Website Feedback - Dog Related

[Bekit]

Hello all!

I've created an eCommerce site that sells t-shirts to dog owners. It's called Rusty's Puppy Emporium. All the t-shirts are screen printed by me and are original designs.

I've started running Facebook ads and have pretty good conversions when it comes to people clicking the link and going to my site. However, I'm still waiting on my 1st sale. Please go to my site and tell me anything that you think could be a potential issue as it pertains to lack of sales.

The website is www.rustyspuppyemporium.com

Be honest and let me have it!

Couple of first reactions:

1. Site is extremely slow to load. This will hurt you a lot. I would have bounced if I wasn't planning to stay around and do a quick audit. I bet you can speed up your site by taking down all the images and re-uploading them as compressed versions of themselves. Use "save for web" on photoshop if you have it, or google an alternative.
2. Shirts have no product descriptions other than the generic bulleted list followed by your guarantee. This is table stakes. Of COURSE your shirts have to have this.
   
   • 100% preshrunk ringspun cotton
   • 65% polyester 35% cotton
   • ¾" rib knit collar
   • Double-needle stitched sleeves and bottom hem
   • Taped neck and shoulders​
   What you need is about 100 words of some enticing copy that tells a story of why the shirt is awesome. This will accomplish a lot of things: (1) It will appeal to the readers (not just the lookers) on your page. (2) It will give you a chance to make an emotional appeal, not just a bland logical one. (3) It will help your SEO on the page so that you can start to rank for keywords like "pug life t-shirt," "pug owner t-shirt," or "pug design t-shirt." Example:
   
   Tell the world how much you love your pugs every time you pull on this super-soft t-shirt. You'll be proud to show off the monochromatic pug design, and you'll have a chance to brag about your pug every time people ask about the Pug Life. For all the pug lovers in your life, this 100% preshrunk ringspun cotton t-shirt is the perfect gift item, and for everyone else who just doesn't understand pugs, well, more's the pity.​
   Better yet, have the shirt description written in "Rusty's" voice, with tons of humor and maybe even a Yorkshire Terrier's opinion of pugs. There's a reason that the Twitter account "Thoughts of Dog" is so popular.
3. It looks like your images have descriptive filenames but not alt image tags. Again, this is a simple thing you can do to the site to boost your SEO, this time when people are conducting an image search for your prime keywords.
   
4. While the price seems a bit steep, I think it's not about the price. All over your site, there are offers for a 20% discount. But until I'm bought in to the idea of buying these shirts (at ANY price), I don't care.
   
5. Your site has no "trust symbols" in prominent places. The 4 icons that you have under "4 GREAT REASONS TO BUY FROM US" are the closest thing you have, but they are too small to really understand what you're seeing, especially if you're scanning fast. Try putting them in a row that spans the full width of the page. Examples of trust symbols:
   
   • Reviews
   • "As seen in" notices
   • Celebrities wearing the shirts
   • Real people wearing the shirts in everyday life ("spotted in the wild" vs. posed)​
   If you don't have any of these things, give your friends some shirts for free in exchange for a review, an instagram post, etc. until you can accumulate a good number of items. People look for "social proof." They want to think it's a thriving site before they buy.
6. There is no business address listed on the contact page. This makes you look like less of a "real" business and therefore less trustworthy. How do I know I'll get my stuff? However, I dug a little deeper and found an address in your privacy policy, which, upon looking a little deeper, appears to be your home address (at least, it's a residential address). It's not expensive to get a UPS store mailbox to solve this so that you're not displaying your home address to the world. Also, it's super simple to set up a Google voice phone number for free so that you have a contact number.
7. Your business name is confusing. Puppy Emporium sounds too close to "puppy mill" and definitely doesn't evoke a place where a person would buy shirts.

Marketing thoughts...

• Check out Sea Dog | Shop the Original Store for ideas (their store is similar)
• Get your friends to write you some testimonials ASAP
• Go onto dog forums and facebook groups to get the language people are using about their dobermans or labs or whatever, and borrow copy fragments from them to sprinkle into your product descriptions.
• Amp up the emotion. People LOVE their dogs. Tap in to that.
• Tell more stories. Stories will carry the brand forward and enhance people's perception of the value of the shirts. Maybe it's the story of the girl who loved her wine and her lab. Maybe it's the story of the 4-legged boss. You get the idea. You've already got a ton of amazing story prompts, right on the front of your shirts.
• Look up the concept of "Social Proof" by Robert Cialdini and try to incorporate more of that on your site.

 

[Xeon]

Thanks for the rep, @MJ DeMarco!

Pug Life Dog T-Shirt | 6DollarShirts

Insane how they can even sell a t-shirt for $6. Even if one were to order 500 pieces of each design, there's a limit to how low the cost of goods per piece can go down. T-shirt blank + screen-printing cost (some designs have 2 colors = +$$) + neck tags + manpower / misc costs + cost to acquire a customer etc.

Pawz ® for a Cause Shirts

These guys feel a lot like Ivory Ella. Even the design style, company mission and the way they market the goods is the same! Maybe they're owned by the same guys. I remember Ivory Ella founders saying they want to get into other animal niches.

-----------------------------------

@Deangiroir :

Instead of selling them as commodities (6DollarShirts) or making it charity-based, which feels overdone to me nowadays (IvoryElla/Pawz/Animal-Hearted).....I've 2 ideas.
The basic is this:

Come up with a story --- > Give that story one mission ---> Build a brand based on that mission

Note: The 1st idea below is a lot harder to execute than the 2nd one.

IDEA #1

Your Original Story : Your fond moments with your terrier, who crossed the rainbow bridge some time ago.

Your Dramatized Story : You've a Yorkshire terrier, who watches TV with you, who watches you mow the lawn weekly, who loves to cuddle with you. Then, one morning, you and your wife came back home from work.....only to find the door opened.....and Rusty gone.

In sadness, you started having hallucinations of Rusty every day and at work.
You watch TV, and you thought Rusty is next to you, and you touch him, only to realize it's your wife.
You mow the lawn, and you hear a dog barking, only to realize it's all in your head.
You start looking for Rusty daily at the carpark, the nearby school, the grocery, the pub, the gas station.....you even see a psychiatrist.

That's your story (to put this on your website, you need to re-write it properly).

Your Story Mission : To never rest till you find your beloved dog.

That leads to your branding below....

Your Brand Name : Give your brand a name. E.g: WhereIsRusty, WheresRusty, WheresMyPup, WhereIsMyDog, MyLostRusty, ILostMyRust, ILostRusty or ILostMyDog....

The Execution :

1) All marketing collateral (logo, website) needs to be FUN and PLAYFUL. This cannot be marketed in a sorrowful or sad style (more on that at the bottom).

2) Get a logo made from Upwork/PeoplePerHour. No Fiverr. Logo should have 2 colors or less.
From your logo, pick out one of the color as your brand color.

2) You can keep the existing designs you've. On the sleeve or bottom hem of the t-shirts, get a woven label sewn in either of those 2 places. The woven label will say "WhereIsRusty" or "WhereIsMyDog".
This label must be clearly visible and distinctive. There's a few good suppliers in China and also the US itself who can provide these labels. All your t-shirts and products need to have this "signature identifier".
Or better still, make it a patch instead of a woven label.

