Critique wanted - getting more traffic, but no buyers

Hi all -

I own www.ALittleLingerieCompany.com; we opened this past May. Business is going great locally, but the web-based business isn't. My traffic is increasing and I am starting to show up on the first page of Yahoo and - very occasionally - on Google for some of my keywords. However, no one is buying. I have tried to make the site very warm and user-friendly, and that's what my customers' feedback is telling me I've created. However, still virtually no buyers who don't connect with me locally first.

Any ideas/comments?

Jennifer

Well the site looks a bit plain in that all white background. I would try to soften it with a very VERY light pink. Otherwise it's really not a bad looking site at all. I'd experiment with some warmer colors, that could help.

Well, we're actually doing a "professional" critique of another lingerie site over the next wek or so. I would advise you to keep an eye out for that on www.ecommerce-guide.com.
Very quickly, I would say that being in that industry is very tough. You have to ask yourself how many sites sell what you sell, including the grand daddy of them all, Victoria's Secret.
Also, the "close up" pictures are of horrible quality. All it looks like you did was take the same image that's on the item page and blow them up using the image size tags.
You sem to have done well including plenty of descriptive text that should do well with search engines.

Yes, some of my detail photos aren't as great as I'd like, but most are good. What's interesting is that the only online sales I've made have all been for products with some of my worst photos. So, not sure that's the issue.

Getting clear photos has a lot to do with the image I get from the manufacturer - not a whole lot of room for play there.

I also noticed that you seem to have a rather small selection. I think that's hurting you as well. If you research your competition, I think you'll see what I mean.

Hi,

Jennifer, consider this “what is the difference between your website and Victoria Secret?” Both sell Lingerie products and attract female audiences.

Your website needs a glamour touch, it is missing a great look and feel of the products, if your retail store is doing good coz you are attracting local crowd, ask them if they would be interested shopping online and what really pulls them to retail.

"Sex sells" just like that, if your products have a dazzling images it will be more appealing to shoppers. Every shopper looks for 3P’s - Product, Price and Performance of the site, if any one of them is slow or not good, then chances of conversion ration would be less.

To improve your online sales, try following:
1. Change look and feel, make the white background light pink color (girl color)
2. Add a splash image of a beautiful image you get such images from stock images for $100
3. Add a background color to top header and side navigation
4. Add some special categories like Features Items, Special events, Great Lingerie deals etc
5. Show original price and discounted price so the shopper feels he is getting a good deal
6. IMAGES, real good images, I know you are dependant on your manufacturer images see if you can get from stock images if possible, this will be the killer for your sales coz all that attracts is the image coz hardly there is any large piece of cloth :)
7. Customer testimonials for specific products not just on home page like customer reviews
8. Add "Related items" section for each product to do some cross selling in product details page and view cart pages
9. Run some specials like "Free shipping on orders above $50"

Try to achieve 4 out of these 9 points that should help your conversion ratio to improve…

excellent advice.

2 ideas for you:
1) Here's a suggestion: tie in your store (offline) with the site. The basic idea is that it's easier to get existing customers to buy more than new customers.

So in your retail store offer something like 10% off their purchase if they give you their email address + first name. Use this technique to build up a database of your customers and send out a e-newsletter with promos etc. driving them to the site and ordering online now and then, in addition to coming in the store.

2) Once the online conversions increase (using some of the ideas above), you can boost your sales further with an affiliate strategy. But only do this when the online machine is well oiled.

Regards,
Peter

Jennifer,
Take a look at this site: http://www.indulgefashion.com.au

They were a candidate for our critique, but they don't seem to have a design problem. It's a very clean site, with tons of products.