Struggling to grow our eCommerce store | Feedback and Ideas?

[TRFastlane]

Hey there,

I would like to get some feedback from you guys regarding our store:

[REMOVED]

I founded the jewelry brand in 2018 but really started to put in work in June 2020. Since then, we did around 330k in sales, averaging around 120k per year. We are also somewhat profitable.

We invested a good amount of money to relaunch our store 1 month ago, but we are struggling to increase our sales. I don´t expect it to be easy, but I would love to get some honest feedback on how to improve what we are doing and crush it.

Our main advertising channels are Facebook and Instagram, and we are doing a little bit on the Google Ads side as well.
We were doing okay on Facebook until October. But when we relaunched our store and created a new campaign, our CPMs quadrupled, same goes for our CPC (Cost per Click), so it´s hard to be profitable because we are not driving enough traffic. Our current budget is $200/day (in the testing phase.)

I would appreciate every help that we can get.

Thank you!

 

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[WillHurtDontCare]

Have you tried marketing on TikTok? I've heard a few e-com owners rave about their TikTok ROI.

 

[LateStarter]

Hey, welcome to the forums! I see you're relatively new here.

I have a bunch of questions that would help me to understand your current position, so excuse the flood:

• If you've just relaunched your store, then you knew there were issues with it that you wanted to improve. What did you change?
• What were the problems with the old site that you wanted to fix?
• Did you achieve the goals for the redesign and how did you measure that success?
• How do the conversion metrics for the new store compare to the old ones?
• Stats for returning customers and customer LTV would also be interesting know if you're looking to increase sales.
• Is traffic really the problem or are there other issues that you need to work on but you're attributing (falsely) to traffic?

I visited your site as if I was a potential customer. Your photos look good; the site is clean. Kudos on that. The banner is good and I can see it was designed for mobile first. The banner doesn't work as well for desktop but that's not a big deal.

Immediately with jewelry I start to think, "What's the quality of the product?" and "Is this a reputable company, or just someone peddling dropshipped crap with a slick website?" (no offense intended). For me, I don't feel 100% confident when I visit it.

While you do offer a 60-day return and a lifetime warranty, this detail is buried at the bottom of the page. I didn't even notice this detail until I found it on a product page. As a potential customer, I'd like to see more trust factors upfront; things like testimonials, quotes from articles about the company, or other PR/endorsements and have these up-front on the main page to immediately give me more confidence in the product and brand. The same goes for social proof. You have 12 posts on your IG account and 0 on Tiktok. Why have these links if you're not using the channels? Start pushing the brand to your own social channels and get some social clout by engaging with your audience.

I found it odd that the a picture of the Founder and CEO on the main page and Our Story shows he isn't wearing any jewelry. Like NONE. Subconsciously I start to think "Why? If this guy doesn't like jewelry, why is he in the jewelry business?" It's a visual manifestation cognitive dissonance and subconsciously I want to avoid buying from you. I'm not saying it has to be 'your' jewelry (though that would be ideal) but wear something, or better yet several things; a nice watch, a chain, a bracelet, some rings). Show that you live and breathe this industry.

This is more nit-picking, but it's food for thought. The 2 points about "Sustainability" and "Fair Pricing" are completely disconnected from your Mission. I'd spend some more time tightening all of this up.

On the Our story page I'd also ditch the first quote in the owner profile. It's parroting the company mission too closely and doesn't help the narrative.

“To me, Ruby & Luna is symbolic of self-realization and expression—beyond social expectations, norms, or trends. It empowers you to define who you are, on your own terms.”

The second quote, below, is more personal and genuine. That's the money quote!

“As someone who grew up in Germany with a Turkish background, I was torn between two cultures, two ways of life, and two identities. All of the different expectations made it difficult to freely be myself. When I finally let go and chose to be who I truly wanted to be—I unlocked a newfound happiness that has empowered my life and self-expression ever since.”