3) Website : Website needs to be redone to tell your new story. The website and marketing materials.....everything will now revolve around your story. The website banner will show you or some actor posing comically, such as looking into the back of a van with a confused expression (tip: there's some good student photographers in California from what I've seen, but you've to find them on IG).
T-shirt should be visible in your shots.
The top banner of your site can say something like:

---------------------------------------------
Is My Dog At Your Place?
I'm coming over. Meanwhile, shop my dog t-shirts.
---SHOP---
---------------------------------------------
​

(just an example from the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with better ones)

Throughout the website, show pics of you/actor in various interesting locations finding your dog. You bending down to look under the car. Looking under a woman's skirt. In the pool. In the cemetery. At the beach. All about the content.

4) On social media (Instagram/FB), post daily pics of you in your t-shirts, in various poses doing different things, while looking for your dog . Get about 30 photography shots done at the start of the month, drip post 1 per day, with a witty caption. Follow all the dog lovers near you (LA?), some will follow back, then expand from there. Then, either run paid shoutouts on big dog accounts or use tools like Infinicore (I just discovered this in a FB group).
Post on Pinterest as well.

5) Run FB/Instagram ads with a simple text on the ad that says : Where Is Rusty? / Where Is My Dog and drive them all to your site.

6) Collab with Instagram influencers in your niche. Get them to repost your photo content with captions for their followers to read. Example:

"Have you guys seen this man before? I think he got desperate trying to find his lost dog. Link in bio."

The idea behind all these is to get fellow dog lovers/owners to jump onto your "one-man movement", which is you on a neverending journey desperate trying to find your dog.
During the journey, you come across interesting things in life or happenings (show all these in your photos.....can be real or posed).

Hook people, take them on an BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE where you try to find your imaginary dog, and then show them your t-shirts (no discounts or "mega sales").

When you've taken them on the adventure and they can related / identify to your story, price will be a lot less of an issue (unless the t-shirt is $545, but that's another story).

Some people might say "Hey, you're a scammer! Your dog is dead long ago and you're making all these up"

You tell them "But I'm playing with my dog's paws now. Oh, he's telling me the food's cooked. Be right back! "

In other words, in this story, you have gone insane / schizo after your dog left you.
You've become the sick guy who's obsessed about dogs, and thus having a dog tshirt store is only natural.
Play that up and play along!

With these, you can build a fun brand. This is why I mentioned above to keep all marketing collateral and website/brand fun and upbeat.
The potential customers HAVE to know that this is all made-up and games, without you telling them this!

I've mentioned KJP.com a few times before. This guy is an extreme example you can study from.
He's selling clothes and anchor bands. You can easily get these stuff at Aliexpress or other online sites.
But this motherfcker build an ENTIRE WORLD around the clothes he's selling.
Did he shout at you and say "20% OFF STOREWIDE AND BUY MY DRESSES"?

NO, check out his Instagram. He PULLS YOU into his beautiful world far away from mundane everyday life, takes you on a F*cking adventure, you got sucked in and became PART OF HIS WORLD, and now you're a lot more likely to buy from him if he asks you to! I know I would! If I buy from him (even if the products are made in china), I would feel EXTREMELY GOOD inside!

There's a lot of details in terms of execution which I have not listed here, it would take days, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd idea. This one is easier to do.

IDEA #2

Some time back, Twitter had this viral movement going on. See below:

Replace sex with dog.
Make these, put these as cards and show them on your site in a masonry grid layout like Pinterest (I think Shopify has plugins for this).

Day 35 without my dog : Flirted with the photo on the packaging at the pet food aisle
(I'm not a witty guy, so you can do better than this)

You may run out of ideas after a while, so you can :

1) get user-generated content for this (this case is a good candidate for giveaways on IG and encourage others to join in)
2) use this as a supplement WITHIN Idea 1 above to increase the fun
3) expand it to other animals
4) post it once every 3 days (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5...)
5) use it in other ways as a content marketing tool to build an audience and drive sales.

Hopefully, all these ideas will spark your imagination a bit.

Everything above is just 5% or less of the whole process, the execution is what makes the thing successful....because you still have to make the website look right, get the photography right, get the content right, get the branding right.....each of which, if done wrongly, will break the entire thing.....

Btw, one shop which I bought dog t-shirts from earlier this year.....they announced that they're closing down. After 1 year in business. They even have professional product photography of models, and they even got featured by one small-time celebrity at one event. Yes, and they run a lot of DISCOUNTS after DISCOUNTS, SALES after SALES every time. Every day is sales and discounts day LOL

6DollarShirts say this on their site:

No, F*ck them and their $6 shirts.
You'll steal their girls and wear their shirts!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

At first glance, I'd say $25 seems a little steep for non-branded t-shirts.

 

[RazorCut]

Pretty much everthing @Bekit and @minivanman said apart from I agree with @MJ DeMarco, I think the price is rather steep for a basic t-shirt with a black or white logo. I can get quality polo shirts printed up for a fraction of that price and I'm in the UK. Love the colour range though I see I cannot order a logo in any colour for some reason?

Maybe drop the annoying newsletter ad and the tiny promo code at the top and just reduce your prices by the 20% the ad is offering. This gives people one less loop to jump through if they don't see the tiny top banner and they probably wouldn't sign up for the newsletter anyway unless they wanted the 20% off so you won't lose out on email signups as you will capture them during the payment process.

I would make the reduction in price a Christmas sale rather than just change the regular price. This creates a scarcity value as it indicates the prices will go up once the sale is over. Plus it makes people think they are getting a deal. (quick pic below)

I would also redo the images for your banner. They really don't look that appealing. I'd see if you can find a rusty lookalike and have some pictures taken laying prone with the dog (or dogs) on a carpet or sofa so you have an attractive and engaging landscape image rather than a portrait on a plain background. A warm fuzzy picture. Make it a full on photo shoot and you will have lots of media you can use to keep your facebook ads fresh.

EDIT Oh one more thing, I'd make it MUCH clearer that it's free shipping. Prominently at the top of your home page and in the description of each item. At the moment it's below the fold so easily overlooked and that is a major cost saving, therefore customer benefit, right there.

What is your click through rate like on Facebook?

 

[Xeon]

Hello all!

I've created an eCommerce site that sells t-shirts to dog owners. It's called Rusty's Puppy Emporium. All the t-shirts are screen printed by me and are original designs.

I've started running Facebook ads and have pretty good conversions when it comes to people clicking the link and going to my site. However, I'm still waiting on my 1st sale. Please go to my site and tell me anything that you think could be a potential issue as it pertains to lack of sales.

The website is www.rustyspuppyemporium.com

Be honest and let me have it!

Lots of valuable advice from others (especially Bekit), so I'll just post my random thoughts when I browsed through your site:

1) The blue mail icon at the top-left corner of your site. That is a weird place to put that kind of widget. If you really need to put that (which I personally won't), the lower-left corner of the site is a better place.

2) Logo looks amateurish and too clip-artish, no offense. I would move the logo to the left of the header, then the nav links to the right of the site, then push everything up to replace that previous space so more of the content is above the fold.

3) Banner images are really ugly. What's with the badly photoshopped lady against a bright green background....
The first banner which screams "20% OFF EVERYTHING" makes the site looks really cheap. Like a discount stall. The more I study, the more I feel running big discounts like these cheapens whatever brand you're trying to build, and that discounts = a short-term fix to a long-term issue. Discounts = training your customers to expect cheap stuff from you.

4) A lot of the images on the site looks really blurry and low-res.

5) Domain name and business name is too long long long.....

