[PROGRESS THREAD] www.sneakercount.com

[Twiizlar]

I am going to start a progress thread to keep myself motivated and on task. My website is www.sneakercount.com . It is a website where people can locally buy/sell/trade sneakers (Jordans, Nike, Adidas). It is like craigslist with a focus on sneakers. There is a market for it if your wondering (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h52tQzOXIrQ ). I have been getting a decent amount of traffic for starting out but i am getting lazy and getting off task. I am mainly creating this thread to help me. Feel free to comment suggestions/tips/feedback. Thanks!

 

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[Twiizlar]

Update:

For the past couple of days i have been posting on facebook sneakerhead groups. This works for awhile until the members of the group have seen the post a couple of times. I bump the post on these groups once every 4 hours. I have also cleaned up the categories and limited it to just shoes. I am thinking about starting a blog. I just want to know what the cheapest domain/hosting is. My site is currently with hostgator so can i get a better deal that way or i have to pay a seperate $7 a month like i do now? What should i name the blog? Is a blog the way to go?

 

[brycer9]

A blog is the way to go. I also highly recommend starting a tumblr account geared towards shoes, and follow 200 people a day.

More about my tumblr strategy here: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/sh...r-for-your-business?highlight=tumblr+business

You can use the same strategy to get 5,000 followers in a couple months (that all like shoes)

 

[Twiizlar]

Just created my twitter: www.twitter.com/sneakercount and i am growing my instagram: sneakercount_ . Once i get twitter to 150 followers i will start facebook and then tumblr.

 

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[Twiizlar]

I was pretty busy with school today. I have just been social media marketing and posting ads from craigslist. Broke 1000 hits in less than a week YAY! I am very happy but I am still on the grind. Next step is to grow twitter, create facebook, then create a blog!

 

[Tom.V]

Lol, I just noticed you're spamming my friend's (and potential investor's) Facebook group. Nice.

 

[Milkanic]

You need a new logo. I'm all for bootstrapping but your current logo is going to deter people from taking your site seriously.
Is that a hair dryer in a shoe made in MS paint??

Put "professional" high resolution images of shoes on the front page. You need to get people emotionally involved.

Your "post an add" page should also show the terms of selling rather than just a sign up form.

 

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[brycer9]

^ Some of your buttons are broken, such as the selection of states. You should test everything and fix whats broken

 

[Silverhawk851]

You need some serious Web redesign. Think more along the lines of Elitedaily.com.

Tabs should income home, where all the Sneaker News is, Whats hot: which includes other celebrities are wearing, Trade/Swap: where people can exchange, and Buy: Where you can purchase brand new sneakers.

Get this going, can be big.
If not, let me know and I can help.

 

[Twiizlar]

You need a new logo. I'm all for bootstrapping but your current logo is going to deter people from taking your site seriously.
Is that a hair dryer in a shoe made in MS paint??

Put "professional" high resolution images of shoes on the front page. You need to get people emotionally involved.

Your "post an add" page should also show the terms of selling rather than just a sign up form.

That is just a temporary logo. I ordered a logo on fiverr from the guy brycer9 recommended to me.

 

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[Twiizlar]

You need some serious Web redesign. Think more along the lines of Elitedaily.com.

Tabs should income home, where all the Sneaker News is, Whats hot: which includes other celebrities are wearing, Trade/Swap: where people can exchange, and Buy: Where you can purchase brand new sneakers.

Get this going, can be big.
If not, let me know and I can help.

So my website should be like this http://solecollector.com/Sneakers/Marketplace/ with forums,blog,trade/swap? I actually think thats a good idea thank you

 

[Twiizlar]

You need some serious Web redesign. Think more along the lines of Elitedaily.com.

Tabs should income home, where all the Sneaker News is, Whats hot: which includes other celebrities are wearing, Trade/Swap: where people can exchange, and Buy: Where you can purchase brand new sneakers.

Get this going, can be big.
If not, let me know and I can help.

How would i go about this web redesign. Should i hire a new freelancer on odesk or freelancer (im short on cash). Is it something i can do myself (i am tech savy but i dont have any idea on how to code or design).

