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How well do you do online? What's a reasonable expectation?
Rank: Member
Joined: 4/30/2007(UTC)
Posts: 383
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This is kind of a general question for all of you. We do pretty well in the offline world and are now looking to expand into the online arena. Setup is taking a little longer than we thought mainly because of trial and error in presenting products. We expect to be launching next week. The site has already been indexed by the major engines as we set the categories up in advance a few weeks ago. We're going to spend some money on Adwords and will probably use at least two of the feeds if not a feed tool as others have posted.
What's a realistic expectation for a new store? 3 orders a week, 4 orders a week? In a limited sample of a few items a few months ago we did get a pretty good response pretty quickly. Our price, service and reputation are great.
I'm just curious as to the input on what your experiences were....birdsafe et al...corneliu etc.
Thanks
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Rank: Member
Joined: 2/21/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,113
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Boy, that's a pretty difficult question to address as it really depends on the product -- if you have a product that is a commodity versus a high end product that is difficult for shoppers to visualize online, the range could be pretty wide.
I remember 3 years ago thinking that 3-4 orders a day I was doing pretty good (this was after being online for the previous 3 years and building an online presence. now we're are doing 20-25 orders a day, of which about 45% is search engine traffic (both paid and organic). |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 3/3/2006(UTC)
Posts: 1,737
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C... Could you be a bit more specific about the clientelle you seek to market to? $2,000.00 rare coins to coin collectors or $20.00 toys to parents?
A rough idea can be found on ebay (of all places). Search a category and see how heavy the feedback is for dealers of these items and figure the approximate number of happy customers per year (# of feedback/years on ebay) - keeping in mind not all sales generate feedback.
I make custom furniture in a pretty narrow part of the market. My customers look for me! I tried adwords... I get better results and ROI with hiring my host (Noah) to do SEO work and submittals on a continuing basis.
Sporatic advertizing in the national magazines also keeps my site 'out there' in the off-line world too. |
Optimists invent airplanes,
Pessimists buy parachutes. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 6/26/2006(UTC)
Posts: 351
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Our stats are similar to Joe's, although when I really have all the Internet advertising going, it can be 50 orders a day, average order of $80 or up to $4000 a day in sales. If I have a sale, we can go up to $15k/day in sales. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 8/17/2006(UTC)
Posts: 681
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I think I need to work a bit to catch up with you guys & gals. We've been online for a year now with www.BestGames.com.au and we still don't do that much. I'm just a bit better than Joe 3 years ago :). (On my side is the fact that Australia is a much smaller market than US :)) On the other side the new www.BestChess.com.au is just over a month old and it's going almost as good as the games one in terms of orders however averge order size is 3-4 times bigger which is not that bad. Corneliu. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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Hey corneliu, i have a game client as well. i stare at your catalog and literally, we piggy back each other. you and I loaded the new killer bunnies decks at the same time...
I've been struggling more than I like with this client, they're a great client in all respects, I'm talking about the market. The market is saturated and we're battling with the big box stores on 99% of the products. Naturally, the holidays bring in a nice influx of orders but it's the rest of the year that tends to go stale.
So I ask is the board game market itself going stale? does the fact that almost all suppliers sell direct to consumers kill any chances of serious numbers? are more consumers looking at electronic games? (Leap Frog, Wii, etc..)
Is amazon's marketplace killing us? Every game I add, I see it listed 20 times over on amazon.
I have found over the years with all of my clients that nailing the niche product brings the best tally. Read The Long Tail and you'll see the concept displayed in your sales reports.
Every time I speak with my clients about sales and products, we always spend the necessary time finding the next niche product. Research related forums, dealer/industry magazines, trade shows, etc...
since you're in the game market, do you have kids? if so, what are they crazy about right now? what are their friends crazy about? what are they playing at school? etc...
You are going to see a better performance on your chess site because you've saturated the site with Chess. Maybe it's time to consider another subsite.
My game client may be in a different boat as they have 7 retail stores, so while the web is a part of the pie, it's not the deal breaker. I make attempts to change that focus but the stores are doing fantastic, so they have to focus on that.
So I wouldn't beat yourself up over bestgames.com.au. it's a tough market! |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 8/17/2006(UTC)
Posts: 681
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Matt,
Sorry for the late reply. We've been flat out with lots of stuff. I'm happy with the way BestGames evolves. A year ago when we opened we were 4 game shops online. Now there are more than 8 and competition gets stronger.
Luckily the big stores are not really a competitor for us as most of our market is regional areas where they don't have access to a KMart, Target or other shops around the corner or if they do they keep stock of only 5-10% of the popular games so there is still good entry for us. We also don’t have Amazon down here
There are also some games people prefer to buy online like adult games (18y+) as they are delivered :)
Unfortunately for us the retail shop we opened 6 months ago did not go as well as expected so we are working to shut it down and minimize our looses so for us online is the way to go for the future.
The chess site is in a niche market which is good for us and cross selling helps a bit both sites.
We are actually looking to slowly get into other niche markets and try to saturate them. Even if the market is small they are good enough for a small company like ours.
But now ... unlike many others who try to use the Christmas to get more sales we focus on closing the bricks & mortar shop with minimum costs. Then we’ll focus back on the online.
Regards,
Corneliu. |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/23/2003(UTC)
Posts: 909
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Originally Posted by: "Corneliu" 
(We are actually looking to slowly get into other niche markets )
why slowly?!?!?!? :) |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 2/21/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,113
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Matt -- email me privately about this issue (joe @ birdsafe.com) |
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Rank: Member
Joined: 8/17/2006(UTC)
Posts: 681
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Matt,
Because there is only two of us :) and we have to take care of one 3 months old baby, one fulltime job, two online shops and one slow retail shop.
We just can't cope with them atm.
Regards,
Corneliu. |
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