6) Since you're on Shopify, if you've money to spare, I suggest to get the Booster Theme. It looks way better than your current one, and more importantly, has many widgets in place for conversion, especially on the single product page.

7) I like the designs on the t-shirts, looks really good. The only thing is that, on many of the t-shirts, the top of the graphic starts too close to the crew neck line.

8) If you're serious about this, I would consider a good photographer to do what Sea Dog Shop (suggested by Bekit) has done. If you compare their site and yours, theirs actually looks like a real shop. The "mock-ups" style of selling t-shirt screams cheap to me.

9) Personally, I feel the t-shirt prices are ok. If people can sell garbage for $50 from NYC just by packaging it up nicely, price is not a real issue. Plus, dog lovers would spend $$$ if the t-shirt reasonates with them.

10) Single product page has a lot of things that can be improved, but for content wise, check out J Peterman and what kind of content they use in their single product page: Authentic Baseball Sleeves

11) The home page, at the bottom, should have a nicely-done banner or box with a teaser about your story. When clicked, it will take the user to your About page.

12) You have a touching story. Probably need to put a little spin on that and dramatize it further. I feel this has a lot of potential.
Check out some sites similar to yours :
- I'd Rather Be With My Dog | Apparel for Dog Lovers
- https://www.dogisgood.com
- Apparel & Gifts For Animal Lovers - Animal Hearted Apparel

Hope this inspires you

 

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[DragoonDB]

Great feedback from the forum! I'll go on a slightly different route.

Each shirt has a "4 Great Reasons to Buy From Us" call out; one is "Easy Returning".

I noticed, though, when going to your return policy (hey, I want to check this out if it's so easy) that it looks stock, and hasn't been geared for your business. Here's a few examples that are going to confuse me as a customer, and make me lose confidence in your great reasons:

• "Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as flowers, newpapers..." This is a site for shirts - why is this listed in your return policy?
• "Additional non-returnable items: Gift cards, downloadable software products..." Again, not pertinent to your site.
• "There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable): Book with obvious signs of use, CD, DVD..." Again, not pertinent to your site.

My point being that if you're putting special emphasis on returns as one of your selling points or calls to action (have confidence, returns are no sweat), then this only confuses the customer and actually erodes your great reasons to be unreliable.

 

[Deangiroir]

Couple of first reactions:

1. Site is extremely slow to load. This will hurt you a lot. I would have bounced if I wasn't planning to stay around and do a quick audit. I bet you can speed up your site by taking down all the images and re-uploading them as compressed versions of themselves. Use "save for web" on photoshop if you have it, or google an alternative.
2. Shirts have no product descriptions other than the generic bulleted list followed by your guarantee. This is table stakes. Of COURSE your shirts have to have this.
   
   • 100% preshrunk ringspun cotton
   • 65% polyester 35% cotton
   • ¾" rib knit collar
   • Double-needle stitched sleeves and bottom hem
   • Taped neck and shoulders​
   What you need is about 100 words of some enticing copy that tells a story of why the shirt is awesome. This will accomplish a lot of things: (1) It will appeal to the readers (not just the lookers) on your page. (2) It will give you a chance to make an emotional appeal, not just a bland logical one. (3) It will help your SEO on the page so that you can start to rank for keywords like "pug life t-shirt," "pug owner t-shirt," or "pug design t-shirt." Example:
   
   Tell the world how much you love your pugs every time you pull on this super-soft t-shirt. You'll be proud to show off the monochromatic pug design, and you'll have a chance to brag about your pug every time people ask about the Pug Life. For all the pug lovers in your life, this 100% preshrunk ringspun cotton t-shirt is the perfect gift item, and for everyone else who just doesn't understand pugs, well, more's the pity.​
   Better yet, have the shirt description written in "Rusty's" voice, with tons of humor and maybe even a Yorkshire Terrier's opinion of pugs. There's a reason that the Twitter account "Thoughts of Dog" is so popular.
3. It looks like your images have descriptive filenames but not alt image tags. Again, this is a simple thing you can do to the site to boost your SEO, this time when people are conducting an image search for your prime keywords.
   
4. While the price seems a bit steep, I think it's not about the price. All over your site, there are offers for a 20% discount. But until I'm bought in to the idea of buying these shirts (at ANY price), I don't care.
   
5. Your site has no "trust symbols" in prominent places. The 4 icons that you have under "4 GREAT REASONS TO BUY FROM US" are the closest thing you have, but they are too small to really understand what you're seeing, especially if you're scanning fast. Try putting them in a row that spans the full width of the page. Examples of trust symbols:
   
   • Reviews
   • "As seen in" notices
   • Celebrities wearing the shirts
   • Real people wearing the shirts in everyday life ("spotted in the wild" vs. posed)​
   If you don't have any of these things, give your friends some shirts for free in exchange for a review, an instagram post, etc. until you can accumulate a good number of items. People look for "social proof." They want to think it's a thriving site before they buy.
6. There is no business address listed on the contact page. This makes you look like less of a "real" business and therefore less trustworthy. How do I know I'll get my stuff? However, I dug a little deeper and found an address in your privacy policy, which, upon looking a little deeper, appears to be your home address (at least, it's a residential address). It's not expensive to get a UPS store mailbox to solve this so that you're not displaying your home address to the world. Also, it's super simple to set up a Google voice phone number for free so that you have a contact number.
7. Your business name is confusing. Puppy Emporium sounds too close to "puppy mill" and definitely doesn't evoke a place where a person would buy shirts.

Marketing thoughts...

• Check out Sea Dog | Shop the Original Store for ideas (their store is similar)
• Get your friends to write you some testimonials ASAP
• Go onto dog forums and facebook groups to get the language people are using about their dobermans or labs or whatever, and borrow copy fragments from them to sprinkle into your product descriptions.
• Amp up the emotion. People LOVE their dogs. Tap in to that.
• Tell more stories. Stories will carry the brand forward and enhance people's perception of the value of the shirts. Maybe it's the story of the girl who loved her wine and her lab. Maybe it's the story of the 4-legged boss. You get the idea. You've already got a ton of amazing story prompts, right on the front of your shirts.
• Look up the concept of "Social Proof" by Robert Cialdini and try to incorporate more of that on your site.

Wow! This is so much great advice I'm actually at a loss for words. All I can really say is thank you for taking the time to audit my site and you've potentially saved me a lot of time and money. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

 

[whiz]

I have really good notes from a guy who's been successful with selling these type of "identity items".

I say "identity items" because that's really what they are... just a way for people to externally express their identity to let others know who they are/what they're about.

Stay away from gimmicky/humorous/emotionless shit - go for the things that really tie in with people's identity and strike emotion.

I think he does mainly wallet cases, blankets, stuff like that.

Just take whatever you can apply to your biz.

