Website Feedback - Dog Related

[MTEE1985]

In comparison, how is my $25 shirt a worse deal!? Just saying...

after a cursory 2 minutes of googling and fake buying it may not be a worse deal than a $545 shirt, but it is a (much) worse deal than this shirt:
Pug Life Dog T-Shirt | 6DollarShirts

I believe that is what @biophase is referring to in regards to your artwork. You say it is “original” but...it isn’t. In the space you are entering it is either a race to the bottom on price i.e. $6 shirts ($11 with shipping but still pretty cheap) or you need a compelling story/mission like this: Pawz ® for a Cause Shirts

I’m sure Rusty was a wonderful dog but your About Us basically says “we miss our dog and now we sell dog shirts” Share stories about Rusty on there, or photos, personalize it more toward being a brand than being just another Shopify site selling dog t-shirts.

Why should anybody buy your shirts? If you can answer that and communicate it on your site then you will be miles ahead of your competition.

 

[Deangiroir]

after a cursory 2 minutes of googling and fake buying it may not be a worse deal than a $545 shirt, but it is a (much) worse deal than this shirt:
Pug Life Dog T-Shirt | 6DollarShirts

I believe that is what @biophase is referring to in regards to your artwork. You say it is “original” but...it isn’t. In the space you are entering it is either a race to the bottom on price i.e. $6 shirts ($11 with shipping but still pretty cheap) or you need a compelling story/mission like this: Pawz ® for a Cause Shirts

I’m sure Rusty was a wonderful dog but your About Us basically says “we miss our dog and now we sell dog shirts” Share stories about Rusty on there, or photos, personalize it more toward being a brand than being just another Shopify site selling dog t-shirts.

after a cursory 2 minutes of googling and fake buying it may not be a worse deal than a $545 shirt, but it is a (much) worse deal than this shirt:
Pug Life Dog T-Shirt | 6DollarShirts

I believe that is what @biophase is referring to in regards to your artwork. You say it is “original” but...it isn’t. In the space you are entering it is either a race to the bottom on price i.e. $6 shirts ($11 with shipping but still pretty cheap) or you need a compelling story/mission like this: Pawz ® for a Cause Shirts

I’m sure Rusty was a wonderful dog but your About Us basically says “we miss our dog and now we sell dog shirts” Share stories about Rusty on there, or photos, personalize it more toward being a brand than being just another Shopify site selling dog t-shirts. Why should anybody buy your shirts? If you can answer that and communicate it on your site then you will be miles ahead of your competition.

$545 (Harrods) vs $25 (My Site) = $520 difference
$25 (My Site) vs $17 (6DollarShirts includes shipping) = $8 difference

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

I totally understand my site needs A LOT of work (branding, images, description, etc.) I really knew that before starting this thread. And I'm grateful for the advice. However, I just don't see the comparison in this situation.

 

[TreyAllDay]

I'd be curious to know more about shipping times, shipping policy, a little bit about the company. People are always a bit skeptical when they're not sure of this stuff.

I noticed some stuff in each product about your 100% satisfaction, 4 reasons - maybe this would be better on homepage as I didn't feel like clicking on a product without knowing that.

Would also be good to see some social proof - even once you get your first sale, mark that as your "best seller"

 

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[chuckypita]

Is design your only opportunity for differentiation?

I've bought plenty of $25 t-shirts - and the reasons are more because of the "fit" than the funny slogan or witty drawing.

Also, I don't like polyester... it's itchy and I find it uncomfortable.

What are other ways your can differentiate your product?

 

[Real Deal Denver]

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!!

MY feelings exactly!

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!

 

[Roli]

I've been thinking of integrating matching human/dog t-shirts. That could differentiate my brand

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.

 

[chuckypita]

I did "Amazon Merch" for a few years - I made over $25,000 and then Amazon kicked me - and thousands of other t-shirt designers off. It was a feast or famine environment and once Vietnamese designers starting copying best seller designs and then using Amazon copyright complaints against original designers - it was all over. (Amazon didn't have proper channels of control in place and figured - what the hell - there's tons of designers, I'll just kick all these crackpots off and get new designers) (This goes back to CONTROL that MJ talks about.)

While in that competitive industry, dog designs sold well - as did t-shirts designed around holidays and days of year.

Your website is good... but not great. (Can you speed up the sales funnel somehow?)

Your t-shirt designs are good... but not great. When you find a t-shirt that sells 3 to 1 or even 10 to 1 vs. others - take a strong mental inventory. What specifically is it about that design that makes it so appealing?

Keep perfecting your craft. If you can build a large email network and showcase great designs continuously, there's no question that you can build a valid business.

Return customers will be your key to success.

Also, be sure to use uspto.gov to check on trademarks/copyrights.

All it will take is one t-shirt that infringes on someone's trademark and you put your whole website at risk.

Anyway - BEST OF SUCCESS TO YOU!

 

[Deangiroir]

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!

 

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[Private Witt]

Shirts are really nice, are you going to sell them in the real world at all or just online.

 

[Deangiroir]

Shirts are really nice, are you going to sell them in the real world at all or just online.

Thanks Private Witt!

Right now I'm focusing on eCommerce sales but real world sales are definitely in the plans.

 

[RazorCut]

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!

Where do you want us to send the invoice?

My CTR on the Facebook Ad is currently:

CTR (all): 1.94%
CTR (Link to Website): 1.38%

That's not bad stats at all.

 

[Deangiroir]

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.

Well, there is a reason why the return policy looks stock... because it is. LOL
Another great piece of advice and something for me to work on. Thank you!

 

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[Deangiroir]

Where do you want us to send the invoice?

Maybe I should keep the address hard to find on my site...

That's not bad stats at all.

