Uh Oh! 2 Months, 2K Site Visitors, 32k FB Ads Reach, Only TWO Sales

[Rinzler]

Preface: Let me start by saying I abandoned my brothers and sisters on this website for a year or so, and lurked a lot on the /entrepreneur/ subreddit instead. Normally, I wouldn't post asking for specific advice on these forums because I know we get enough clutter as is. I also don't mind sharing my product / website because while the product may not be unique, the relationship I have with my supplier is, so I'm not worried about copycats.

Condensed Backstory: I go on a magical vacation to Las Vegas for the highly coveted Electronic Daisy Carnival for the first time. The young, and possibly stupid wantrepreneur in me sees a major opportunity after talking with several attendees about their awesome light up shoes. I get home after vacation, put my initial product I was developing on hold and spend 5 months researching, designing, searching, communicating, and investing for this new "business" idea. $3k spent and many emails later, I finally have my initial order of the product, all customized and white-labeled to my liking. Product packaging, product design, social media, and Shopify all set up. 2 Week Trial of Shopify proves to be useless. I then start realizing in the 5 months it took me to get myself established, dozens of generic storefronts emerged selling the same general sh*t, except theirs are poorly made (but customers never find out until it's too late). I then resort to Facebook Ad Campaigns.

Present Day: As the title says, I have managed to attract 2,033 unique visitors to my website within two months of my Shopify storefront going live. I have reached 32,398 people from my Facebook Ads, I get constant traffic each day, but I've only managed to get TWO sales out of all of that. My bounce rate is a whopping 70.37%, but at least people spend a minute or two on average on the site before closing it out.

Now, I'm thinking people aren't converting because my website's design is rather poor. This is what happens when you use a basic Shopify theme that has a horrible mobile version. I've tweaked it as much as Shopify would let me, and I noticed it improved the mobile user bounce rate by a bit. I also recently dropped the price of the product by 30% and started running sales ad campaigns on FB (This resulted in a lot more traffic, but as you may have guessed, no new sales).

I know I'm not writing "quality content" on my Blog, but if that's really a solution I will consider that.

In one week, I started messing with Google Ads, and this is actually where my two sales came from. I'm bleeding cash left and right with these ads, but at least I know people are visiting the site (Yay!)

So I am here to ask for advice from you guys! I know I'm targeting my audience correctly, as I get a lot of engagement on my social media accounts and clicks on these ads. It just seems like the moment they see the site (mostly mobile) they lose interest. I kind of don't blame them. I just wanted to see what other people think (more experienced people specifically) before I spend another $100 plus on this damn site.

Posting my website URL so people can check out my site: www.orionsfootwear.com

I welcome any kind of constructive criticism.
I will also do my best to answer any questions anyone has, and maybe even share my targeting method I used to get so much FB engagement.

Update: Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. I'll be applying everything that was shared and will return with more data after improving the photos and design of the site!

Edit: I should also mention I'm leveraging my eBay sellers account to move some product as well. The few sales I'm making off eBay actually fund the marketing and miscellaneous fees for now. I've also applied for Amazon Brand Registry, but it's a long work in progress.

 

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[Waspy]

Okay, my main takeaways here:

1: You spend 2 months of FB ads and got engagement but no sales, you spent 1 week "messing about" with google ads and got two sales. I think you need a shift of focus towards google ads.

2. I'm on mobile so only saw the mobile version, which I thought looked fine, I would have no issues buying from it. However, there were some key points that made me think "cheap!". The first one was referring to your product as "Light Up Shoes" - just sounds cheap. I also think your product pictures on the main product page are unflattering. But honestly can't think of a solution for that, you need someone more creative than me!

