Continued Sales Growth yet Difficulties in Converting American Consumers - Any Suggestions?

[winfinite8]

Hi All,

We launched the project www.selfiestick.ca this past July, after promising indications in the following:
1. use of the word and application "selfie" in north america
2. promising google keyword figures
3. market testing with a pseudo shopping cart form

We received first inventory in mid-august and, while sales were a bit slow, they have been close to doubling every month since. For more information on this venture/me, check out my introduction thread, here.

The CRUX:
While grinding away, a lot of positives have happened (we are doing promotion with no.1 cancer fundraiser in Canada, Princess Margaret in Q1 2015) and we are now typically on page 2 of google and should reach page 1 shortly. As I had mentioned, sales continue to grow, but there seems to be anomaly…

I believe I am missing out on quite a bit of sales as my conversion rate on American consumers is poor.

Here is our web traffic data since June(attached is more readable):
June July August September October
USA - Visit 1 296 1108 1718 1675
USA %/total 33.33% 56.60% 71.44% 64.20% 61.83%
Canada - Visit 2 147 238 456 602
Canada %/total 66.67% 28.11% 15.34% 17.04% 22.22%
Japan - Visit 0 6 60 187 176
Japan %/total 0.00% 1.15% 3.87% 6.99% 6.50%
Total - visit 3 523 1551 2676 2709

Despite this, of our total sales, only 15% is to American customers with 75% of sales going to Canadian customers.

Any hypotheses on why our website www.selfiestick.ca is converting quite poorly with American consumers yet is doing well with Canadians?

 

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[theag]

.ca Domain
Cant find any shipping costs on the site.

 

[winfinite8]

If you are American, what is your perception of .CA? Alternatively, if you are from outside of USA/CDN, what is your perception of .CA?

Shipping costs are located in shopping cart section (screen shot attached). As a customer, are you interested to know more about the shipping charges earlier in the experience?

 

[ZCP]

.com is king.....

 

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[winfinite8]

Pursing .com immediately.

 

[Turbo]

It might boost conversion to have a badge in the upper right corner with a simplified shipping scheme:

Standard Shipping:
$13 to CAN, $9 to USA

Test it out and see if informing the customer about shipping costs on the homepage helps or hinders conversion. I also think less digits are easier to swallow for shipping costs (but again, it needs to be tested). Have you tried various overall pricing and shipping schemes, like baking the shipping price into the cost of the product? In the world of free shipping plastered everywhere (eBay, Amazon) the shipping fees seem a bit steep to me.

Also the USA shipping selection is a bit below the 'fold'. If a customer is looking at the page on a small screen, they might not realize your product ships to USA too! That 'cart' banner takes up way too much height on my 24" monitor at 1600*900 resolution. 2/3 of the page is wasted, and I can't easily see my cart contents. Don't make me work for it, people are lazy.

This is a cool tool to preview your site in different browser resolutions: http://quirktools.com/screenfly/

 

[winfinite8]

Thanks Turbo,

I appreciate your specific insights.

Previously I ran the product at $40.00 with free shipping. I had found conversions higher when customers had to pay for shipping on top of product. One of the challenge is shipping from Canada is that our shipping fees our higher.

I will look to add less digits for shipping costs, should be simpler for end customer. Will re-order the shipping costs list, with USA customers at highest.

 

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[theag]

As a customer, are you interested to know more about the shipping charges earlier in the experience?

Yes

Turbo's suggestions are good

 

[theag]

shipping from Canada

Cant you ship to the US from the US since you seem to be located at the border?

 

[Turbo]

I understand about the higher shipping costs in your situation. theag has a good suggestion, another angle is you could get your product in bulk across the border and to a fulfillment house/3PL?

I have heard of others seeing the same result you have seen, where conversion was better with a lower product price and shipping cost was an add-on. What about a middle ground: adding a couple bucks to the product price and then using that to drop the shipping price by a few bucks. Like $28.99 product and $5 USA standard shipping cost. Might be a good combo.

 

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[AlterJoule]

I also would like to know how your product compares with the GoPro line. Which I and most everyone I know uses exclusively. Have you considered your product compared to theirs? Perhaps you could explain some benefits that your product has over not only GoPro, but other companies that have a part of that market. Maybe you can emphasize a better price, durability, and quality compared to the others.