Here are the typo-ridden, long-winded notes that I found to be super helpful. English is not his first language, but you get the point of what he's trying to say:

---

i took time to read about my audience and list down their activities.. etc.. lifestyle .. and so on.. you'd find the most in that then design back



not every one likes all complicated designs... most sells with very simple but classic or elegant look..making it look expennsive



Also, its not what you think you want.. remove the "might want" give a reason to say why they will buy it.. say this is designed to super moms like you in the creative.. making them feel great about them selve



the like this want one really works as eye catcher. it makes everyone feel I want one without thinking.. the next is to solidify the engagement.. I fish my audience by 1. good mockup.. 3sec eye cather, don't make audience think or assume what the product is..2. A good headline with nice emoticon Like This? Want One? making them curious what is the product since you asked.. then place them on a King/Queen Seating!"Supermoms Like You Deserve This Exclusive Design" then 3 bullets of what you think they will ask immediately.. ex.☑Available in all latest phone models, ☑Soft leather etc.. ☑RFID protected.. then your closure.. GET THIS TODAY ➡ http.... then scarcity.. Hurry, limited time only offer!... Hope this makes sense



I only use free themes in my pages.. "simple" or "debut" in shopify.. few items to have it a "HERO" picture of the product, the best picture but not a mockup.. plain old white background.. they already seen your mock up in the creative so no point showing them again.. let their eye focus on the product.. a good name with a maximum of 3-4 words "Supermom Exclusive Wallet Case" continue to feed their feeling of being a super mom... then a tag line at the start of the product description .. You know you deserve only the best thats why we created this exclusively for you!.. then your bullet points for description.. then the store policy like // we ship in 2-4 week, multiple package may be shipped separately for faster shipment. We ship as soon as we complete production per item" then.. a review.. at least 2 reviews.. ask your friend on what they will benefit if they buy the product and what will they say.. then add that to the product description.. making it look like a script... My kid would love these for me - Mary... note that Mary is a real person since she's your friend.. up until you get actual reviews for your product.. then that solidify the product with proof.. now go scarcity.. use a timer like hurrify.. say "sale ends when timer hits zero" use 30-40 mins.. remember we want to get impulse buyers.. (love them later during customer service and retarget) then of couse the trust badges... the similar items are by collection so if you group the product by niche then it wikll show up right.. IF you see anything on your page tha looks odd.. remove it... you dont want to lose the buyers atttention.. make it look as an expensive page... dont go fancy with colors.. I get my color inspiration from top ecom stores like amazon,ebay google etc.. I use mostly their color combination.. notice that almost all of them have same color schema?? it works.. not too heavy on eyes and general.. Hope this helps..



No matter what the product might be.. aim for at least $20-30 margin.. this way it can fund back your tests and give you enough profit..at $30 you can fund 10 ads of $10 easily next day afer you sold at least 3 on your day 1 test.. or dup 2 the next day on your single sale on day 1.



for WC.. sell with wallet.. cheaper sell faster.. i play impulse buying.. it gies ou a lockdown of the audience niche also,, the design they like reflects the things they want.. its just that not everyone uses wallet cases..but at least you can start with this..



I dont focus on fun designs.. not that it looks cute they will buy.. yeah you get alot of link click.. buy no buyer..I focus on the feeling, make them feel good owning it..



Save the turtle is a like.. Supermom is a feeling … Hero Firefighter, Best Doctor, Awesome Nurse..





awareness is an option.. like a charity drive.. will you or will you not... but if you say, For the wonderful daughter.. focused on awareness.. probably would work.. like for cancer awareness.. Im stronger everyday.. didnt mention any about cancer but gives moral help to buyer..



cool is a like for me.. it doesnt present the urgency.. you may have sale but not for long run.. it dies like a fad



focus on what they do daily.. do not make your product a sunday dress.. else, you just get the "maybe" buyers



Sell wallet case for firefighter with moral booster slogan.. sell hoodie blanket to Scouts for their camping.. Sell watch with bitcoin logo for the bitcoin players, they would love to flaunt their bitcoin... hope this makes sense



you see there its focused on the need, then design follows... Alot focus on design then need.. I do different



audience size matters alot in the long run.. I dont get the small ones now as you plan to look to scale.. I tried the small group, didnt lasted long sold alot.. all effort in building it or scaling is limited.. List down big groups like, nurses, doctors, firefighter, etc.. who does these professionally then break down into small subgroups like family nurses, registered nurses, licenses nurses, nursing aide. So mainly, look for BIG main niche group then break down.. if you do it reverse and focus on the small then you'd be limited long run.. its like hoping when you try to expand



dig deeper.. stay away from the common..this puts you in a better spot.. I design for my audience.. it like the feeling of buying gift for a special someone.. design it that way.. then do ads to "prove" your design.. its not just testing to see.. its aiming to prove that you made it specially for them.. sale will come after



**position it that way.. "specially made for Super moms like you" these is where I understood why custom made products are bought even if costly to produce..



use 3 photos using mockup and 1 vid. Usually photos work best for me in ad spend since vids are highly clickable due to curiousity to see the vid.. while photo speak direct



your adset will elect best performing after a day.. kill those ads that doesnt perfome and duplicat adset with the working ads



try it too.. audience will give indication on who works best.. better to be confident to show different angles of ad creative..



Im from the Philippines.. have the same.. doesn't make any difference where you are from.. if you don't spend to invest you won't get profit. its a risk but all businesses you need to invest. its like education, I too still attends training whenever possible. overly dreaming it kills you, aim to target reachable goals, for now, go invest to get money coming in just enough to pay for your learnings and ads, don't, look at the profit yet. when you get to sell one item that's a winner, it would be enough to fund your next product testing and so on.. what I do is when I sold an item on day one, I reinvest the profit on ads for the next day. that way I don't spend much just to learn. count the time you spend searching, reading and learning but not acting enough to try it, you actually lose more than the fear of losing actual money investing in your self, its time spent wasted and the supposed early learnings and profit gets delayed, in return, you spend more since you are slowing down on learning. If you think you don't see your self really into this, my advice is not to continue early on. The "try" mentality will not get you anywhere but just like a casino player, its not supposed to be like gambling but if you do, gable in your learning. Simply says. invest in your self, see people posting profits as inspiration, they too have gone more than you can imagine just to get there, not saying its very difficult but you can learn it. I don't want you to stop, the more you need to get this working since as you say, we are in a 3rd world and you may end up being in the best position to helping back your community to teach everyone to make a profit. else, where would you end up?



Use your fear to walk on thin ice. Make it your strength to keep cautious on your approach, you have an advantage. a lot do this like gambling, just putting ads out there without logic, hoping it sells. I did that too but knowing to spend wisely is the game. its profit not number of sales.



My designs are mostly plain no slogan. This enables my design to reach worldwide audience without race nor ethnicity issue. Goes well for scaling since its acceptable by most

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So glad to see that this post was genuine and not a backlink/SEO scheme.

A lot of folks post here to say "Hey, whatdya think?"

But they're not looking for feedback, they're looking for SEO/link juice.

@Deangiroir thanks for being genuine.

Thread marked NOTABLE, some great feedback here in a saturated, low entry business.

 

[Roli]

You've had some great feedback here, a lot of which I would have covered myself, so I'll just add in a couple of extra things.

First of all that little mail symbol at the corner with a "message" in it, is annoying and it pops up on every page.

Plus you are offering 20% off if people subscribe to your mailing list, however you boldly state there is a 20% sale. This is a bad tactic and will put people off, plus I have no way of knowing if you've just added 20% to your prices, just so you can discount them.

I have no idea about the quality of the shirts, this description below is confusing to me.

• 100% preshrunk ringspun cotton
• 65% polyester 35% cotton
• ¾" rib knit collar
• Double-needle stitched sleeves and bottom hem
• Taped neck and shoulders

How can something be 100% cotton and 65% polyester?

I personally would not pay $25 for a polyester T-shirt.

The fact is you can charge $100 if you tell a good enough story and use quality materials, however these look as if they are Fruit of The Loom $2 shirts.

