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How to measure market size/need for Ecommerce site?

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JAWS

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I have an idea for an e-commerce site and am wondering if you fastlaners have any advice on gauging the market.


My thought is to get the website all set up, get my product pictures, descriptions, producing, etc. set up, and begin outsourcing someone to blog on behalf of it.

My question is about measuring the market because I am going to put it on "pre-order" for a month and see what traffic numbers I get.

How should I market it to minimize costs and maximize pre-orders?
 
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JAWS

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The-J

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I can already tell it's doomed. Why?

"My question is about measuring the market because I am going to put it on "pre-order" for a month and see what traffic numbers I get. "

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. You build the site, open pre-orders, and sell the living F*ck out of it. Build an e-mail list, join forums, put your product on Amazon (a biggie). Spend as LITTLE time as possible trying to build your interface. Your interface only has to be good enough.

Your focus should be making sure that you've actually uncovered a need! Once you get that, then your focus should be pushing product.
 

ALSL

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I can already tell it's doomed. Why?

"My question is about measuring the market because I am going to put it on "pre-order" for a month and see what traffic numbers I get. "

Wrong wrong wrong wrong. You build the site, open pre-orders, and sell the living F*ck out of it. Build an e-mail list, join forums, put your product on Amazon (a biggie). Spend as LITTLE time as possible trying to build your interface. Your interface only has to be good enough.

Your focus should be making sure that you've actually uncovered a need! Once you get that, then your focus should be pushing product.

I think that's exactly what he was asking for. Methods to get the word out there and into as many people's minds as possible for the least amount of monetary investment.

How would you recommend doing so?

You've suggested so far:

Build an e-mail list.
Join forums.
Put your product on Amazon.

I think the deeper question is one more level of how?

How do you build an e-mail list (how do you get the traffic to go to your landing page so that you can get their e-mail, or what other ways are there to get people's e-mails for as little (to no) money as possible?

Once you join forums, what do you do? Do you create a thread introducing yourself and your product and hope for people to be interested? Do you private message everyone in the forum and try to connect with them one on one as a person to try to gauge their interest or create interest?

Put you product on Amazon: fees involved? cost effectiveness? What if you are building a service-based product? (E.G. a monthly subscription to mystery gifts or snacks for example.)

I think the second level of how is what most newbies and lurkers are looking for from the more experienced members who have gone through it.

:D
 
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The-J

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I honestly have no idea how to build an e-mail list. It's something I'm struggling with myself.

So I'm going to read up on it. Thanks for reminding me.

How to Build Email List? Where to Find Email Subscribers?

I'm focusing on building my LinkedIn network and then using those e-mail addresses on my list. But I'm looking into other ways.

What I'm googling: "how to build an e-mail list", "how to get e-mail subscribers", "e-mail marketing tips"
 

theag

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I'm focusing on building my LinkedIn network and then using those e-mail addresses on my list.

You can't do that. They have to double opt-in.
 

nzerinto

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I have an idea for an e-commerce site and am wondering if you fastlaners have any advice on gauging the market....

My question is about measuring the market because I am going to put it on "pre-order" for a month and see what traffic numbers I get.

How should I market it to minimize costs and maximize pre-orders?

Quickest way to test the market:

1. Setup the site quickly. Doesn't have to be super cool or fancy, and definitely doesn't have to have hundreds of products - just a few as part of the test. The key point is speed. Once you get use to the process it shouldn't take longer than a day to do this. Don't bother with blogging or any other sort of "busy work" at this stage. Use a platform like Shopify or Volusion - they usually give the first 30 days free trial, so it's all setup for you, and it's free for the purpose of your test.

2. Setup the checkout section on the site to lead to a "Sorry We Are Revamping Our Services Right Now" type message. This kicks in just before the "enter payment details" section (so you never take their payment info), and you just leave a space for them to enter their name and email address, and a message encouraging them to enter their details so they will be "notified the moment the system is back up", or something along those lines.

3. Run a PPC campaign on your target keywords, and try to drive a few hundred visitors to the site (need a few to get a good sampling of the market - Stats 101 ;)

4. See how many visitors you get, how engaged they are with the site, and most importantly, how many emails/sign ups you got, which is a HUGE indicator of how hungry the market is for the product.

Should take you a day or two to setup the site, and the PPC campaign will probably run for about 2 weeks, depending on your campaign/keywords/budget. You don't need to invest in product you aren't even sure you'll sell, so your only expense - a couple days of setup and your PPC budget, which shouldn't cost more than $500.
 
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JAWS

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Your focus should be making sure that you've actually uncovered a need! Once you get that, then your focus should be pushing product.

Yes! Thank you J. This solidifies my drive to put up a standard theme and see the feasibility of my product. While there are many vendors for the ingredient, my product is spun in a different way and I must find the market need/target market first.

ALSL- Thanks for having my back.

nzerinto- That is exactly what I needed. The site is getting off the ground pronto

For now, it is test with ppc/facebook campaigns and see if I have a market. I will keep this posted
 

TheTruth

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Quickest way to test the market:

1. Setup the site quickly. Doesn't have to be super cool or fancy, and definitely doesn't have to have hundreds of products - just a few as part of the test. The key point is speed. Once you get use to the process it shouldn't take longer than a day to do this. Don't bother with blogging or any other sort of "busy work" at this stage. Use a platform like Shopify or Volusion - they usually give the first 30 days free trial, so it's all setup for you, and it's free for the purpose of your test.

2. Setup the checkout section on the site to lead to a "Sorry We Are Revamping Our Services Right Now" type message. This kicks in just before the "enter payment details" section (so you never take their payment info), and you just leave a space for them to enter their name and email address, and a message encouraging them to enter their details so they will be "notified the moment the system is back up", or something along those lines.

