Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[biophase]

Hi Biophase,
Thanks for helping us out.
Here is my dilemma. I found a product with roughly 50% margin and which sells for around 30 $. The keyword research in Adwords says 670,000 global searches and 110,000 US searches. How does that sound? How would I estimate how many sales I could make? I don't have a site up yet, so I would like to get a feel if this is the right product before I get into Google analytics and PPC campaigns.
Cheers,
Mike

Hi Mike,

I don't use too many statistics, but an easy way would be 110,000 monthly searches, assume that #1 spot gets 40% of the traffic so you would get 44,000 hits. Assume a conversion rate of 1% and you'd get 440 sales a month. With a $15 profit, you'd make about $6,600 a month.

This could be your expected #1 ranking profit starting point and you can adjust your numbers from there.

 

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[kwerner]

I'm not a big fan of wordpress shopping carts (although some are done very well).

Hey, I noticed you said you don't like the wordpress shopping carts and it made me think of a question...

What type of cart would you recommend if someone was just testing out a niche and wanted something cheap and easy to set up? And if they found that they were making sales on the simple cart, what would you recommend they upgrade to?

Thanks man.

 

[biophase]

Hey, I noticed you said you don't like the wordpress shopping carts and it made me think of a question...

What type of cart would you recommend if someone was just testing out a niche and wanted something cheap and easy to set up? And if they found that they were making sales on the simple cart, what would you recommend they upgrade to?

Thanks man.

That's tough for me to say, because how do you know it's the product and not a crappy site that is the cause of you not making sales? I think a wordpress site with a cart plugin maybe fine. There are some wordpress carts that look really good. But when you look at the cost of purchasing those plugins, it's better to just get a real cart instead. If a wordpress plugin is $150, then a $300 full fledged cart would be the better way to go.

This looks pretty good for $55 (just basing it on how the stores look, not functionality) Tribulant Software.

 

[kwerner]

That's tough for me to say, because how do you know it's the product and not a crappy site that is the cause of you not making sales? I think a wordpress site with a cart plugin maybe fine. There are some wordpress carts that look really good. But when you look at the cost of purchasing those plugins, it's better to just get a real cart instead. If a wordpress plugin is $150, then a $300 full fledged cart would be the better way to go.

Good point.

I have a follow-up question though... I seen the $300 cart option on Interspire's site that you mentioned, but is that a multi-license or do you have to pay $300 per domain? I didn't see anywhere that they mentioned it.

If it's multi-license, that's a heck of a deal!

Thanks again. Rep++

 

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[Tiger]

Hey, I noticed you said you don't like the wordpress shopping carts and it made me think of a question...

What type of cart would you recommend if someone was just testing out a niche and wanted something cheap and easy to set up? And if they found that they were making sales on the simple cart, what would you recommend they upgrade to?

Thanks man.

If you're just testing the waters you should check out Shopify.com

 

[Tiger]

Hi Biophase,
Thanks for helping us out.
Here is my dilemma. I found a product with roughly 50% margin and which sells for around 30 $. The keyword research in Adwords says 670,000 global searches and 110,000 US searches. How does that sound? How would I estimate how many sales I could make? I don't have a site up yet, so I would like to get a feel if this is the right product before I get into Google analytics and PPC campaigns.
Cheers,
Mike

Make sure you're testing various angles using phrase match and exact match and not just broad match. Just because a phrase is being searched for doesn't necessarily mean there's buying intent.

 

[Suhaib Alam]

Bio, i have a few questions if you can answer them.

1. If you setup a new store today, how much would your totaly budget be to setup and how much do you set aside for PPC?
2. Do you do all SEO yourself or do you buy link packages?
3. Once your site is setup and you have started SEO, how long does it take you to rank for it on page 1.
4. roughtly how many visitors would you attract in your second month.
5. Have you ever gone into a saturated market?

 

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[Pepino]

Hi Mike,

I don't use too many statistics, but an easy way would be 110,000 monthly searches, assume that #1 spot gets 40% of the traffic so you would get 44,000 hits. Assume a conversion rate of 1% and you'd get 440 sales a month. With a $15 profit, you'd make about $6,600 a month.

This could be your expected #1 ranking profit starting point and you can adjust your numbers from there.

and

Make sure you're testing various angles using phrase match and exact match and not just broad match. Just because a phrase is being searched for doesn't necessarily mean there's buying intent.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
Yes, I'm not sure if I'm researching the proper keywords. Here is more info about what I got (I replaced my product name with 'mouse traps' and the specific brands with 'Honda' and 'Toyota').