For me, the biggest thing harming sales is the name, and the branding. Rusty was clearly a great dog, however in the video you show him wearing doggie clothes.

Even before seeing that video I thought with a name and logo like that, you were selling doggie Ts.

Pros

I love 'Pug Life', I think that is really cool, and even without a pug I might consider one myself.

The idea is a nice one and could catch on.

What I would change.

The T-shirt quality needs to go up, 100% cotton and 0% polyester.

Branding on the actual T-shirt should be added, at the moment it's just a picture, where's your logo?

Get rid of the 20% sale, tell them they get money off on multiple purchases, make 'em work for that discount!

Perhaps add some doggie clothes in there as well, as this would fit much more in with the brand. In fact they should be front and centre, and a matching human one is an afterthought.

Also by doing doggie shirts, you can really narrow down what will be popular. Doberman, Pug, Staffordshire Terrier, all of these are short haired dogs that will get cold in the winter.

If you do stick to human shirts, change the name to Rusty's Ts or something more fitting with what you do.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Some really GREAT feedback here, appreciate everyone who chimed in.

12) You have a touching story. Probably need to put a little spin on that and dramatize it further. I feel this has a lot of potential.
Check out some sites similar to yours :
- I'd Rather Be With My Dog | Apparel for Dog Lovers
- https://www.dogisgood.com
- Apparel & Gifts For Animal Lovers - Animal Hearted Apparel

Another thing I might note...

At first glance (besides the price) I don't see a business; I see someone trying to make money.

It just *feels* like someone started this after he read a book and wanted to start a money making venture.

This is because you lack a brand and a story. If you examine the websites above and compare, they all convey a business with a mood and a theme. I don't see (feel) that here.

Also, there's no way in hell I'd pay $25 for a t-shirt that had polyester in it. And i'm not even that cheap.

 

[biophase]

Can you give me an example of a t-shirt design that looks "not cheap"?

I'm actually interested...

Well if you look at this link: pug life shirt - Google Search
Let's compare them to yours: Pug Life Men's T-Shirt

You will find hundreds of similar shirts. Yes, your shirts are the same and the same price. To me, they all look cheap. They are all the same.

I actually sell dog t-shirts, it's not my main business, but it's more for branding and marketing. I assume that you are using an apps that plugs in directly with a print on demand t-shirt company. My shirts are priced at $25 also, but I don't make any money on them. That's because they are printing on the front and back and sometimes the sleeve.

My closet has at least 20 dog t-shirts from various dog rescues. They range from really nice to crappy. There are 2 or 3 that are good quality and nice designs that I wear all the time. The other ones I use for sleeping or lounging around.

I think you will have a tough time getting a simple site like this off the ground with cookie cutter designs. Someone who wants a Pug Life shirt has literally hundreds to choose from.

Below are 2 shirts that I personally like. I think if your store were filled with more similar to these it would be more unique.

 

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[Real Deal Denver]

To me, the shirt designs look cheap. They are like clip art designs that you can get for free. I think you need some originals or to vet them more. I agree with everyone else that commented above, but even if all those changes were made, the shirts just look like $10 t-shirts.

I'm one of your best friends here, as a lot of other people are. Aside from the brilliant advice given, especially from @Xeon and @biophase - which I completely agree with - you just have to up your game. And I mean WAY UP your game.

As bio says above, so correctly, the designs look like clip art. And clip art has evolved greatly. I use clip art a lot. One of my most simple designs is of a dollar sign that is 3-d, tilted slightly, and looks like it is made out of polished gold. Real gold that has a sheen on it - not just "colored clip art" gold color. And THAT'S simple clip art! I would never use the stenciled type of designs you have on your shirts. Ever.

Your site with a white background and static T-shirts. Really? How could you make this more dull or more boring? You simply can't. Unless you type it out like an article in a newspaper with no graphics. On a scale of 1 to 10, this ranks a 1. It simply can't be more plain vanilla than it already is.

I'm not here to make you feel good, obviously. Hallmark cards gets paid to do that - but not me. Sorry, not sorry (now THAT tag line IS pretty funny!).

I just had a moment today that I dreaded, but it turned out good. I have a friend that I refer to as my acid tester. Any idea that I present to him, he will shred. He will tear it apart and spit it out. And I not only appreciate that, but I need that. So, I created a website with gently merging patterns of light that is very soothing to look at. I can literally look at this for hours. I used this as a background and have floating text in front of it. I should put the text into a text box of some sort to make it easier to read. But I just hate the idea of taking away this relaxing effect in any way. Finally I had to face it. Was I sticking to this because of my personal preference? Maybe it's a bad idea, but I can't accept that. So I asked Mr. Acid Test to tell me if the background was too distracting and took away from the text readability. I can't stand in the way of my marketing - no matter how much I might love a design. He loved it. Said he really enjoyed looking at it and had never seen anything like it before.

Solved! I know not everyone will like it. But I'm not trying to please everyone. In fact, @Bekit said she almost bounced off your site because it took too long to load. I find that endlessly amusing. My site takes a lonnnng time to load - about 5 seconds I see by professional testing results. Know what? I don't CARE! I will NOT have a bare bones site. So I might lose customers. Oh shucks anyway. On the other hand, I know I will get loads of free advertising from people that DO stop and enjoy the relaxing feel of my site, as my Acid Test friend has.

Ramp it UP. I want excitement! I want THRILLS! Better yet - as @Xeon explained, I want a story! You can do so much better. So much good advice here. This is a thread I will be rereading quite often, as I am designing my own websites.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, SORRY, don't care. (as any self respecting pug would say!)

 

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[GSF]

Thanks for the rep, @MJ DeMarco!



Insane how they can even sell a t-shirt for $6. Even if one were to order 500 pieces of each design, there's a limit to how low the cost of goods per piece can go down. T-shirt blank + screen-printing cost (some designs have 2 colors = +$$) + neck tags + manpower / misc costs + cost to acquire a customer etc.



These guys feel a lot like Ivory Ella. Even the design style, company mission and the way they market the goods is the same! Maybe they're owned by the same guys. I remember Ivory Ella founders saying they want to get into other animal niches.

-----------------------------------

@Deangiroir :

Instead of selling them as commodities (6DollarShirts) or making it charity-based, which feels overdone to me nowadays (IvoryElla/Pawz/Animal-Hearted).....I've 2 ideas.
The basic is this:

Come up with a story --- > Give that story one mission ---> Build a brand based on that mission

Note: The 1st idea below is a lot harder to execute than the 2nd one.

IDEA #1

Your Original Story : Your fond moments with your terrier, who crossed the rainbow bridge some time ago.

Your Dramatized Story : You've a Yorkshire terrier, who watches TV with you, who watches you mow the lawn weekly, who loves to cuddle with you. Then, one morning, you and your wife came back home from work.....only to find the door opened.....and Rusty gone.

In sadness, you started having hallucinations of Rusty every day and at work.
You watch TV, and you thought Rusty is next to you, and you touch him, only to realize it's your wife.
You mow the lawn, and you hear a dog barking, only to realize it's all in your head.
You start looking for Rusty daily at the carpark, the nearby school, the grocery, the pub, the gas station.....you even see a psychiatrist.

That's your story (to put this on your website, you need to re-write it properly).

Your Story Mission : To never rest till you find your beloved dog.

That leads to your branding below....

Your Brand Name : Give your brand a name. E.g: WhereIsRusty, WheresRusty, WheresMyPup, WhereIsMyDog, MyLostRusty, ILostMyRust, ILostRusty or ILostMyDog....