Another option could be to step back from being the face of the brand. There's a bit of a disconnect between the name "Ruby and Luna" and a Germany Turk dude. Initially I thought the two models in the banner were the owners "Ruby and Luna". I went to the Our Story page expecting to find some meaning behind the brand but there was none. If you can make the name a part of the brand story it would make everything more cohesive and help to connect these dots.

As for traffic, I've been out of the e-com game for a few years so I can't really comment on the current state much aside from echoing what @WillHurtDontCare said about TikTok's ROI from others I know in that space.

 

[Hong_Kong]

Hey there,

I would like to get some feedback from you guys regarding our store:


[REMOVED]

I founded the jewelry brand in 2018 but really started to put in work in June 2020. Since then, we did around 330k in sales, averaging around 120k per year. We are also somewhat profitable.

We invested a good amount of money to relaunch our store 1 month ago, but we are struggling to increase our sales. I don´t expect it to be easy, but I would love to get some honest feedback on how to improve what we are doing and crush it.

Our main advertising channels are Facebook and Instagram, and we are doing a little bit on the Google Ads side as well.
We were doing okay on Facebook until October. But when we relaunched our store and created a new campaign, our CPMs quadrupled, same goes for our CPC (Cost per Click), so it´s hard to be profitable because we are not driving enough traffic. Our current budget is $200/day (in the testing phase.)

I would appreciate every help that we can get.

Thank you!

It says "made from brass and gold". This would make me think its a brass ring that has been plated with gold. Seems like not the best value for the price.

 

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[TRFastlane]

Hey, welcome to the forums! I see you're relatively new here.

I have a bunch of questions that would help me to understand your current position, so excuse the flood:

• If you've just relaunched your store, then you knew there were issues with it that you wanted to improve. What did you change?
• What were the problems with the old site that you wanted to fix?
• Did you achieve the goals for the redesign and how did you measure that success?
• How do the conversion metrics for the new store compare to the old ones?
• Stats for returning customers and customer LTV would also be interesting know if you're looking to increase sales.
• Is traffic really the problem or are there other issues that you need to work on but you're attributing (falsely) to traffic?

I visited your site as if I was a potential customer. Your photos look good; the site is clean. Kudos on that. The banner is good and I can see it was designed for mobile first. The banner doesn't work as well for desktop but that's not a big deal.

Immediately with jewelry I start to think, "What's the quality of the product?" and "Is this a reputable company, or just someone peddling dropshipped crap with a slick website?" (no offense intended). For me, I don't feel 100% confident when I visit it.

While you do offer a 60-day return and a lifetime warranty, this detail is buried at the bottom of the page. I didn't even notice this detail until I found it on a product page. As a potential customer, I'd like to see more trust factors upfront; things like testimonials, quotes from articles about the company, or other PR/endorsements and have these up-front on the main page to immediately give me more confidence in the product and brand. The same goes for social proof. You have 12 posts on your IG account and 0 on Tiktok. Why have these links if you're not using the channels? Start pushing the brand to your own social channels and get some social clout by engaging with your audience.

I found it odd that the a picture of the Founder and CEO on the main page and Our Story shows he isn't wearing any jewelry. Like NONE. Subconsciously I start to think "Why? If this guy doesn't like jewelry, why is he in the jewelry business?" It's a visual manifestation cognitive dissonance and subconsciously I want to avoid buying from you. I'm not saying it has to be 'your' jewelry (though that would be ideal) but wear something, or better yet several things; a nice watch, a chain, a bracelet, some rings). Show that you live and breathe this industry.

This is more nit-picking, but it's food for thought. The 2 points about "Sustainability" and "Fair Pricing" are completely disconnected from your Mission. I'd spend some more time tightening all of this up.

On the Our story page I'd also ditch the first quote in the owner profile. It's parroting the company mission too closely and doesn't help the narrative.

The second quote, below, is more personal and genuine. That's the money quote!

Another option could be to step back from being the face of the brand. There's a bit of a disconnect between the name "Ruby and Luna" and a Germany Turk dude. Initially I thought the two models in the banner were the owners "Ruby and Luna". I went to the Our Story page expecting to find some meaning behind the brand but there was none. If you can make the name a part of the brand story it would make everything more cohesive and help to connect these dots.