Mouse traps -> global: 670,000 USA: 110,000
Honda mouse traps -> global: 40,500 USA: 9,900
Toyota Mouse traps -> global: 27,100 USA: 6,600
mouse traps review -> global: 60,500 USA: 14,800
buy mouse traps -> global: 6,600 USA: 1,600

Am I looking at the proper things? The numbers are pretty bad when 'buy' is used. Does that tell me there isn't much demand for my product or customers are not buying the product in this way (but in a different way)? When adding 'review' the numbers aren't much better. I am confident that when people search by my product's name enter only there is a high percentage of searchers who are interested in purchasing it (unlike mouse traps).
Do you have any suggestions for things to try and what can I read into the above?
Thanks,
Mike

 

[dbjennings]

Mouse traps -> global: 670,000 USA: 110,000
Honda mouse traps -> global: 40,500 USA: 9,900
Toyota Mouse traps -> global: 27,100 USA: 6,600
mouse traps review -> global: 60,500 USA: 14,800
buy mouse traps -> global: 6,600 USA: 1,600

I'm no expert on how many searches a term needs to make it viable, but I don't think you need to concern yourself with the fact that "buy mouse traps" doesn't generate many searches compared to "mouse traps." When I'm looking to purchase something on the internet, I don't type "buy XXXX," I just search for "XXXX." Possibly I'll look for "discount XXXX" or "closeout XXXX," but I doubt many people type "buy" before the product that they intend to purchase.

 

[Mike39]

Mouse traps -> global: 670,000 USA: 110,000
Honda mouse traps -> global: 40,500 USA: 9,900
Toyota Mouse traps -> global: 27,100 USA: 6,600
mouse traps review -> global: 60,500 USA: 14,800
buy mouse traps -> global: 6,600 USA: 1,600

Don't forget you also have to take in to account keyword competition, many keywords are too competitive to get a 1st page ranking on without a killer strategy or an equally killer budget

 

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[biophase]

Bio, i have a few questions if you can answer them.

1. If you setup a new store today, how much would your totaly budget be to setup and how much do you set aside for PPC?
2. Do you do all SEO yourself or do you buy link packages?
3. Once your site is setup and you have started SEO, how long does it take you to rank for it on page 1.
4. roughtly how many visitors would you attract in your second month.
5. Have you ever gone into a saturated market?

I don't do alot of PPC, I budget around $5-$10 a day. You can setup a new store for under $1000. Your 2nd store could be setup for $100 after that.
I do some SEO myself and buy link packages. Right now, due to penguin I'm not sure what the correct course of action would be.
It usually takes 4-6 months to get on page 1. But it really depends on your URL and keywords. Some of mine took a year. But I'd say that in 4-6 months you should be able to get a bunch of keywords (2 word) on page one.
I don't know how many visitors I'd get in the second month. Some of my sites still only get 50-60 visitors a day but are making good sales. A niche store usually attracts very specific customers looking for exactly what you sell.
I've tried some saturated markets, but have found the untapped ones are alot easier (obviously) to get sales. I can go into a saturated market but I would have to spend alot more time doing SEO.

 

[spidey983]

Hi Biophase,

I have 3 e-commerce websites and found myself with problems I could not solve, ie Order Processing and Customer Service.
Right now I am doing both order processing and customer service myself; take up most of my time. A lot of 15-hour days. Not how I want to live my life.

I will be outlining the problems I face every day and what I want to accomplish but do not know how.

The problems:

1. Customer calls me before placing an order. A handful will place their orders on the websites. The websites are not very user friendly right now because of the incompetent web developers from India.
2. Usually after a 10 minute chat, I would send the customer a PayPal invoice to pay us using their PayPal accounts or Credit Cards. Some would ask for our bank account details, which I am happy to provide to avoid the PayPal fees.
3. After payment is made, I would go through the order details and create a set of instructions which I will pass down to my manager who will then pass the work down to other employees.
4. Other employees will send completed work to the manager and the manager will send it to me and I will show our customers what have been done.
5. Unhappy customers will contact me and I will then pass the details of the complaints to the manager who will then take appropriate actions.

What I want to accomplish is to automate the whole process with an e-commerce system:

1. LiveChat to be available on my websites 24/7 and telephone operators 24/7 – because of the different time zones customers are in. The livechat and telephone operators will direct/assist customers to order and pay at the websites.
2. After customer paid, I would like the whole process to be similar to Elance or Odesk. A customer order should be similar to posting a job at those freelancer websites.
3. Every day when the manager comes to work, she should be able to log in to a webpage and see Order1, Order2,… OrderX.
4. The customer should be able to log in to a webpage (ie a ‘workroom’) and see the details of her order and communicate with us in the dialog box.
5. Any problems, the manager(s) will work out with the customers.