3. Run a PPC campaign on your target keywords, and try to drive a few hundred visitors to the site (need a few to get a good sampling of the market - Stats 101 ;)

4. See how many visitors you get, how engaged they are with the site, and most importantly, how many emails/sign ups you got, which is a HUGE indicator of how hungry the market is for the product.

Should take you a day or two to setup the site, and the PPC campaign will probably run for about 2 weeks, depending on your campaign/keywords/budget. You don't need to invest in product you aren't even sure you'll sell, so your only expense - a couple days of setup and your PPC budget, which shouldn't cost more than $500.


This.

But also, if you don't have a lot of money to blow, get some adwords vouchers :) You can find $100 ones all over the net.
 

nzerinto

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But also, if you don't have a lot of money to blow, get some adwords vouchers You can find $100 ones all over the net.

Yep you can pick them up from Fiverr for...er..five bucks. Some providers will even give up to 10 vouchers (so a value of $500 of free advertising, for $5). Unfortunately you can't use them all on the same Adwords account...!
 
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theag

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Google changed the voucher system. You don't get the $100 for free anymore, but instead have to spend a minimum of $25 on advertising and after that you get $75-100 as a bonus.
 

JAWS

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The site is up, and I am putting the finishing touches on by putting up 3-5 new posts with 5% kw content.

It looks pretty good for a quick week mock up and I am going to gauge traffic/need in the market via:

1. Google Adwords ($50-100)
2. Facebook Ads (Since I am in a micro niche, I am hoping that FB may actually be valuable...I will give you guys my ROI and experience back on that)
3. Affiliates. I am reaching out to a couple affiliates for $50-100 and having them promote my product once my suppliers are set in stone
4. Natural SEO (Hence, the articles)
5. Pinterest/Tumblr/Etc. My niche has TWO main demographics. One being a soccer mom type, so I am going to post pictures and see what traffic I get from them.

I will be tracking and split-testing(even though I probably need more people to split-test) with getclicky and visual web optimizer.

I will keep you posted
 

JAWS

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Since the 8th I have my biggest exams of my Junior Year all week , but that is not stopping me from working on my site. The exams seem so pointless as I work more and more on my e-commerce site.

Quick note: My goal for this site is to make about $10,000 profit each year and outsource it to my family. They need it much more than me and I will probably keep a 50/50 split on profit.

As of now, I have spent $50 on google adwords and $5 a day on Bing ads (plan to incremently increase the Bing ads).

Out of 15 people so far, only a few have gotten past the landing page (I need to make my sliders better). I improved the header, adding an email and a phone # into it.

I think that I need about 100-200 people visiting the site and 2% ordering before I am ready to spearhead this niche. BTW it is in the health niche.

Cannot wait until my last exam is over!!!
 
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Eric Jelen

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Quickest way to test the market:

1. Setup the site quickly. Doesn't have to be super cool or fancy, and definitely doesn't have to have hundreds of products - just a few as part of the test. The key point is speed. Once you get use to the process it shouldn't take longer than a day to do this. Don't bother with blogging or any other sort of "busy work" at this stage. Use a platform like Shopify or Volusion - they usually give the first 30 days free trial, so it's all setup for you, and it's free for the purpose of your test.

2. Setup the checkout section on the site to lead to a "Sorry We Are Revamping Our Services Right Now" type message. This kicks in just before the "enter payment details" section (so you never take their payment info), and you just leave a space for them to enter their name and email address, and a message encouraging them to enter their details so they will be "notified the moment the system is back up", or something along those lines.

3. Run a PPC campaign on your target keywords, and try to drive a few hundred visitors to the site (need a few to get a good sampling of the market - Stats 101 ;)

4. See how many visitors you get, how engaged they are with the site, and most importantly, how many emails/sign ups you got, which is a HUGE indicator of how hungry the market is for the product.

Should take you a day or two to setup the site, and the PPC campaign will probably run for about 2 weeks, depending on your campaign/keywords/budget. You don't need to invest in product you aren't even sure you'll sell, so your only expense - a couple days of setup and your PPC budget, which shouldn't cost more than $500.
How do you determine the listing price of your products?

The price of the product I am looking at has a wide price range based on quality and style.

Do you use sites such as eBay and Amazon to get an idea of what people are willing to pay?

Thanks
 

exclusives88

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This might be a dumb question. Do you buy a domain name for your "company"? Or do you just use the domain that the platform gives you ie. michaelsboxofchocolate.wordpress.com
 

marklov

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Gale4rc

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Since the 8th I have my biggest exams of my Junior Year all week , but that is not stopping me from working on my site. The exams seem so pointless as I work more and more on my e-commerce site.

Quick note: My goal for this site is to make about $10,000 profit each year and outsource it to my family. They need it much more than me and I will probably keep a 50/50 split on profit.

As of now, I have spent $50 on google adwords and $5 a day on Bing ads (plan to incremently increase the Bing ads).

Out of 15 people so far, only a few have gotten past the landing page (I need to make my sliders better). I improved the header, adding an email and a phone # into it.

I think that I need about 100-200 people visiting the site and 2% ordering before I am ready to spearhead this niche. BTW it is in the health niche.

Cannot wait until my last exam is over!!!

Make sure the landing page is directly relevant to the keyword they're coming in on

Also case studys have shown that having no slider improves conversion rates (this is something to test as every company is different)

Make sure to add retargeting to your list of things to do
 

MoneyDoc

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Guys, what's an acceptable conversion rate for a niche to be worthwhile. Is there a guideline you guys follow?
 

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