The Execution :

1) All marketing collateral (logo, website) needs to be FUN and PLAYFUL. This cannot be marketed in a sorrowful or sad style (more on that at the bottom).

2) Get a logo made from Upwork/PeoplePerHour. No Fiverr. Logo should have 2 colors or less.
From your logo, pick out one of the color as your brand color.

2) You can keep the existing designs you've. On the sleeve or bottom hem of the t-shirts, get a woven label sewn in either of those 2 places. The woven label will say "WhereIsRusty" or "WhereIsMyDog".
This label must be clearly visible and distinctive. There's a few good suppliers in China and also the US itself who can provide these labels. All your t-shirts and products need to have this "signature identifier".
Or better still, make it a patch instead of a woven label.

3) Website : Website needs to be redone to tell your new story. The website and marketing materials.....everything will now revolve around your story. The website banner will show you or some actor posing comically, such as looking into the back of a van with a confused expression (tip: there's some good student photographers in California from what I've seen, but you've to find them on IG).
T-shirt should be visible in your shots.
The top banner of your site can say something like:

---------------------------------------------
Is My Dog At Your Place?
I'm coming over. Meanwhile, shop my dog t-shirts.
---SHOP---
---------------------------------------------
​

(just an example from the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with better ones)

Throughout the website, show pics of you/actor in various interesting locations finding your dog. You bending down to look under the car. Looking under a woman's skirt. In the pool. In the cemetery. At the beach. All about the content.

4) On social media (Instagram/FB), post daily pics of you in your t-shirts, in various poses doing different things, while looking for your dog . Get about 30 photography shots done at the start of the month, drip post 1 per day, with a witty caption. Follow all the dog lovers near you (LA?), some will follow back, then expand from there. Then, either run paid shoutouts on big dog accounts or use tools like Infinicore (I just discovered this in a FB group).
Post on Pinterest as well.

5) Run FB/Instagram ads with a simple text on the ad that says : Where Is Rusty? / Where Is My Dog and drive them all to your site.

6) Collab with Instagram influencers in your niche. Get them to repost your photo content with captions for their followers to read. Example:

"Have you guys seen this man before? I think he got desperate trying to find his lost dog. Link in bio."

The idea behind all these is to get fellow dog lovers/owners to jump onto your "one-man movement", which is you on a neverending journey desperate trying to find your dog.
During the journey, you come across interesting things in life or happenings (show all these in your photos.....can be real or posed).

Hook people, take them on an BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE where you try to find your imaginary dog, and then show them your t-shirts (no discounts or "mega sales").

When you've taken them on the adventure and they can related / identify to your story, price will be a lot less of an issue (unless the t-shirt is $545, but that's another story).

Some people might say "Hey, you're a scammer! Your dog is dead long ago and you're making all these up"

You tell them "But I'm playing with my dog's paws now. Oh, he's telling me the food's cooked. Be right back! "

In other words, in this story, you have gone insane / schizo after your dog left you.
You've become the sick guy who's obsessed about dogs, and thus having a dog tshirt store is only natural.
Play that up and play along!

With these, you can build a fun brand. This is why I mentioned above to keep all marketing collateral and website/brand fun and upbeat.
The potential customers HAVE to know that this is all made-up and games, without you telling them this!

I've mentioned KJP.com a few times before. This guy is an extreme example you can study from.
He's selling clothes and anchor bands. You can easily get these stuff at Aliexpress or other online sites.
But this motherfcker build an ENTIRE WORLD around the clothes he's selling.
Did he shout at you and say "20% OFF STOREWIDE AND BUY MY DRESSES"?

NO, check out his Instagram. He PULLS YOU into his beautiful world far away from mundane everyday life, takes you on a f*cking adventure, you got sucked in and became PART OF HIS WORLD, and now you're a lot more likely to buy from him if he asks you to! I know I would! If I buy from him (even if the products are made in china), I would feel EXTREMELY GOOD inside!

There's a lot of details in terms of execution which I have not listed here, it would take days, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd idea. This one is easier to do.

IDEA #2

Some time back, Twitter had this viral movement going on. See below:

Replace sex with dog.
Make these, put these as cards and show them on your site in a masonry grid layout like Pinterest (I think Shopify has plugins for this).

Day 35 without my dog : Flirted with the photo on the packaging at the pet food aisle
(I'm not a witty guy, so you can do better than this)

You may run out of ideas after a while, so you can :

1) get user-generated content for this (this case is a good candidate for giveaways on IG and encourage others to join in)
2) use this as a supplement WITHIN Idea 1 above to increase the fun
3) expand it to other animals
4) post it once every 3 days (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5...)
5) use it in other ways as a content marketing tool to build an audience and drive sales.

Hopefully, all these ideas will spark your imagination a bit.

Everything above is just 5% or less of the whole process, the execution is what makes the thing successful....because you still have to make the website look right, get the photography right, get the content right, get the branding right.....each of which, if done wrongly, will break the entire thing.....

Btw, one shop which I bought dog t-shirts from earlier this year.....they announced that they're closing down. After 1 year in business. They even have professional product photography of models, and they even got featured by one small-time celebrity at one event. Yes, and they run a lot of DISCOUNTS after DISCOUNTS, SALES after SALES every time. Every day is sales and discounts day LOL

6DollarShirts say this on their site:

No, f*ck them and their $6 shirts.
You'll steal their girls and wear their shirts!

just wanted to say....this post is great. @Xeon not sure if you're a copywriter/ marketing pro, but if you are and I ever need one im coming to you lol

 

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[biophase]

To me, the shirt designs look cheap. They are like clip art designs that you can get for free. I think you need some originals or to vet them more. I agree with everyone else that commented above, but even if all those changes were made, the shirts just look like $10 t-shirts.

 

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[MTEE1985]

Once again, is my shirt really that (much) worse of a deal?

Forget the $545 shirt. 6 dollar shirts charge $4.99 to ship so $11 is their all in, not $17. It’s yours at $25 shipped (or $20 with your current sale) vs. theres at $11 shipped. Yours is almost double. So to answer your question, yes, it is that much worse of a deal to the average consumer which is how I’m viewing this as I know nothing about the $5-$25 t-shirt world. The two shirts look the same to me.

Now, as an entrepreneur and business owner I ask myself if your shirts might justify the higher price and my answer is....maybe, but the site as it is now doesn’t convey that.

On second thought, why not spend $11 and see how their shirt compares?

 

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[Real Deal Denver]

Thanks for the rep, @MJ DeMarco!



Insane how they can even sell a t-shirt for $6. Even if one were to order 500 pieces of each design, there's a limit to how low the cost of goods per piece can go down. T-shirt blank + screen-printing cost (some designs have 2 colors = +$$) + neck tags + manpower / misc costs + cost to acquire a customer etc.



These guys feel a lot like Ivory Ella. Even the design style, company mission and the way they market the goods is the same! Maybe they're owned by the same guys. I remember Ivory Ella founders saying they want to get into other animal niches.

-----------------------------------

@Deangiroir :

Instead of selling them as commodities (6DollarShirts) or making it charity-based, which feels overdone to me nowadays (IvoryElla/Pawz/Animal-Hearted).....I've 2 ideas.
The basic is this:

Come up with a story --- > Give that story one mission ---> Build a brand based on that mission

Note: The 1st idea below is a lot harder to execute than the 2nd one.