I think you are focusing on the wrong problem (the site itself isn't the problem)

Could you link the FB page? I'm thinking perhaps the content on the FB page doesn't marry up to your website content, so visitors from FB to the site will be put off

EDIT: Being picky now (but I wanted to mention just because I noticed). Your very first FAQ tells me how many competitors you have. Now I'm thinking "Are these guys really the best? I'm going to go and check the other guys out, their shoes might look better!". Don't tell me about your competitors, I get distracted by that. Not a main point, I just wanted to mention

 

[ddzc]

Preface: Let me start by saying I abandoned my brothers and sisters on this website for a year or so, and lurked a lot on the /entrepreneur/ subreddit instead. Normally, I wouldn't post asking for specific advice on these forums because I know we get enough clutter as is. I also don't mind sharing my product / website because while the product may not be unique, the relationship I have with my supplier is, so I'm not worried about copycats.

Condensed Backstory: I go on a magical vacation to Las Vegas for the highly coveted Electronic Daisy Carnival for the first time. The young, and possibly stupid wantrepreneur in me sees a major opportunity after talking with several attendees about their awesome light up shoes. I get home after vacation, put my initial product I was developing on hold and spend 5 months researching, designing, searching, communicating, and investing for this new "business" idea. $3k spent and many emails later, I finally have my initial order of the product, all customized and white-labeled to my liking. Product packaging, product design, social media, and Shopify all set up. 2 Week Trial of Shopify proves to be useless. I then start realizing in the 5 months it took me to get myself established, dozens of generic storefronts emerged selling the same general sh*t, except theirs are poorly made (but customers never find out until it's too late). I then resort to Facebook Ad Campaigns.

Present Day: As the title says, I have managed to attract 2,033 unique visitors to my website within two months of my Shopify storefront going live. I have reached 32,398 people from my Facebook Ads, I get constant traffic each day, but I've only managed to get TWO sales out of all of that. My bounce rate is a whopping 70.37%, but at least people spend a minute or two on average on the site before closing it out.

Now, I'm thinking people aren't converting because my website's design is rather poor. This is what happens when you use a basic Shopify theme that has a horrible mobile version. I've tweaked it as much as Shopify would let me, and I noticed it improved the mobile user bounce rate by a bit. I also recently dropped the price of the product by 30% and started running sales ad campaigns on FB (This resulted in a lot more traffic, but as you may have guessed, no new sales).

I know I'm not writing "quality content" on my Blog, but if that's really a solution I will consider that.

In one week, I started messing with Google Ads, and this is actually where my two sales came from. I'm bleeding cash left and right with these ads, but at least I know people are visiting the site (Yay!)

So I am here to ask for advice from you guys! I know I'm targeting my audience correctly, as I get a lot of engagement on my social media accounts and clicks on these ads. It just seems like the moment they see the site (mostly mobile) they lose interest. I kind of don't blame them. I just wanted to see what other people think (more experienced people specifically) before I spend another $100 plus on this damn site.

Posting my website URL so people can check out my site: www.orionsfootwear.com

I welcome any kind of constructive criticism.
I will also do my best to answer any questions anyone has, and maybe even share my targeting method I used to get so much FB engagement.

Edit: I should also mention I'm leveraging my eBay sellers account to move some product as well. The few sales I'm making off eBay actually fund the marketing and miscellaneous fees for now. I've also applied for Amazon Brand Registry, but it's a long work in progress.

The site doesn't look good at all. There's a lot of nice templates on shopify, even free ones...I would rebuild it. Post some good content, images and videos. Have some main images with sliders showcasing the shoes in action (night shots).

Have you tested the market for the need and want for LED shoes? Who are you targeting on FB? I don't think a lot of people desire these shoes. The only market I can think of are ravers (if targeted to adults only).

 

[Turbo]

Congrats on your two sales via Google PPC so far- that's good progress for your first week. How much have you spent so far on Google ads, and what is your conversion rate so far?

Are you doing Google Search (text) ads only or have you tried Google Product Listing Ads yet (Google Shopping, the image/product based ads)?