As for traffic, I've been out of the e-com game for a few years so I can't really comment on the current state much aside from echoing what @WillHurtDontCare said about TikTok's ROI from others I know in that space.

Very valuable feedback! Thank you very much for taking the time to go through it in detail.

Here are a couple of points to answer your questions:

• If you've just relaunched your store, then you knew there were issues with it that you wanted to improve. What did you change?
  • -> We started out as a dropshipping store back in 2018. Now we wanted to transition away from that and build a real brand. We invested in a big photo shoot and started to work with a 3PL. Even though we haven´t managed to transition all products to our 3PL yet, we can provide faster shipping now (2-5 days) and express shipping. We also hired a branding agency to create a real, consistent brand identity.
• What were the problems with the old site that you wanted to fix?
  • -> We wanted to create a real brand experience and also increase trust and transparency across the store. In our old store, we didn´t even have real lifestyle images with models, only pictures that were taken with the phone of a hand model. We also didn´t have a lot of info about the brand and the founder. That´s why we included the founder in the photo shoot to get a picture of the people behind the brand. Mejuri, one of the biggest competitors, is also doing this.
• Did you achieve the goals for the redesign and how did you measure that success?
  • -> Not at all. We started a brand new campaign and turned off the old one and sales basically plummeted to almost zero. We do get sales here and there, but our conversion rate as of now is 0.5%. I don´t really know if it´s a site issue or anything else. Because we changed so many things (including our Creatives in the ad campaign), it´s hard to pinpoint the issue here.
• How do the conversion metrics for the new store compare to the old ones?
  • Right now we convert 0.5% of the traffic, beforehand it was 2.2% on average.
• Stats for returning customers and customer LTV would also be interesting to know if you're looking to increase sales.
  • -> Returning Customer Rate is around 8%. This is something that we have to improve a lot and hadn´t made our focus yet.
• Is traffic really the problem or are there other issues that you need to work on but you're attributing (falsely) to traffic?
  • -> That´s the challenge here. I don´t really know how to pinpoint and diagnose the issue. We are getting clicks, a fairly high CTR of 2.5% on a broad audience on Facebook (although High CPM), but people barely put anything in the cart.

My gut feeling is telling me what you already mentioned, that it´s a TRUST issue. The challenge is in my opinion convincing or showing the customers that we can deliver what we promise. In order to do that, we do need reviews (but we don´t have any for now) and we also don´t have any PR.

This is a painful lesson that I wish I had learned and implemented earlier. Since we were dropshipping at the beginning, we didn´t implement the review requests properly.

 

[LateStarter]

Thanks for the added context.

If you were drop shipping before, am I right to assume that it wasn't under the same brand name? In which case it makes sense that you're basically starting from zero again. In either case, how are you leveraging your old pool of customers? Do you have a customer email list from opt-ins? Email them telling them about the exciting rebranding and direction for the company. Explain all the new benefits of faster shipping, better customer support, easier exchanges/returns, etc. Thank them for making this possible. Give them a link to submit a review of the products and talk to them about your exciting new lineup! Offer them a discount in exchange for the review or just as a repeat buyer. Long term reviews can be more informative to what you need to do with your products.

Work on the free things that you need to help your brand. Get your social media going. Get the post counts up on all platforms and figure out some hashtags that work for you. Invite prior customers to sub/follow you on social and ask them to use the hashtags that help you. Find influencers you'd like to work with and offer them free products in exchange for a review.

I think @Eskil had a post on here with a bunch of resources for getting articles made about your brand/product. See if any of those can work for you once you get a bit of customer traction.

I had a women's fashion brand before. See if you can get involved in fashion shows. Sometimes they'll work with you as an event sponsor if you provide product for the runways and some giveaways; no cash needed. They'll usually provide ad space in their event brochures and provide mentions in any publications. They'll also have spaces available for vendors or sponsors to showcase or even sell their products during the event. Face-to-face selling or marketing will help you get an understanding of how people really feel about your products. It'll give you ideas on how to market your product more effectively and get it to resonate with your target customers.

