Hi everyone
Joined this board today.
Was interested to get your perspective on something I have been grappling with. My site gets about 1000 unique hits per day, and the average visitor visits 3 pages per visit. However, my sales are averaging one sale per day. This seems very low.
I know that my prices are competitive as I frequently google competitors to see what they are charging for merchandise.
I think my site looks professional and is easy to navigate. Due to the forum rules here, I can post the link - but if you google "mighty mite dog gear" - I'll come up very easily.
My question is, is it my paypal shopping cart that is to blame? Since paypal does not have any mechanism to determine shopping cart abandonment, I can't say for sure whether that is the cause for the low sales, but it's the best conjecture I can come up with.
I do NOT want to redo my entire site. It has taken a lot of time effort and love to build the site as it is. The last thing I want to do is go to some cookie -cutter shopping cart site that requires I use their boiler plate gallery to display my store. Part of what has made my site so popular is the content and artwork and I would never want to lose that. So:
1) Do you think it is my reliance on paypal that is the cause of my lost sales? Do customers feel that a company that relies on paypal is not as "professional"?
a) if it's not paypal, what other causes could there be?
2) Assuming it is my reliance on paypal that is hurting my business, is there a shopping cart you could recommend that would not require we redo our entire site?
3) I am looking into authorize.net. What is your thoughts on them?

Paypal is nice to support, but also supporting Authorize.net (or 2CheckOut, etc.) can lead to an air of more professionalism.
I personally think that the "issue" is that it's almost hard to tell that your site is a shopping site rather than an informational web site. Just IMO, though!
-mike

can you elaborate on that? I appreciate the feedback.
Why do you say you think the site doesn't come across as a shopping site?

I agree with Mike. My first impression of your site was the same as Mike had. The frontpage looks like a informational site, and this impression was reenforced when I clicked on the product pages.
I also checked out some of your competitors, and their frontpages tell me it's a shop instantly. Maybe you should check them out and study the layout, info, etc. to find out why they stand out as stores?

Is this the page you are entering on (my index page):
http://www.mightymitedoggear.com
or is it one of these pages (which are informational pages on my site and are not for retail purposes):
http://www.mightymitedoggear.com/links.html
and http://www.mightymitedoggear.com/forum
I am wondering if when you google my site you entered one of the latter pages and not the index page? The index page doesn't have much in the way of information on it. Just items for sale. So if it's the index page you are referring to, I'm very confused why it looks like an informational site to you? Each of the items, the shampoo, the agility equipment, the leads, plus all the pull down menus, link directly to items that are for sale and the cart buttons are right below it.
This is an example of one of my competitors pages (I use this example because of their dog crates) - doesn't look different in layout from my own index page significantly:
http://www.doggonegood.com/
I'm not a petco or a petsmart - so those types of big box websites would not be good comparisons.
If I guessed correctly, and you were taking to the "small dog info" center or the forum - then perhaps, my problem with google linking customers to the wrong part of the site. That then is a whole other problem - how do I fix that?
However, if you didgo to my index page and didn't see stuff for sale, my question to you is - why didn't it appear to you that there were items for sale? What would you do to change the format to knock over people's heads that the shampoo and the tents and leads are to be purchased? One thought I had looking at my site was to lower the new years table below the clickable items for sale so that the items for sale lined up directly under the pull down menues. I guess being blatently obvious and writing "Mighty Mite Dog Gear MAIN SHOP" might help too . . . any other ideas?

I came in through the index, and at first I thought it was a website about dog gear and not a store. I didn't come go to the forum or any other parts. How about marking the prices on the products you got on the frontpage?

You should check from what keywords user reach to your site.
If the keywords are related to informational pages of your site then
the sales will be low. Either you get customers or visitors.
I haven't checked the shopping process so I cannot comment on this.

You should check from what keywords user reach to your site.
If the keywords are related to informational pages of your site then
the sales will be low. Either you get customers or visitors.
I haven't checked the shopping process so I cannot comment on this.
Have to fully agree with Steve_Arm. The confusion seems to be what pages we're viewing. Knowing the keywords that bring visitors to your site allows you to use those keywords to your advantage. Optimize them on your offers pages.

So - steve - did you come in through one of the informational pages then?
I guess I could list prices on the first page. As you guys know, there's a plus and minus to doing that in today's world of internet shopping.
Another though - I could elude to the prices. For example, with the dog tents "Affordabily Priced!" in the tag line?
I do know that I get a LOT of traffic entering the site through the forum - people who are looking for very specific information about dogs and dog sports. I always thought that a good thing because there is a link to the main site from the top of the forum and it was a traffic generator for me - and a possible introduction to the site for many who would otherwise not find a small company like mine. Are you saying that it might be hurting me? My sense is that I would not have generated the traffic I have, without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, were it not for my informational pages.
I have watched key words and believe me - they get incredibly specific like "running contacts" "Addison disease in dogs" along with more generic stuff that does lead to sales pages such as "dog tents" and "dog show leads."
So the next question would be -once I have identified the key words, how do I direct them to the index page? Would a redirect by necessary - even for those going to the forum?