 

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[kkompoti]

have you thought that shoes with lights are a very very very specific niche? you are targeting a very specific audience.how many people wear this shoes? what are the prices of the competition for similar shoes?
what is your target audience for your ads? being more specific with your keywords may help.
my opinion is that the audience your ads target likes the design, then they go to your site, check that they are shoes with lights and then go.they even come for quriocity reasons as well.
also the photo of the product i saw and post below is below average to be sold at that price. it looks like very low quality.


p.s. use photoshop.can you spot the two things really wrong in the above pic?
p.s.2 learn from this and move on to this or to any other project of yours.
p.s.3 trying to help (try another project)

 

[jfny]

Well,

You're biggest problem (aside from the fact that light up shoes were never cool) is that your website flat out SUCKS.

but here's something else to consider, I attempted a similar venture once and got feedback from some people on the facebook page saying they weren't sure if it were legit. I used Shopify too (later just created a website from scratch, using my knowledge of coding), but it almost looked like I was processing my own payments, and I guess they didn't feel comfortable inputting their credit card info into some random guys website. Once I made it more obvious that the payments were being processed through Shopify, the level of trust increased and people felt more comfortable buying. That might not be your problem. Or might not be a problem at all if you have a more reputable product, but I'm just sharing my own experience.

 

[Rinzler]

Okay, my main takeaways here:

1: You spend 2 months of FB ads and got engagement but no sales, you spent 1 week "messing about" with google ads and got two sales. I think you need a shift of focus towards google ads.

2. I'm on mobile so only saw the mobile version, which I thought looked fine, I would have no issues buying from it. However, there were some key points that made me think "cheap!". The first one was referring to your product as "Light Up Shoes" - just sounds cheap. I also think your product pictures on the main product page are unflattering. But honestly can't think of a solution for that, you need someone more creative than me!

I think you are focusing on the wrong problem (the site itself isn't the problem)

Could you link the FB page? I'm thinking perhaps the content on the FB page doesn't marry up to your website content, so visitors from FB to the site will be put off

EDIT: Being picky now (but I wanted to mention just because I noticed). Your very first FAQ tells me how many competitors you have. Now I'm thinking "Are these guys really the best? I'm going to go and check the other guys out, their shoes might look better!". Don't tell me about your competitors, I get distracted by that. Not a main point, I just wanted to mention

1: Thank you for the feedback. I've since stopped running ads on FB and instead am using money towards the Google Ads.

2: This made me laugh, thank you! I'll look into different wording that will remain relevant / not copy from competitors. I'll take some time this week and take better product photos.

I appreciate you mentioning the FAQ. The reason I bring up the competitors is because they have a much stronger social media presence, so a lot of people I'm targeting have more than likely seen what the competitor has to offer. This was an assumption, and I'll take your point into consideration and remove that. Thank you!

 

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[Rinzler]

The site doesn't look good at all. There's a lot of nice templates on shopify, even free ones...I would rebuild it. Post some good content, images and videos. Have some main images with sliders showcasing the shoes in action (night shots).

Have you tested the market for the need and want for LED shoes? Who are you targeting on FB? I don't think a lot of people desire these shoes. The only market I can think of are ravers (if targeted to adults only).

Thank you for your feedback.
Yes, prior to launching the site I wore my samples everywhere I went and had a handful of people exchange information with me. I made multiple presales, just very few sales off the site itself. I am mainly targeting the rave scene, and I go to raves as well and always get questions about the shoes.

 

[Rinzler]

Congrats on your two sales via Google PPC so far- that's good progress for your first week. How much have you spent so far on Google ads, and what is your conversion rate so far?

Are you doing Google Search (text) ads only or have you tried Google Product Listing Ads yet (Google Shopping, the image/product based ads)?

Thank you! I've spent $68 on Google Ads (after the free $100 Shopify gives me)
So far I'm using Google Search ads, but now that I should take better product photos, I will use Google Product Listing Ads as well.