Three more small points about the website.

• Brand positioning. From what you described you're trying to offer 'premium products for a valuable price'. If so, I'd avoid words and categories like "Best sellers" and instead use words like "Most popular". Review all your copy and remove anything that sounds like you're selling. Make it about the customer and what it provides them.
• Paradox of choice. When you start getting into a higher number of products/SKUs, start thinking about how a customer shops and how you can guide them to a smaller number of products from which to purchase; and avoid the paradox of choice. Increase the number of categories to reduce the products presented and align them with a customer journey. Add a 'Shop by Metal', or 'Shop by gemstone/color'. If you can, group your products into 'Collections'; like the Myka Ring and Vida Braclet could be part of a collection.
• Cross sells. Get these higher up on the product page and include all the products that are present on the model. If they like the look of the curated photo, let them shop the whole look at once with little effort.

Good luck!

 

[Tina Diaz]

Hey, I am not an expert in marketing but I would suggest you to keep your social media accounts more active. Instagram , Tiktok.

 

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[K1 Lambo]

Hey there,

I would like to get some feedback from you guys regarding our store:

[REMOVED]

I founded the jewelry brand in 2018 but really started to put in work in June 2020. Since then, we did around 330k in sales, averaging around 120k per year. We are also somewhat profitable.

We invested a good amount of money to relaunch our store 1 month ago, but we are struggling to increase our sales. I don´t expect it to be easy, but I would love to get some honest feedback on how to improve what we are doing and crush it.

Our main advertising channels are Facebook and Instagram, and we are doing a little bit on the Google Ads side as well.
We were doing okay on Facebook until October. But when we relaunched our store and created a new campaign, our CPMs quadrupled, same goes for our CPC (Cost per Click), so it´s hard to be profitable because we are not driving enough traffic. Our current budget is $200/day (in the testing phase.)

I would appreciate every help that we can get.

Thank you!

Instagram story ads are really cheap. They're really powerful with the swipe up feature. Have you tried them before?

 

[FastNAwesome]

Hi @TRFastlane,

I worked with quite a few fashion brands - as a web developer though,
so this is literally just my opinion, for what it's worth.

1) I love the homepage.
Main photo is perfection.
Great headline and tagline as well.

All photos look great.
Design is slick and appropriate.
User experience is great. Fast website, and really easy to browse around.

I feel good on your website.

What I don't like at all is that scrollbar on top,
it's distracting, and - for me at least, cheapens the experience and breaks the mood.

If it needs to be there, I'd rather it's still.


2) I love your story.
What I don't like is that "Our story" option opens a submenu with three links.
That's too much work and too much thinking. And not designed to guide prospect towards a sale.

Clicking "Our story" should get visitor straight to your story. Single click. Single outcome.

Love the photo and headline on the "Overview" page. I'd maybe turn that into "Our story" page,
and right below the photo have your story.

Let the visitor get to know you first before getting into technical details.

Pull them into your story, let them feel how similar you are in so many ways,
and they just might feel the desire to express themselves through your products.

Maybe technical benefits like pricing could also be weaven into a story,
but this is just a quick post, so - just a thought.

3) I see you have different analytics on your website, as well as HotJar.
Have you noticed where prospects tend to drop off? Or how they usually interact with your website?

 

[FastNAwesome]

PS. Also the thing @LateStarter mentioned - collections. That's what every brand I worked with had.
(often with website redesign to go with new collection)

 

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[FastNAwesome]

Also, given the name of the brand, I though it was from the names of these two models.
So my first impression was that they're the designers.

One way how you could add it to your story...
Since your brand is made from two names.

Maybe each name could be one collection, with distinct character and different story.

So for each season, you could have a new collection made of two collections.

 

[Matt_2190]

What if you do more storytelling?

I usually don't wear jewelry. But not even 5 minutes after reading your topic I was hit by a social media ad on FB from a jewelry brand I didn't know.

They create jewels starting from the bombs found in war zones. They hit me a lot, because it looks like something I could wear and I was fascinated by the story behind it. I never searched or clicked on jewels ads, but this time I was going to buy something, if only as a gift.