I just reached the index page, which does look that there are products for sale on
your site.
I guess since you say that people are driven to the forum, you should
monitor the threads and promote your products.
What would be good is a module that shows your ads tied to the content of the page. Like google ads does.

The forum will be a very valuable asset for your store. I have similar infopages for my own store, and they bring me a lot of customers. It's a good way to bring customers to a store. But I also think a lot of the potential customers leave the store because they don't receive it as a "store", but rather another infopage. That's the impression I got when I visited your store.

The forum will be a very valuable asset for your store. I have similar infopages for my own store, and they bring me a lot of customers. It's a good way to bring customers to a store. But I also think a lot of the potential customers leave the store because they don't receive it as a "store", but rather another infopage. That's the impression I got when I visited your store.
Let me make this one caveat before asking the question <grin>
I absolutely HATE e-commerce sites that look like your typical boilerplate shopping cart/gallery site (especially with the almost stereotypical flash "gallery" and hooky music playing in the background). You see so many of these types of sites, and inevitably, they are not "real" businesses but drop shippers and very small time stuff (I won't be catty and link to some examples in my industry but I'm sure you guys know of some yourselves). So the least thing I want is to lose that original feel my site has and the fun and informative aspects. However, I can see that perhaps, some people might get lost in the information overload . . .so with that out of the way <grin grin>. If you were to prioritize changes you would make to the index page to make it look more like a store, in your eyes, what changes would you make - imagine I'm giving you free license to redesign my front page. What would you add? Take away? What content would you include, exclude, etc. Could you give me some "numbered steps" like
1) first I would . . .
2)then I would take out . ..
3) then I would move up . . .
I am so close to this site and it has been such a labor of love for me and my webdesigner, I do appreciate the fresh perspective you all are giving me. It is helpful to see what others see.
My customer demographic are 40+ year old women, many who are shopping on the internet for the first time (I have had many a phone conversation and also track my demographics through quantcast). So making the site as friendly and easy to navigate and understand as possible for them is definitely a priority.

I just reached the index page, which does look that there are products for sale on
your site.
I guess since you say that people are driven to the forum, you should
monitor the threads and promote your products.
What would be good is a module that shows your ads tied to the content of the page. Like google ads does.
That's very interesting. I do have google click ads on the forum - as you can see. If I understand your suggestion correctly, you are kinda saying I should have my own "product suggestions" come up on the forum page in a strip linking back to the store?
Not sure how I do this, but it is definitely a brilliant idea worth looking into.

Yes your own suggestions, also check some quick changes I would do
to the forum
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=13971&d=1230739746

First guys: you're all awesome! Thanks for the super suggestions!
Second,lol, Steve - I just changed the skin from our Christmas skin yesterday and some of my forum members are grumbling that the new skin is hard to read. I've been trying to figure out exactly which part of the skin code I need to change to turn that text to white - but that's already on my "to do" list! <sigh, a forum admin's job is never done>.
Agree that the button moving is critical. I'll see if I can make some sort of a banner link.
So in terms of my own suggestions - you are approving of the following:
1) Moving the new year's greetingbelow the buttons for the shampoo, dog tents, leads, etc.
2) Adding wording like "affordable dog tents" "super deals on Pure Paws" "Buy your show leads here"
3) Putting in where we have the dog jumping over the calendar "The Mighty Mite Dog Gear SHOP! Buy your Mighty Mite Dog Gear Products Here!"
4) Anything else?

I wrote this email to my webdesigner after reading all your comments - it terms of the problem I seem to be having with google and people's entry page(and didn't know I had - I guess it was a good thing I couldn't post a direct link to my site initially and had asked you guys to google me! go figure!):
Aside from moving the items for sale directly below the drop down menu (and the new year’s wish below that) and hitting the customers over the head with the word “SHOP” and in Mighty Mite Dog Gear: THE SHOP” AND making allusions to pricing on the first page . . . is there a way to do a redirect ONLY for those who found the site through google – so that if a person were coming to the site from the search engine and typed in something like “small dogs in agility” – she would be brought to the Mighty Mite Dog Gear index page and not the forum or links page? I would still want a person who wanted to go to the forum and was linking in directly, to be able to (like my regular forum members – wouldn’t want them to get stuck in a perpetual loop where they couldn’t access the forum), but if the informational pages are pushing away that would –be 1000 hits a day from realizing it’s a STORE, then I need to put a plug in it. Seems like some sort of redirect would be the answer. Is there some way this could be worked out? Seems like google, in its infinite bot wisdom doesn’t really look at content, just key words, and therefore doesn’t send people to the right pages on its own.
Do you guys know a way of doing this?