 

[Rinzler]

have you thought that shoes with lights are a very very very specific niche? you are targeting a very specific audience.how many people wear this shoes? what are the prices of the competition for similar shoes?
what is your target audience for your ads? being more specific with your keywords may help.
my opinion is that the audience your ads target likes the design, then they go to your site, check that they are shoes with lights and then go.they even come for quriocity reasons as well.
also the photo of the product i saw and post below is below average to be sold at that price. it looks like very low quality.
View attachment 13758

p.s. use photoshop.can you spot the two things really wrong in the above pic?
p.s.2 learn from this and move on to this or to any other project of yours.
p.s.3 trying to help (try another project)

Thank you.
I use photoshop and lightroom for my photos, but given my Shopify theme's horribly restrictive sizing, I ended up using that image.
On the quality of the shoes material, they're a lot nicer in person. I'm not justifying the unflattering photos, but compared to what other people are selling, the material of the shoes exterior and interior are nicer. You should see my sample!
But thank you for the feedback. I have definitely learned a lot.

 

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[Rinzler]

Well,

You're biggest problem (aside from the fact that light up shoes were never cool) is that you're website flat out SUCKS.

but here's something else to consider, I attempted a similar venture once and got feedback from some people on the facebook page saying they weren't sure if it were legit. I used Shopify too (later just created a website from scratch, using my knowledge of coding), but it almost looked like I was processing my own payments, and I guess they didn't feel comfortable inputting their credit card info into some random guys website. Once I made it more obvious that the payments were being processed through Shopify, the level of trust increased and people felt more comfortable buying. That might not be your problem. Or might not be a problem at all if you have a more reputable product, but I'm just sharing my own experience.

Haha thank you for the feedback.
Light up shoes may not be cool to some, but that just shows you're not my target audience

Thank you for sharing your experience. I thought the same thing at first, but I fixed that along with a few other issues I had at first with my checkout page.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Your product pics are bad. They make your shoes look dumb (which they do when they're not being used for their primary purpose).

Change your product pics to look like this:

These shoes look pretty cool. The others don't.

Also: Don't put your product on sale. If you want to sell it for $45, sell it for $45 - not $60 on sale for $45. No one's shopping around for the best deal on light up shoes. They're asking two questions: 1) Are these shoes cool? 2) Is the price reasonable?

You're selling into a niche that is not focused on price, but focused on looking cool. Putting the shoes on sale suggests that no one wants to buy these shoes, hence you're creating negative social proof. Get rid of the sale.

 

[Rinzler]

Your product pics are bad. They make your shoes look dumb (which they do when they're not being used for their primary purpose).

Change your product pics to look like this:

These shoes look pretty cool. The others don't.

Also: Don't put your product on sale. If you want to sell it for $45, sell it for $45 - not $60 on sale for $45. No one's shopping around for the best deal on light up shoes. They're asking two questions: 1) Are these shoes cool? 2) Is the price reasonable?

You're selling into a niche that is not focused on price, but focused on looking cool. Putting the shoes on sale suggests that no one wants to buy these shoes, hence you're creating negative social proof. Get rid of the sale.

Thank you for the awesome feedback.
I'm going to retake all the product photos now
Great point on the sale as well. I'll remove the "sale" tag from the site asap. I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

 

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[jfny]

Thank you for the awesome feedback.
I'm going to retake all the product photos now
Great point on the sale as well. I'll remove the "sale" tag from the site asap. I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

Once you actually apply all this advice, care to report back and let us know if your sales increased?

 

[Rinzler]

Once you actually apply all this advice, care to report back and let us know if your sales increased?

Definitely. It'll probably take a bit for all the photos, but I'll definitely come back in about 2 weeks!

 

[DVU]

First impression, this dude tho, wtf, shoes look like something 2003 would wear with those light spots.

But when @AgainstAllOdds posted that pic, it changed the game. Looking at it I think there is a niche for that product for sure.

They look WAY better in that photo. And that is where I think you went wrong, you didn't present your product in the right "light"

Also, try to interact with your buyers on social media, that can be huge.

Just my 2cents, good luck.