The objective is to free myself up. I want to be able to go on a 1-week holiday and the system will still be running and money will still be coming in.

I am guessing I will need a good web developer but had had bad experiences when working with previous Indian web developers.

I am stuck and will appreciate your advice. Thank you.

 

[Suhaib Alam]

Thanks for the answers Biophase,

Just one more thing, have you ever offered an affiliate programe? what software would you recommend for it?

 

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[biophase]

Hi Biophase,

I have 3 e-commerce websites and found myself with problems I could not solve, ie Order Processing and Customer Service.
Right now I am doing both order processing and customer service myself; take up most of my time. A lot of 15-hour days. Not how I want to live my life.

I will be outlining the problems I face every day and what I want to accomplish but do not know how.

The problems:

1. Customer calls me before placing an order. A handful will place their orders on the websites. The websites are not very user friendly right now because of the incompetent web developers from India.
2. Usually after a 10 minute chat, I would send the customer a PayPal invoice to pay us using their PayPal accounts or Credit Cards. Some would ask for our bank account details, which I am happy to provide to avoid the PayPal fees.
3. After payment is made, I would go through the order details and create a set of instructions which I will pass down to my manager who will then pass the work down to other employees.
4. Other employees will send completed work to the manager and the manager will send it to me and I will show our customers what have been done.
5. Unhappy customers will contact me and I will then pass the details of the complaints to the manager who will then take appropriate actions.

I am stuck and will appreciate your advice. Thank you.

First thing I would do is try to get most orders done on the website. If your site is not easy to use, that is your problem and not the customers'. Why can't you resolve this issue?

There should be no need for a chat and then an invoice sent out if you fix the first issue.

Why do you have to create instructions, are the orders not clear to your employees? Why can't your manager do this part?

Why doesn't your manager send work directly to the customer?

Sounds like your manager is not really doing anything. Does he have people skills? LOL

Tom Smykowski's interview with Bobs — llakomy.com

 

[biophase]

Thanks for the answers Biophase,

Just one more thing, have you ever offered an affiliate programe? what software would you recommend for it?

I'm sorry but I've never offered or used an affiliate program.

 

[spidey983]

First thing I would do is try to get most orders done on the website. If your site is not easy to use, that is your problem and not the customers'. Why can't you resolve this issue?

I know very little about building websites and so far the web developers I hire on elance.com have been horrible. But I was on a tight budget when I hired them and maybe that was the problem.

This is another area that I really need help with. In general, what should I be looking out for when I hire a web developer/designer? I am now looking for some good people to redevelop the websites.

Why do you have to create instructions, are the orders not clear to your employees? Why can't your manager do this part?

I sell finance/business related research materials such as industry reports, market research, company/stock analysis, etc. Every client requires something a little bit different than the next. Client instructions can be confusing sometimes. I think my manager is good enough to understand what our clients want but I often feel uncomfortable giving my manager all the clients' personal details. I think making my manager do this part is the only way I can be fastlane.

Why doesn't your manager send work directly to the customer?

Sounds like your manager is not really doing anything. Does he have people skills? LOL

Managing the team of analysts and writers take up most of the manager's time.

My business is a business that relies heavily on human resource and it's troublesome. I am hoping my Manager + Websites can free myself up so that I can focus on other business development stuff.


I know that you manage a large number of e-commerce websites. Can you explain in detail how do you do it? When you hit X number of profitable e-commerce websites, you will have to rely on an IT system or start hiring people to help you?

 

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[spidey983]

Tom Smykowski's interview with Bobs — llakomy.com

That is exactly my problem and I can't find a way around it, as silly as that might sound.. lol

 

[paradox]

Hello everyone! Just joining the forum. Have been reading it for a while. Very inspirational! Thank you Biophase for offering your expertise, I truly admire your success. Sorry if it's already been covered, but i had a question about IT solution for running an ecommerce store. In some of your posts you mentioned you build websites yourself utilizing $300-$400 commercial software. I am not a developer but have a general idea about websites creation. Could you recommend any specific package that I can use to create clean looking professional websites? Also, I am considering Magento or Volusion shopping cart solution, any advice or personal preference on these?

 

[bmarone]

Well, I have an idea for an ecommerce/trade platform, but I'm pretty unfamiliar with the process of setting everything up. What process did you, in a nutshell, go through to set up your ecommerce site? Is it something as simple as just creating the platform (i.e. forums to sell your items, storefront, etc.), optimizing your search ranking, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself (within the bigger framework of the idea you're basing your site on) or is there a lot of finer details that need to be taken into account? Thanks for the info.

 

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[biophase]

This is another area that I really need help with. In general, what should I be looking out for when I hire a web developer/designer? I am now looking for some good people to redevelop the websites.