IDEA #1

Your Original Story : Your fond moments with your terrier, who crossed the rainbow bridge some time ago.

Your Dramatized Story : You've a Yorkshire terrier, who watches TV with you, who watches you mow the lawn weekly, who loves to cuddle with you. Then, one morning, you and your wife came back home from work.....only to find the door opened.....and Rusty gone.

In sadness, you started having hallucinations of Rusty every day and at work.
You watch TV, and you thought Rusty is next to you, and you touch him, only to realize it's your wife.
You mow the lawn, and you hear a dog barking, only to realize it's all in your head.
You start looking for Rusty daily at the carpark, the nearby school, the grocery, the pub, the gas station.....you even see a psychiatrist.

That's your story (to put this on your website, you need to re-write it properly).

Your Story Mission : To never rest till you find your beloved dog.

That leads to your branding below....

Your Brand Name : Give your brand a name. E.g: WhereIsRusty, WheresRusty, WheresMyPup, WhereIsMyDog, MyLostRusty, ILostMyRust, ILostRusty or ILostMyDog....

The Execution :

1) All marketing collateral (logo, website) needs to be FUN and PLAYFUL. This cannot be marketed in a sorrowful or sad style (more on that at the bottom).

2) Get a logo made from Upwork/PeoplePerHour. No Fiverr. Logo should have 2 colors or less.
From your logo, pick out one of the color as your brand color.

2) You can keep the existing designs you've. On the sleeve or bottom hem of the t-shirts, get a woven label sewn in either of those 2 places. The woven label will say "WhereIsRusty" or "WhereIsMyDog".
This label must be clearly visible and distinctive. There's a few good suppliers in China and also the US itself who can provide these labels. All your t-shirts and products need to have this "signature identifier".
Or better still, make it a patch instead of a woven label.

3) Website : Website needs to be redone to tell your new story. The website and marketing materials.....everything will now revolve around your story. The website banner will show you or some actor posing comically, such as looking into the back of a van with a confused expression (tip: there's some good student photographers in California from what I've seen, but you've to find them on IG).
T-shirt should be visible in your shots.
The top banner of your site can say something like:

---------------------------------------------
Is My Dog At Your Place?
I'm coming over. Meanwhile, shop my dog t-shirts.
---SHOP---
---------------------------------------------
​

(just an example from the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with better ones)

Throughout the website, show pics of you/actor in various interesting locations finding your dog. You bending down to look under the car. Looking under a woman's skirt. In the pool. In the cemetery. At the beach. All about the content.

4) On social media (Instagram/FB), post daily pics of you in your t-shirts, in various poses doing different things, while looking for your dog . Get about 30 photography shots done at the start of the month, drip post 1 per day, with a witty caption. Follow all the dog lovers near you (LA?), some will follow back, then expand from there. Then, either run paid shoutouts on big dog accounts or use tools like Infinicore (I just discovered this in a FB group).
Post on Pinterest as well.

5) Run FB/Instagram ads with a simple text on the ad that says : Where Is Rusty? / Where Is My Dog and drive them all to your site.

6) Collab with Instagram influencers in your niche. Get them to repost your photo content with captions for their followers to read. Example:

"Have you guys seen this man before? I think he got desperate trying to find his lost dog. Link in bio."

The idea behind all these is to get fellow dog lovers/owners to jump onto your "one-man movement", which is you on a neverending journey desperate trying to find your dog.
During the journey, you come across interesting things in life or happenings (show all these in your photos.....can be real or posed).

Hook people, take them on an BEAUTIFUL ADVENTURE where you try to find your imaginary dog, and then show them your t-shirts (no discounts or "mega sales").

When you've taken them on the adventure and they can related / identify to your story, price will be a lot less of an issue (unless the t-shirt is $545, but that's another story).

Some people might say "Hey, you're a scammer! Your dog is dead long ago and you're making all these up"

You tell them "But I'm playing with my dog's paws now. Oh, he's telling me the food's cooked. Be right back! "

In other words, in this story, you have gone insane / schizo after your dog left you.
You've become the sick guy who's obsessed about dogs, and thus having a dog tshirt store is only natural.
Play that up and play along!

With these, you can build a fun brand. This is why I mentioned above to keep all marketing collateral and website/brand fun and upbeat.
The potential customers HAVE to know that this is all made-up and games, without you telling them this!

I've mentioned KJP.com a few times before. This guy is an extreme example you can study from.
He's selling clothes and anchor bands. You can easily get these stuff at Aliexpress or other online sites.
But this motherfcker build an ENTIRE WORLD around the clothes he's selling.
Did he shout at you and say "20% OFF STOREWIDE AND BUY MY DRESSES"?

NO, check out his Instagram. He PULLS YOU into his beautiful world far away from mundane everyday life, takes you on a f*cking adventure, you got sucked in and became PART OF HIS WORLD, and now you're a lot more likely to buy from him if he asks you to! I know I would! If I buy from him (even if the products are made in china), I would feel EXTREMELY GOOD inside!

There's a lot of details in terms of execution which I have not listed here, it would take days, so I'm going to move on to the 2nd idea. This one is easier to do.

IDEA #2

Some time back, Twitter had this viral movement going on. See below:

Replace sex with dog.
Make these, put these as cards and show them on your site in a masonry grid layout like Pinterest (I think Shopify has plugins for this).

Day 35 without my dog : Flirted with the photo on the packaging at the pet food aisle
(I'm not a witty guy, so you can do better than this)

You may run out of ideas after a while, so you can :

1) get user-generated content for this (this case is a good candidate for giveaways on IG and encourage others to join in)
2) use this as a supplement WITHIN Idea 1 above to increase the fun
3) expand it to other animals
4) post it once every 3 days (Day 1, Day 3, Day 5...)
5) use it in other ways as a content marketing tool to build an audience and drive sales.

Hopefully, all these ideas will spark your imagination a bit.

Everything above is just 5% or less of the whole process, the execution is what makes the thing successful....because you still have to make the website look right, get the photography right, get the content right, get the branding right.....each of which, if done wrongly, will break the entire thing.....

Btw, one shop which I bought dog t-shirts from earlier this year.....they announced that they're closing down. After 1 year in business. They even have professional product photography of models, and they even got featured by one small-time celebrity at one event. Yes, and they run a lot of DISCOUNTS after DISCOUNTS, SALES after SALES every time. Every day is sales and discounts day LOL

6DollarShirts say this on their site:

No, f*ck them and their $6 shirts.
You'll steal their girls and wear their shirts!

Hands down the most riveting brilliant marketing post I've EVER read!

And it's done with such a simple product! Pure undiluted genius! You took a product and rocketed it up 1,000% to make it almost a QUEST!

You HAVE to post more often! I don't know how you came up with all of that. Amazing!

 

[Deangiroir]

So glad to see that this post was genuine and not a backlink/SEO scheme.

A lot of folks post here to say "Hey, whatdya think?"

But they're not looking for feedback, they're looking for SEO/link juice.

@Deangiroir thanks for being genuine.

Thread marked NOTABLE, some great feedback here in a saturated, low entry business.

Thank you for providing a forum where I'm able to get real, honest feedback. I've learned a lot. Time to implement!

Yes! I really think you should look into this further. I don't know if you're already a member of pet/animal/dog lover forums, if not sign up and start lurking/contributing, and try to pick up on if this is a good way to go.

When you're ready, you'll have a good audience to test your first products on.