 

[tak]

I'd use Wordpress to build your e commerce site.
Lots of tools & plugins to use. Learning curve depends upon how technically inclined you are, shouldn't take but a few months.

 

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[Twiizlar]

I have setup the basic skeleton website (www.sneakercount.com) . I was wondering how I could integrate the three pages (store,blog, and marketplace) uniformly so I can switch between them easily?

 

[exige]

To make it so you can switch between them just add a blog link to your marketplace that takes you back to the homepage. You'll probably want to hack the wordpress theme to match the marketplace I suppose. What is the purpose of the Store vs. the marketplace? What is the platform that your Marketplace is on, does it not have an integrated blog capability? Right now if someone registered on your marketplace, I guess they would have to create another account on the blog if they wanted to comment on your posts? That SoleCollector site is pretty slick. Lots of different types of content/media, nice design, engaging, but of course they are backed by an entire media company.

 

[exige]

By the way, I think your wordpress install broke your marketplace. When I click on any of the ads on the marketplace homepage, it takes me to a wordpress 404 page. You need to get somebody to tweak your mod-rewrite rules in your .htaccess file.

 

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[Twiizlar]

To make it so you can switch between them just add a blog link to your marketplace that takes you back to the homepage. You'll probably want to hack the wordpress theme to match the marketplace I suppose. What is the purpose of the Store vs. the marketplace? What is the platform that your Marketplace is on, does it not have an integrated blog capability? Right now if someone registered on your marketplace, I guess they would have to create another account on the blog if they wanted to comment on your posts? That SoleCollector site is pretty slick. Lots of different types of content/media, nice design, engaging, but of course they are backed by an entire media company.

I have messaged the freelancer i was working with to fix the 404 problem. I also asked if there was a way to integrate all three pages (blog,marketplace,store) so i could navigate between them easily. Also the marketplace is a peer to peer place where people sell and the store is from me to the users. How would making the wordpress theme match the marketplace theme work?

 

[Milkanic]

What did you pay the developer for this if you don't mind me asking?

 

[whiteeclipse]

I'm really lost now, is it a blog or a marketplace?

 

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[Twiizlar]

I'm really lost now, is it a blog or a marketplace?

It is both. Originally it was a marketplace but i recieved advice that i should create a blog to drive traffic to the marketplace so this is what i thought of. An all in one website like solecollector.com

 

[pande]

I think you're onto a pretty decent idea. However your logo needs some serious work. I'm not sure if you posted that you're working on it or not, but I recommend you go to 99designs and get a logo created. It's a pretty good way to get your logo made. I'm currently 4 days into my logo contest and am very happy with what the designers have so far.

You can leverage craigslist somehow to boost your site activity. In two ways that I can think of. Contact shoe sellers on craigslist and tell them about your site or you can sell your shoes on craigslist and if you get a buyer tell him he can save 10% on the sale if he buys it through your website. Or you can trap him when he tries to bargain with you. Set your price as $120 for a set of shoes knowing that you'll be willing to sell them for $100. When he offers you $100 you tell him that the only way you'd be willing to let them go for that price is if he purchases it through your site. That or he can pay you $120!

 

[exige]

Just IMO, but I'd work on getting the user experience sorted out and getting traffic before worrying about blowing money on a logo. Logo is "good enough", get some more meat on the site and make the difference between marketplace and store clearer, etc.

 

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[pande]

Just IMO, but I'd work on getting the user experience sorted out and getting traffic before worrying about blowing money on a logo. Logo is "good enough", get some more meat on the site and make the difference between marketplace and store clearer, etc.

I'd have to disagree with you regarding the logo. The logo in the marketplace was done in paint. There is absolutely no way I would ever trust a website with my credit card information if their logo was created using paint. However, it looks like the op had already decided to improve his logo. I clicked over to his blog and found a much nicer logo. That's my opinion, but theirs more than one way to skin a cat. What matters is that the op is doing something, so kudos to him.