Probably you can't imitate them (your products look more "glamour") but you got the idea.

 

[TRFastlane]

Thanks for the added context.

If you were drop shipping before, am I right to assume that it wasn't under the same brand name? In which case it makes sense that you're basically starting from zero again. In either case, how are you leveraging your old pool of customers? Do you have a customer email list from opt-ins? Email them telling them about the exciting rebranding and direction for the company. Explain all the new benefits of faster shipping, better customer support, easier exchanges/returns, etc. Thank them for making this possible. Give them a link to submit a review of the products and talk to them about your exciting new lineup! Offer them a discount in exchange for the review or just as a repeat buyer. Long term reviews can be more informative to what you need to do with your products.

Work on the free things that you need to help your brand. Get your social media going. Get the post counts up on all platforms and figure out some hashtags that work for you. Invite prior customers to sub/follow you on social and ask them to use the hashtags that help you. Find influencers you'd like to work with and offer them free products in exchange for a review.

I think @Eskil had a post on here with a bunch of resources for getting articles made about your brand/product. See if any of those can work for you once you get a bit of customer traction.

I had a women's fashion brand before. See if you can get involved in fashion shows. Sometimes they'll work with you as an event sponsor if you provide product for the runways and some giveaways; no cash needed. They'll usually provide ad space in their event brochures and provide mentions in any publications. They'll also have spaces available for vendors or sponsors to showcase or even sell their products during the event. Face-to-face selling or marketing will help you get an understanding of how people really feel about your products. It'll give you ideas on how to market your product more effectively and get it to resonate with your target customers.

Three more small points about the website.

• Brand positioning. From what you described you're trying to offer 'premium products for a valuable price'. If so, I'd avoid words and categories like "Best sellers" and instead use words like "Most popular". Review all your copy and remove anything that sounds like you're selling. Make it about the customer and what it provides them.
• Paradox of choice. When you start getting into a higher number of products/SKUs, start thinking about how a customer shops and how you can guide them to a smaller number of products from which to purchase; and avoid the paradox of choice. Increase the number of categories to reduce the products presented and align them with a customer journey. Add a 'Shop by Metal', or 'Shop by gemstone/color'. If you can, group your products into 'Collections'; like the Myka Ring and Vida Braclet could be part of a collection.
• Cross sells. Get these higher up on the product page and include all the products that are present on the model. If they like the look of the curated photo, let them shop the whole look at once with little effort.

Good luck!

A lot of value here.

We have already started and implemented some of your suggestions like creating different collections. We will continue to do so.

A couple of questions:

1. Do you have any tips on how to get started regarding fashion shows? Any best practices or resources that you can recommend?

2. Regarding the posts of @Eskil. Did you have some specific resources in mind? I searched here in the forum and struggled to find some regarding the PR and magazine stuff.

And regarding our name, we didn´t change the name actually. We continued to use the name that we had from the beginning to not throw away the work and "recognition" that we had until that point.

Another thing I would be interested in is this:

We were "featured" in a series called Rosewell Mexiko from Warner Bros. where they basically used one of our rings in their show. Do you think it´s valuable to put that as a reference on the website?

Thank you!

 

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[TRFastlane]

Instagram story ads are really cheap. They're really powerful with the swipe up feature. Have you tried them before?

Hey. As far as I know, this is now replaced with the "Link" feature correct?

We use it sometimes when we post on Instagram. But as others already mentioned here, our social media sucks as of right now. We don´t have a regular posting schedule, as most of the stuff is done by me. And i don´t have time for all of that.

If you have any resources or tips, i would be happy to take a look.

 

[TRFastlane]

Hi @TRFastlane,

I worked with quite a few fashion brands - as a web developer though,
so this is literally just my opinion, for what it's worth.

1) I love the homepage.
Main photo is perfection.
Great headline and tagline as well.

All photos look great.
Design is slick and appropriate.
User experience is great. Fast website, and really easy to browse around.

I feel good on your website.

What I don't like at all is that scrollbar on top,
it's distracting, and - for me at least, cheapens the experience and breaks the mood.