I can't really help you with this. It's a whole other topic.

I sell finance/business related research materials such as industry reports, market research, company/stock analysis, etc. Every client requires something a little bit different than the next. Client instructions can be confusing sometimes. I think my manager is good enough to understand what our clients want but I often feel uncomfortable giving my manager all the clients' personal details. I think making my manager do this part is the only way I can be fastlane.

If you feel that you are the only person who can do a certain task, you will be stuck doing it forever. If you don't give your manager client details then that means they aren't needed for his job. So why can't you get the software/website to pass that info through with the personal info stripped?

Managing the team of analysts and writers take up most of the manager's time.

My business is a business that relies heavily on human resource and it's troublesome. I am hoping my Manager + Websites can free myself up so that I can focus on other business development stuff.

You are basically looking for a way a website can take orders and pass them straight to the manager without your involvement. Does this sound realistic based on what you know about your business?

I know that you manage a large number of e-commerce websites. Can you explain in detail how do you do it? When you hit X number of profitable e-commerce websites, you will have to rely on an IT system or start hiring people to help you?

I just have a server, 2 employees. I'm not sure what part of the management would be difficult. All I am doing is accepting orders and sending them out. It's an easy process. What aspects would you like to specifically know about?

 

[biophase]

In some of your posts you mentioned you build websites yourself utilizing $300-$400 commercial software. I am not a developer but have a general idea about websites creation. Could you recommend any specific package that I can use to create clean looking professional websites? Also, I am considering Magento or Volusion shopping cart solution, any advice or personal preference on these?

I would recommend looking at Bigcommerce. I think their cart software is really good. You don't need to be a developer to figure it out.

 

[biophase]

Well, I have an idea for an ecommerce/trade platform, but I'm pretty unfamiliar with the process of setting everything up. What process did you, in a nutshell, go through to set up your ecommerce site? Is it something as simple as just creating the platform (i.e. forums to sell your items, storefront, etc.), optimizing your search ranking, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself (within the bigger framework of the idea you're basing your site on) or is there a lot of finer details that need to be taken into account? Thanks for the info.

What do you mean by a platform? When you say the rest pretty much takes care of itself, what do you mean by the rest??

The process is basically:
buy a domain
get hosting
set up a storefront
get merchant account/payment processor
get traffic (PPC, SEO, Ads, etc...)
process orders

 

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[kwerner]

I have a follow-up question though... I seen the $300 cart option on Interspire's site that you mentioned, but is that a multi-license or do you have to pay $300 per domain? I didn't see anywhere that they mentioned it.

Bump for this question =)

 

[biophase]

Bump for this question =)

Hi Kwerner, sorry I missed that post. The interspire cart and most others are $300 for one domain.

 

[kwerner]

Thanks bud!

 

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[spidey983]

So why can't you get the software/website to pass that info through with the personal info stripped?

I didn't know I can do that. Cool.

You are basically looking for a way a website can take orders and pass them straight to the manager without your involvement. Does this sound realistic based on what you know about your business?

Sounds realistic.

I just have a server, 2 employees. I'm not sure what part of the management would be difficult. All I am doing is accepting orders and sending them out. It's an easy process. What aspects would you like to specifically know about?

I don't know..

You've given me some important questions to think about. I appreciate it. Thanks Biophase.

 

[gfrye13]

I have a question about this. I am out of the country right now for at least another year and a half, although I want to sell in the USA. I have found a great product but not sure how I will handle the product fulfillment. The manufacturer I am using doesnt have a drop ship method. Is their some form of product fulfillment service that I can get my products to and have them ship my products once I send them the orders?

 

[biophase]

I have a question about this. I am out of the country right now for at least another year and a half, although I want to sell in the USA. I have found a great product but not sure how I will handle the product fulfillment. The manufacturer I am using doesnt have a drop ship method. Is their some form of product fulfillment service that I can get my products to and have them ship my products once I send them the orders?

You can ship all your stuff to a fulfillment company. They will handle shipping all your orders and customer calls about tracking numbers and returns. You can also try Amazon fulfillment.

 

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[gfrye13]

You can ship all your stuff to a fulfillment company. They will handle shipping all your orders and customer calls about tracking numbers and returns. You can also try Amazon fulfillment.

I thought about Amazon fulfillment but wasnt sure if I needed to list the items on Amazon in order to use their fulfillment center. Is there a specific one you suggest if not I will just google some and find the one that offers the best service for me.

 

[gfrye13]

ok so I looked at Amazon and they seem to have an entire set up. Including the shopping cart. So what are the positive and negatives for using Amazon. If I can get an entire e commerce store and have them fulfill my orders. This seems like a great one stop shop.