become necessary. My reasoning is use what will give the most possible features in the future and have them handy when and if it becomes useful. Instead of starting with one way and then moving over to another, and then buying this and then adding that. I was figuring get something simple up and have the expansion tools at my fingertips when ready. With the products on eBay and Amazon and establishing sales, that seems to validate the need. So I was simply preparing for the next step. Your thoughts?

 

[theag]

Build a wordpress landing page with a paypal plugin. You can be online and sending traffic to it to test the product in 10 minutes.

 

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[LightHouse]

@LightHouse

I guess the way I'm seeing it is like this..And tell me if my thought process is wrong, after all, I'm asking for advice.

Magento, Opencart, Shopify, whatever the name, probably has many features that most startups don't need. But it's free, I can just as easily set up a single-page, with a single item on it and never touch the features until necessary if they ever become necessary. My reasoning is use what will give the most possible features in the future and have them handy when and if it becomes useful. Instead of starting with one way and then moving over to another, and then buying this and then adding that. I was figuring get something simple up and have the expansion tools at my fingertips when ready. With the products on eBay and Amazon and establishing sales, that seems to validate the need. So I was simply preparing for the next step. Your thoughts?

The set up required, the resources, the time to get it looking right are all things you havent considered, not to mention they are optimized to sell a lot of products, not to sell one thing very efficiently. You will spend more time making t look and work right, then just putting up a static HTML page to a checkout program that is hosted, or going to wordpress route.

The point I am trying to make is work on getting something up as fast as possible that sells that product, you can even get a hosted shopping page like 1shopping cart and point a domain at a buy page and not pay for a host, SSL, merchant account, and all the things that roll into it.

 

[mrsilva]

This isn't true, and furthermore, don't hand out advice if you have 0 experience with it.

Before throwing rocks go back and read again.

I asked:

"Isn't Magento for "big" companies only?"

Thank you to clarify they have a free option. No need to be a dick next time

 

[AlterJoule]

The set up required, the resources, the time to get it looking right are all things you havent considered, not to mention they are optimized to sell a lot of products, not to sell one thing very efficiently. You will spend more time making t look and work right, then just putting up a static HTML page to a checkout program that is hosted, or going to wordpress route.
The point I am trying to make is work on getting something up as fast as possible that sells that product, you can even get a hosted shopping page like 1shopping cart and point a domain at a buy page and not pay for a host, SSL, merchant account, and all the things that roll into it.

OK I understand your point. Thank you for the advice. I like that approach.

 

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