 

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[AgainstAllOdds]

Also: Do you have samples of other colors (instead of just white or black shoes)?

If not, get some.

Then list those on the site as sold out. That will make people think that your shoes are being purchased, and make them more likely to sell.

 

[Rinzler]

First impression, this dude tho, wtf, shoes look like something 2003 would wear with those light spots.

But when @AgainstAllOdds posted that pic, it changed the game. Looking at it I think there is a niche for that product for sure.

They look WAY better in that photo. And that is where I think you went wrong, you didn't present your product in the right "light"

Also, try to interact with your buyers on social media, that can be huge.

Just my 2cents, good luck.

Haha, thank you!
I'm glad everyone is providing their insight on the photos. I'll definitely retake all of them to fit the right light (Nice pun btw)
Much appreciated

 

[Rinzler]

Also: Do you have samples of other colors (instead of just white or black shoes)?

If not, get some.

Then list those on the site as sold out. That will make people think that your shoes are being purchased, and make them more likely to sell.

This is a great idea, thank you! I do have some set aside that I can do that with.

 

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[Rinzler]

Thanks to everyone's input on the product photos, I went ahead and uploaded new product photos for the listings.
They were taken months ago, but will serve as better place holders in the mean time.

I'll now wrestle with the slideshow images for the desktop site banners.

Thanks again for your suggestions!

 

[ChickenHawk]

It might just be my computer, but when I pull up your site, the top banner (the part in black) takes up almost half of my computer screen. I know others have mentioned that the site could use some improvement, but when you tweak it, i'd consider making sure the top banner is thinner, so you can showcase the stuff the visitors really want to see, meaning the shoes.

A brainstorming idea: Any chance of getting some action shots of the shoes? I'm envisioning a video of hip-looking people dancing (or skateboarding or whatever) in them or something, even if you only showed the people from the knees down. I know that money is tight. Maybe you could shoot something yourself, making it look like something someone would've taken with their phone?

This is a weird/stupid question, but are the white shoes really white? They look beige to me?

A semi-outlandish idea: Maybe take one of the shoes and put in some crazy shoe-laces to make them more zany, and here's why: The top half of shoes are quite conservative. From the pix, they look like something older people would wear. I think you might need something to make them look younger, even if it's some photos of younger people wearing them with hip/crazy socks or weird shoelaces or something.

This is fascinating! Good luck, and I hope you'll keep us posted!

 

[Rinzler]

It might just be my computer, but when I pull up your site, the top banner (the part in black) takes up almost half of my computer screen. I know others have mentioned that the site could use some improvement, but when you tweak it, i'd consider making sure the top banner is thinner, so you can showcase the stuff the visitors really want to see, meaning the shoes.

A brainstorming idea: Any chance of getting some action shots of the shoes? I'm envisioning a video of hip-looking people dancing (or skateboarding or whatever) in them or something, even if you only showed the people from the knees down. I know that money is tight. Maybe you could shoot something yourself, making it look like something someone would've taken with their phone?

This is a weird/stupid question, but are the white shoes really white? They look beige to me?

A semi-outlandish idea: Maybe take one of the shoes and put in some crazy shoe-laces to make them more zany, and here's why: The top half of shoes are quite conservative. From the pix, they look like something older people would wear. I think you might need something to make them look younger, even if it's some photos of younger people wearing them with hip/crazy socks or weird shoelaces or something.

This is fascinating! Good luck, and I hope you'll keep us posted!

Thank you for the suggestions!
I've actually considered doing videos of myself wearing them and doing stuff, since a few of the people I reached out to for that stuff have yet to respond.
But the white shoes are actually white white. Super white. I like your shoelace idea and I'll put that into consideration as well since my supplier gave me extra laces for each pair. Perhaps I can just interchange them for now.

I appreciate the insight!