 

[Twiizlar]

Ok. Website is fully changed. I have added a blog, store, and a "whats hot" section. I have been posting 2 articles each on "whats hot" and the blog twice a day. Should i have the marketplace (my original idea) as the homepage or should i have the blog (thing that will get traffic to my marketplace) as my homepage. I am starting to think i dont need a blog due to the high level of competition in sneaker blogs. Whats new is the marketplace so idk.

 

[rkmalo1]

Looking good. I bought these rather expensive books from Internet Retailers to do some market research and thought of this thread when I saw this retailer below. Obviously I can't copy in the whole thing since it's something I paid for (and I don't want to violate their terms), but I hope this helps you. I found the shopper profile on this site rather interesting.

 

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[Twiizlar]

Looking good. I bought these rather expensive books from Internet Retailers to do some market research and thought of this thread when I saw this retailer below. Obviously I can't copy in the whole thing since it's something I paid for (and I don't want to violate their terms), but I hope this helps you. I found the shopper profile on this site rather interesting.

View attachment 6287

My website is kind of like sneakerhead.com . The store and blog aspect of my website are like sneakerhead.com . The marketplace of my website is a peer to peer shoe selling site like craigslist. That is my main thing.

 

[Twiizlar]

Should my homepage be the marketplace (the site thats the main idea) or should the blog be the homepage (to drive traffic to the marketplace)?

www.sneakercount.com

 

[exige]

Once you're in the marketplace there's no way back to the blog other than hitting the back button. I'd probably put the marketplace front and center, and pull in recent blog posts if you can. And vice versa, if someone is brought to the site by a blog post, have recent items and whatnot displayed around the content. Maybe after each post show images of the most recent 5 sneakers posted for sale in the marketplace. I'd try to make it more seamless between the sections and not like three silo'd sites - so it all kind of "flows" naturally with a consistent experience. Also make it clearer on the site that the marketplace is where they can post their sneakers for sale or buy sneakers, and the store is the site store, calls to action etc. The store page is actually empty right now with the default wordpress sample post. Do you even need the "store" just yet? I'd try to focus everything on supporting getting users to take the action you want them to - which is transacting sneakers through your marketplace.

Stay consistent and keep up posting quality content.

There's gotta be some way to hook this thing into SnapChat or Instagram or something like that, one of these newfangled social networks/apps that all the young ones are using, try and capture some network effect.

 

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[Twiizlar]

Once you're in the marketplace there's no way back to the blog other than hitting the back button. I'd probably put the marketplace front and center, and pull in recent blog posts if you can. And vice versa, if someone is brought to the site by a blog post, have recent items and whatnot displayed around the content. Maybe after each post show images of the most recent 5 sneakers posted for sale in the marketplace. I'd try to make it more seamless between the sections and not like three silo'd sites - so it all kind of "flows" naturally with a consistent experience. Also make it clearer on the site that the marketplace is where they can post their sneakers for sale or buy sneakers, and the store is the site store, calls to action etc. The store page is actually empty right now with the default wordpress sample post. Do you even need the "store" just yet? I'd try to focus everything on supporting getting users to take the action you want them to - which is transacting sneakers through your marketplace.

Stay consistent and keep up posting quality content.

There's gotta be some way to hook this thing into SnapChat or Instagram or something like that, one of these newfangled social networks/apps that all the young ones are using, try and capture some network effect.

Ok i do agree i should eliminate the store. The marketplace was created by a freelance coder who i hired off odesk. The blog and whats hot i created in wordpress i created in wordpress so that is why they are not similar. I am talking to the freelancer about adding a blog tab to the marketplace. I think i am going to make the marketplace the homepage while adding a blog tab. I do like the idea of on the blog having recent post in marketplace. Thank you!

 

[Twiizlar]

Wow its been almost a month since my last post. I have added the blog and whats up i just need to wait for my developer to link it to the main sneakercount website. I currently have 1300 followers on instagram and 130 on twitter. Slowly growing. I have added the blog but it doesnt bring in people like i hoped. Currently been stealing ads from craigslist to post on my site and writing blog articles. There are some "sneaker" conventions or trade shows coming up. Would it make a big difference for me to go to on? What should i do there?