Thanks. I felt the ad stats were decent as well. Which tells me my targeting is a good start. I'm just sending people to a site that needs work.

 

[Chris25]

Those bright saturated colors are the thing that bothered me the most. It does not look professional imo.

Can I ask, what is the name of the widget you use for e-mail signups? It looks good, but maybe it shouldn't pop up everywhere.

 

[whiz]

In regards to my post above, the most important thing he said was:

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

I've run a bunch of FB ads and this is so true.

You can run ads and get 1298731 likes and 29833 shares but no buys.

There are some quotes that give people enough of a feeling to click a button.

Then there are quotes that create so much emotion that they get off the couch and grab their credit card.

It can be quotes, photos - whatever.

It just has to hit like a truck when they are exposed to the idea/concept.

 

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[Fassina]

My main worry here is what is your margin, and what's your max cpc and cps.

Selling things in a low price range like shirts, is quite difficult to make profitable if you have to pay ads to do it.

Other than that, try having breed targeted ads using facebook pages as filters. i.e Find a bulldog page with lot's of likes and make an ad for it that links to that specific shirt page, you can target only people following some pages with facebook.

You could also message the page owners and pay for a review / post instead of using the ads platform to do it. Probably cheaper and better, but more work.

I feel like you'll spin this wheel for a long time before you realise / accept it's not really profitable enough to be worth the effort. But hey maybe you'll make it work, you obviously put a lot of work on this already so who knows.

Just remember sunk cost fallacy is a thing, and enjoy the journey. I made this mistake recently, and next time you can bet I'll be doing my math before jumping into things.

 

[Deangiroir]

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

Thanks MJ! You've written a great book in the Millionaire Fast lane. It's already one of my favorite books and I've read a lot. Unscripted is next.

You're response definitely has me thinking...

I feel I could do one of 2 things:

1. Lower the price (duh) Maybe between $15 - $20
2. Work on my branding/shirt quality to justify the price.

On the right track?

 

[Deangiroir]

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?

Once again, just some amazing advice... I'll be implementing all of this. Thank you!

My CTR on the Facebook Ad is currently:

CTR (all): 1.94%
CTR (Link to Website): 1.38%

 

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[Deangiroir]

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

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!

 

[Deangiroir]

Those bright saturated colors are the thing that bothered me the most. It does not look professional imo.

Can I ask, what is the name of the widget you use for e-mail signups? It looks good, but maybe it shouldn't pop up everywhere.

Thanks for your insight!

The email signup widget is a Shopify app called Privy.

 

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[Fastlane Liam]

Honestly you should post them on Redbubble. I posted a few spam designs years ago and a few dollars show up in my paypal every now and then. I literally forget it exists and did 0 work years ago but they still sell.

 

[Deangiroir]

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.

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

I'm actually interested...

 

[Deangiroir]

I like these, you can see that the print and the T look more blended, plus I can really tell the quality of the maroon one.


EDIT: Huh, don't seem to be working, check out this website, about halfway down.
https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/designers/stefano-ricci

Ok. Thanks for the example.

However,

1. These are embroidered shirts. I'm looking for screen printed shirt examples. Should've been more specific

2. $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...

 

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[Deangiroir]

@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.

 

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[Art@AssetProfit]

Awesome taking action and shopify good platform but why not just upload designs on the Print on Demand Tshirt websites? No cost until you get paid orders? Plus they have the Traffic already.

I like the idea that you have an Asset you own you can sell later if you can get consistent monthly income but as mentioned even the quality of the shirts are much better at the print on demand websites. Just was curious did you consider those.

Art

 

[Deangiroir]

Awesome taking action and shopify good platform but why not just upload designs on the Print on Demand Tshirt websites? No cost until you get paid orders? Plus they have the Traffic already.

I like the idea that you have an Asset you own you can sell later if you can get consistent monthly income but as mentioned even the quality of the shirts are much better at the print on demand websites. Just was curious did you consider those.

Art

I did consider Print on Demand but I decided to print my own shirts mainly because I want Control of the print process and my business. I can not only have a "dog owner t-shirt site" but I can have a screen printing business as well. When/if business picks up, I can hire people to print shirts for me using my equipment. It also makes it easier for me to screen print on other mediums like actual shirts for dogs, koozies, mugs, glass wear, etc. I feel I have more options. Also, if I'm able to sell shirts in mass quantity, I save money on materials (ink, squeegee, screens, etc.)

Also, I'll mention that I can get better quality shirts. I'm really testing at this point more than anything. However, more expensive shirt eats profit. Not that I'm opposed to better quality shirts, it's just that it will affect price/shirt or profit and it's something that needs to be analyzed.

Plus screen printing is fun

 

[Deangiroir]

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!

Custom printed label is definitely something I'll have to implement.

Sleeves are a great idea too

 

[Xaridimos]

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!

You could improve your site extremely, by adding articles and blog posts about dogs. It would be really great for the customer to learn something about dogs , while browsing your site.

You can add backshots of the t-shirts for a more complete presentation

It would be beneficial to add product descriptions.

That's all for now. I hope I gave you some great ideas to think about.

 

[Deangiroir]

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.

Great point. My brand is pretty non existent at this point.

Very interesting about LV restricting what they sell to certain individuals. @Xeon's post is awesome. Very good advice.

I'd be curious to know more about shipping times, shipping policy, a little bit about the company. People are always a bit skeptical when they're not sure of this stuff.

I noticed some stuff in each product about your 100% satisfaction, 4 reasons - maybe this would be better on homepage as I didn't feel like clicking on a product without knowing that.

Would also be good to see some social proof - even once you get your first sale, mark that as your "best seller"

Thanks for the insight! I'm gonna add those "4 Reasons" to the homepage.

 

[Deangiroir]

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!

 

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