Also check Google trends and get some of the free Amazon tools that allow you to track sales of doggy clothes.

My instinct is that whippets are the most popular to clothe, because they're so small and skinny, and have ultra short hair. I see a lot of whippets around my way with winter coats and jackets, some even with little doggie booties!

Keep going, I think with the right tweaking this could turn into a nice little business. Just make sure your brand is strong and stands out.

Thanks @Roli! I've got a lot of work ahead but this forum has set a much needed path forward.

 

[minivanman]

If you choose to stick with this.... all types of bulldogs are very popular ya know. What if everyone that has looked at your site has a pitbull.... they don't want a doberman shirt. Or if they have a collie they don't care about a pug. If you are going to cater to dog lovers you need to cater to them all and not just 7. And get good pictures, not stock looking pictures. If I'm paying that high of a price for a shirt, that thing better bark when I call it's name.

I realize you are just starting out but 12 items for sale is not exactly what I call an emporium. I'm sure the visitors expected lots of stuff for puppies. Speaking of puppies, most of the pictures are not of puppies...?? I'd definitely say the visitors went looking for one thing and found.... almost nothing at all.

 

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[minivanman]

Why not be different.... put some real pictures of maybe an action shot or doing what ever the particular dog you are taking a picture of, does. Maybe a dog playing frisbee or doing something funny.... does anyone have shirts like that? You could also offer for them to upload their own picture.

 

[Castillo]

This is great stuff! Definitely has inspired me. Especially, getting the booster theme idea. This could save me a lot of time in the long run. Can't wait to implement all of this great advice! Thanks!

Just to let you know if you click on "quote" instead of "reply" you can reply to multiple people at once instead of posting many times

 

[RazorCut]

Also there are other ways to stand out. Here's a great example of taking a current eco topic and turning it to your advantage:



Microplastics T-shirt

Check out the Spec and Story tabs too.

 

[biophase]

@biophase

Thanks for the insight. I like those designs as well.

I actually screen print everything myself. Which make its much easier to adapt and change the designs.

That’s a huge advantage then. You can print on parts of the shirt that others can’t do. Print on the sleeves, make a custom printed label on the inside. Print on the bottom of the shirt. Sell for $25!

 

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[Johnny boy]

Edit: summery: Be an dog focused media company that happens to sell related products. That’s the takeaway. Period.


Running ads for a brand is very “transactional” as Gary V would call it. You don’t have a single sale. You could play with your ad creative a bit but I have a guess it won’t be ROI positive running ads for shirts like you’re doing. I don’t know what people are talking about I think they’re awesome shirts and not overpriced. You might even want to raise the price if you can increase the quality. I’ve bought shirts from brands like redwhiteblueapperal and baseballism and they are high quality and a little pricey. That’s okay. Man I buy $25 plain white t shirts from express just because they’re nice.

I don’t think straight up cold ads to people is going to work well for you. But that would be a fantastic thing to include on the sidebar of a blog about pets. Maybe you could contact 100 blogs that are about dogs and see if they’d “bite” on an affiliate marketing deal. They put your shirts on their site and you pay them a cut from it.

If you want to be an online store and become a true “emporium” you could operate like similar brands such as baseballism. Look it up. They have creative stuff you can only get through them. You’d need some investment and more creative projects but if you make a good product people will want it.

You should do this (my opinion)

1. Get serious on social media and start building a brand. I would consider a name change but that’s just me. Something shorter. I just don’t see “Rusty’s puppy emporium” being a brand but that’s totally just my opinion. Start following niche product brands and copy their strategies immediately. Follow “baseballism” for example and watch what they do. Or “yourdadsamerica” even. Brands succeed. Salesmanship will only optimize something. Follow other brands and use social media to attract people along with blog posts and email lists. Retargetting is good too but honestly that’s just semantics. The best sales is marketing.

2. Let it grow. It will only work if it’s really good. It takes time to become really good but it’s a skill like carving wood or playing guitar. It’s not that the guitar is broken or you’ve got bad wood to carve. Social media and product selling isn’t broken. It’s all about the skill of the craftsman or the artist. If you just plain suck at being creative or growing social media accounts...HIRE SOMEONE WHO HAS THE SKILL.

3. Don’t expect income right away. This goes along with letting it grow. Don’t do it for the 10 grand you think you could make this year if your ads convert. Do it for the 40 grand a month you could be making in 2-3 years because you built a kick a$$ brand that everyone knows about.

 

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[Roli]

. $545!!!!!! For a t-shirt! Brand or not $545 is ridiculous for a t-shirt that was just embroidered. In comparison, how is my $25 shirt a worse deal!? Just saying...

If we all bought fashion based on how much it is actually worth, then nobody would ever pay more than $5 for a T-Shirt. However that is not how it works at all.

I used to have a fun little 'job' buying Louis Vuitton for rich Chinese people in Hong Kong (I was in London).

You know why I had that job? Because LV actively turn custom away.

Try going into an LV shop looking like a scruffy nobody, they will restrict what they sell to you. In other words; our brand is way too good for you sir.

When you pay $500 for a T-shirt, you are not doing so because you believe it has amazing quality, you are doing so because you are sold on the brand, and everything it is trying to convey to you.

Like I said, I think you can sell them for $100, however your story has to be on point, and you need a logo.

If you haven't already done so, if I were you I would give @Xeon's post a good old read.

 

[Real Deal Denver]

If you haven't already done so, if I were you I would give @Xeon's post a good old read.

I read every post. The good ones I reread. A very few I return to and reread several times.

As for @Xeon post? THAT one is printed out and taped on my wall. I look at it every day!

I endlessly admire that brilliant post. I wonder much more how does someone get to that level of thinking?

Print that baby out. You can go years before finding something that good!

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

Am I the only one on here who is sitting back gobsmacked by the missing dog story?!? I don’t even like dog shirts and I wanna know where we’re all gonna go to look for Rusty next! Somebody get Xeon to tell more stories!!

 

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[Primeperiwinkle]

MY feelings exactly!

Yasssss!!! I’m not alone!! I have just bonded with you over a story about a company that doesn’t exist that chases a a dog that doesn’t exist! Lmfao.

Now all we need is a dude named Rusty to sit at our feet while we discuss the Goggins book! #priceless

 

[minivanman]

Day 46 cracked me the hell UP!!!

 

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[Deangiroir]

If you choose to stick with this.... all types of bulldogs are very popular ya know. What if everyone that has looked at your site has a pitbull.... they don't want a doberman shirt. Or if they have a collie they don't care about a pug. If you are going to cater to dog lovers you need to cater to them all and not just 7. And get good pictures, not stock looking pictures. If I'm paying that high of a price for a shirt, that thing better bark when I call it's name.

I realize you are just starting out but 12 items for sale is not exactly what I call an emporium. I'm sure the visitors expected lots of stuff for puppies. Speaking of puppies, most of the pictures are not of puppies...?? I'd definitely say the visitors went looking for one thing and found.... almost nothing at all.

Wow! These are all great points! Thank you so much for being honest!

The big picture plan is definitely to have different types of items. Not just shirts. Since I can screen print everything myself, my plan is to offer mugs, koozies, aprons, etc.

Maybe I should focus on introducing some of those items to justify the "emporium" title...

Or, change the domain name...

As for the lack of puppy items for sale... I can't believe I overlooked this one (duh)

Thank you again for your honesty! This really has helped me in knowing what to work on.

 

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