 

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[sparechange]

hey im into the rave music thing, your unique visitors is horribly low...i just looked up ultra miami facebook page and they have 3.2mill likes, then you got tommorowland and all the other small festivals like veld and whatever else....you should get a dj/promoter to flash your brand, imagine you had tiesto or armin van burea rocking your stuff, your brand would be the coolest thing in town,

another idea is you should be going to these raves yourself and have a booth open / or start hanging around your customers, gossip about these cool new shoes you found online or w/e

 

[sparechange]

also another thing, as a raver myself id probably never buy your shoes online, but if you were at an actual concert id actually buy them for myself....i just got some lightup glasses a couple months ago from some random street vendor, but i woudnt go out of my way to buy them online...cheers

 

[Waspy]

Thanks to everyone's input on the product photos, I went ahead and uploaded new product photos for the listings.
They were taken months ago, but will serve as better place holders in the mean time.

I'll now wrestle with the slideshow images for the desktop site banners.

Thanks again for your suggestions!

Looks miles better already. Keep the improvements coming

 

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[Scot]

Bouncing off @ChickenHawk's suggestion.. definitely need action shots and videos. When I see these shoes, I picture a dude covered in glow sticks and LED gloves jumping up and down at an EDM festival. The first picture you should see when logging onto the page is people having FUN in your shoes.

Go to a club or EDM festival and pass out samples to people and record video of them having fun. Put these videos everywhere. Video views are dirt cheap on FB right now.

And like @sparechange said, these are impulse buy items. If you're not going to every big EDM and rave selling these, you've already failed.

Good luck!

 

[TheSunpirate]

Amazing advice already. I'll jump on the list as well.

Gifs of the shoes in action, changing color etc.
Possibly testaments, on the spot video.
Different shoe laces,
Your logo is awesome, why is it not on the shoe?
Must really improve site,

Just finished reading the "book", so the two things that scream out are benefits, and branding. What are the benefits of this shoe for your customers? And that needs to be shown in the webpage through the gif, pics, testaments.

Branding, your logo is so cool, but the name did not stick, no USP? Branding, branding, branding. It looks like a great product with the right marketing tweaks and some improvement on its design, you got a winner.

For the website a scrolling front pic section, also this is an led shoe, make that site pop color, black is the dominant color. Price slashing, they were $59.99, on sale now for $49,99. Free shipping, guaranteed satisfaction. etc. How about a free giveaway contest. "Like page and enter to win", type of thing. I would then target on the main page the three sub groups in separate links about 1/2 way on the page. Raves- Children- or whichever sub category you have.

Also I would name the shoes, like Mars, or Venus, or some fancy name not simply black multishine. How about Trix?

Awesome to see process in action.

 

[RahKnee]

Copy suggestion:

Whoever said above that "light up shoes" sounds like something for children is correct. Try a new term like "illuminated footwear".

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Thanks to everyone's input on the product photos, I went ahead and uploaded new product photos for the listings.
They were taken months ago, but will serve as better place holders in the mean time.

I'll now wrestle with the slideshow images for the desktop site banners.

Thanks again for your suggestions!

Photos are way better. You're on the right track.

I love ChickenHawk's idea of different laces. They could be offered as an add-on/upsell. Plenty of ways to do that.

Reduce that header as it's taking up way too much room that could be used to showcase the shoes.

Were your FB ads going directly to the product page, shop page or homepage? Should be going to the product page.

Also, consider running ads that bring people into your email list vs trying to sell them right away. You then use your email to sell the shoes.

One way is to do a gift card giveaway. Everyone who signs up gets a $10 gift card. I've built my email list by offering this very thing. A $10 gift card has a much higher perceived value than a $10 off coupon code. It's basically the same thing. You just present it differently. I have an 8 email sequence that goes to new subs that ultimately converts at nearly 40%. Use the privy app to create your opt-in page that captures their email.

 

[Rinzler]

I want to thank all the new users who have tossed some input! A lot of great new ideas and I really appreciate the feedback.
I'll take the time to re-read and reply individually tomorrow. (Today now lol)