The term "Selfie" can be seen as negative as well. I know people in my groups often times ridicule the term and poke fun at it. Not sure how much of an impact it has but it's worth looking into.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Selfie

 

[Boo Blizzi]

I personally think the site needs to be redesigned. It looks like its missing something. (Cant quite put my finger on it) I am not a designer by any means, but you could put info, social media buttons and trust logos in the footer and side bar.

Also, as an American, when I see anything .uk, .ca, .au I dont even think about ordering from it. I figure I can find the same thing in the US at a better price or with faster shipping. Going with a .com is definitely the way to go.

Lastly, consider putting this product on Ebay and Amazon. I just sold one of these a few minutes ago for $40 bux. (it holds go-pro and smartphones)

 

[winfinite8]

Thanks very much to all my American counterparts for your time to review and advise!

I believe it is clear that I underestimated importance of .com, i have now setup http://shopselfiestick.com with 301 redirects from my original site www.selfiestick.ca. While it's still quite early, it seems I am on pace for record no. of single day visitors for the 23rd.

New website is sharper, more concise in attempts to convert customer. De-emphasized specificity to Canada to make it more American-centric, and ideally increase conversions from that traffic source.

Modified shipping costs to be flat $'s and also decreased amount to seem more reasonable to Americans (essentially baking that back into unit cost). Re-arranged listing of shipping costs so USA ranks top, with Canada/Int'l below it.

Shipping USA to USA is not practical, independently. Unfortunately, at this time passing of commercial goods across the border is a bit messy not to mention travel time. My passport has been flagged by DHS for border crossings into USA, so need to be a bit cautious on that.

@Turbo @theag 3PL is logical solution to this. For first shipments, I wanted to review the products before sending to end customer to ensure quality control (which has found a negligible defect rate). This has helped me improve the manufacturer and should lead to increased confidence for recurring orders. As well, at present time, 3PL fulfilment has not been cost beneficial owing to relatively small volumes. I anticipate increased volumes and negotiation should help to reduce 3PL costs. Fulfilment by 3PL is a fundamental part of the plan.

@AlterJoule yes, I personally am not the biggest fan of "selfies" but am agnostic to opportunity. That keyword targets a specific and rapidly growing customer type. The GoPro angle is interesting. While the market segment is a bit different, you are correct, there is definitely some overlap and opportunity.

@Boo Blizzi Thanks for illustrating your perspective as American, I believe this is vitally important. I have been selling the product on both Amazon and eBay, along with some other such as NewEgg and Etsy. These marketplaces have not been that successful and are difficult to compete with as a lower cost version (without battery, bluetooth, etc.) look similar but are much lower cost.

Thanks again to all for your feedback, it has been invaluable.

 

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[Turbo]

Site looks great with the updates- are the US sales picking up?

 

[winfinite8]

Site looks great with the updates- are the US sales picking up?

Thanks @Turbo !

Hahaha oh boy, total sales were fairly consistent(with small improvement to USA customers) but recently cratered about 6 days ago. Unfortunately the changes to URL/website has caused my google search ranking to decrease significantly. I was on page 1 and close to top spot, but now around pg 8 or 9 or so . Traffic to my site is still fairly consistent so I think I should be able to jump back up on google search index fairly quickly.

 

[winfinite8]

I have a forthcoming collaboration with this product and Canada's leading cancer charity. Allegedly it may get in the hands of "potential influencers" (someone from Dragon's Den). The forthcoming collaboration should certainly lead to more exposures. However, based on previous experience with promotional opportunities such as television and other advertising, I am bearish on the results it will generate.


The project has been an informative and interesting experience. It has definitely helped polish a lot of parts of my game that were rusty and I've certainly learned a lot of new things and established some nice biz systems. I was aware from the start that this project certainly did not follow all the commands of the Millionaire Fastlane , particularly barrier to entry. It's been interesting watching new competitors emerge, with many utilizing some of my marketing copy. Regardless, I have a nice money tree(or sproutling) that requires very little work or virtually no work to maintain.

 

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