If it needs to be there, I'd rather it's still.


2) I love your story.
What I don't like is that "Our story" option opens a submenu with three links.
That's too much work and too much thinking. And not designed to guide prospect towards a sale.

Clicking "Our story" should get visitor straight to your story. Single click. Single outcome.

Love the photo and headline on the "Overview" page. I'd maybe turn that into "Our story" page,
and right below the photo have your story.

Let the visitor get to know you first before getting into technical details.

Pull them into your story, let them feel how similar you are in so many ways,
and they just might feel the desire to express themselves through your products.

Maybe technical benefits like pricing could also be weaven into a story,
but this is just a quick post, so - just a thought.

3) I see you have different analytics on your website, as well as HotJar.
Have you noticed where prospects tend to drop off? Or how they usually interact with your website?

Hey man!

very good info here. I already started to implement some of the stuff like removing the moving announcement bar. It indeed cheapened the website experience.

Regarding Hotjar:

Actually, there is not a lot that i can see here. Most of the recordings, the users scroll around a little bit, look at different products and then drop off.

It´s hard for me to interpret this as i don´t see a real pattern here. Maybe i´m just not good enough at interpreting them.

 

[LateStarter]

A lot of value here.

We have already started and implemented some of your suggestions like creating different collections. We will continue to do so.

Great! Also look at the sites for major brands that you want to emulate or could learn from. Leverage the work they put into their UX and copy it. Whether it's Tiffany, Rolex, or whatever, pick apart their site and think about why they structured it that way.

1. Do you have any tips on how to get started regarding fashion shows? Any best practices or resources that you can recommend?

My experience was more specific to Toronto but also in the Swimwear/Beachwear area. Find people to connect with that are local to you. Attend events and talk to people. How do you do that? Google.

Berlin Fashion Week - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Look for new/up and coming fashion magazines or websites. Find out what events they attend and ask who they can connect you with or "who should I know to (____)"

ie. Top 10 - Fashion Magazine Germany - CM Models | Model Agency says FIV Magazine is a up and coming new fashion mag in German.

You've got to put in the research and leg work.

2. Regarding the posts of @Eskil. Did you have some specific resources in mind? I searched here in the forum and struggled to find some regarding the PR and magazine stuff.

I'm not sure. It was a long time ago that I read it. It may be a part of his kickstarter thread. Reach out to him and see if he can help direct you.

And regarding our name, we didn´t change the name actually. We continued to use the name that we had from the beginning to not throw away the work and "recognition" that we had until that point.

Great! Then put that recognition to work for you. Holiday season is here. Use your list of buyers and opt-ins to drive more traffic. Have you seen the latest Alex Hormozi vid?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4NdEe0KYVo
Learn from it.

Another thing I would be interested in is this:

We were "featured" in a series called Rosewell Mexiko from Warner Bros. where they basically used one of our rings in their show. Do you think it´s valuable to put that as a reference on the website?

Hell yes! Use what you've got! Use the 'As seen on' technique with a screen grab or video loop of the product in the series. That's all part of the social proof you're customers need.

 

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[LateStarter]

At the risk of sounding like a dick, it took 39 mins from start to finish for me to be notified of your reply, read it and reply to it. 39 mins to start researching resources for fashions shows in Germany; a place I know nothing about. A simple Google search "German Fashion Shows" started producing resources. Another simple Google search "German Fashion Magazines" found a new rabbit hole to dig into.

It's not hard and you need to make the effort.

I don't mean to single you out on this. This is really for all the people who read this thread. So many people starting out want to be spoon fed answers and given shortcuts. As countless others have already said here;

"There are no shortcuts."

Take the advice you're given and make the effort to see what will work for you. My advice may not work in your situation. You need to put in the work and find out for yourself.

Remember that advice and effort or two different things and it's important that you don't get them twisted.

 

[FastNAwesome]

1. Do you have any tips on how to get started regarding fashion shows?

You could call a few brand management companies focused on fashion industry.
Even if you don't end up working together, you'd probably get some insights and direction.