Little traffic - no sales

[justicel]

I had high hopes about the alidropship stories and journeys and all this. Problem is - that's them. When it comes to my store ... I'm pretty much at the deep end on my own. None of that flash stories and smooth journeys are on my side. The only thing that is with me is - the expenses. I have now almost individually bought every service alidropship has with no luck with my store. The only good thing I suppose is that there are no monthly subscription fees. I picked a risky niche - fan merch - according to alidropship its number one. I guess it takes time - added to my 3 months since I have had the store live with no success at all. I did all social media and social rabbit is posting to them every second with very little traffic. I have spent so much on facebook with absolutely no luck. So lets get real and see if anyone out there can help - be realistic - no story telling just genuine help to try and make this work. Site: www.justiceleaguesworld.com
I have coded parts of it because frankly the theme is a bit old school. Hope someone can share their (REAL) stories too so we can all learn about what it really is than what it isn't ... thanks

 

[Mar]

My store went live about the same time as yours. But I had my first sale about a month later. Since then it made more and slowly generate trust from buyers which is one of the most important. I post in social media but never paid for ads especially Facebook that is very expensive and you are never sure of the result. I did not pay anything else except Social Rabbit. It is where my store generated a lot of traffic and actually the sales. I tried the webrily, it never made any difference in terms of traffic until I decided to ask for refund.

Your story is not new, I saw a number like it here in the forum. I see your store has very few products. If the meaning of niche is sell only like yours, products related to "fan merch" then I don't believe in niche. I have more than 12,000 products in my store and it is growing. I always check trending products according Alidropship and other sources and made sure I have these products and created blogs about the items. But I don't limit my store to this products alone. I don't see any reason why one would not buy in a store with so many products and buy instead in a store with very few choices. Some people are interested in the products you sell but not everybody, how about the rest? Even people who are fan of this products, chances are they will end up buying something else which caught their attention while exploring your store, but if that is all you have, it will not happen. If the reason you stick to a niche is to avoid competition (I saw it in many posts), the reality is before we came and launched a store, thousands of other stores were already there. What ever niche you choose, thousands of other stores are already selling those products. So don't limit your self because of that myth.

My first sale was DIY tools, then a number of cheap beauty products, shoes, cheap jewelries, etc. As you can see, these products are not in one niche. So if you believe in "niche" with the meaning I stated earlier, don't expect too much. My advice, add more products. Don't limit your store because of stories you saw. There is no harm if you have many, the harm is when a buyer is looking for something and your store don't have it. I have that lesson, I had an online store selling food supplement and beauty products alone. It was not a dropshipping site. It never took off until I shut it down when the renewal of the hosting came.

Also, I add a note for buyers who don't have or afraid to use credit cards online. I assist them in ordering. They just have to order like ordering for real and proceed to pay without entering a credit card number. The order will fail and will appear as cancelled in the orders page but the details of the order like the name and address will be captured and I will use those information when I receive the payment they send, and use the cancelled order in auto order with AliExpress. The result is just like any other orders. We are selling world wide and in some under developed countries, very few are using credit cards. It worked.

So if you are looking for REAL stories, that is what I am telling you now. Not like the juicy stories you saw, just real one.

 

[Observer]

My store went live about the same time as yours. But I had my first sale about a month later. Since then it made more and slowly generate trust from buyers which is one of the most important. I post in social media but never paid for ads especially Facebook that is very expensive and you are never sure of the result. I did not pay anything else except Social Rabbit. It is where my store generated a lot of traffic and actually the sales. I tried the webrily, it never made any difference in terms of traffic until I decided to ask for refund.

Your story is not new, I saw a number like it here in the forum. I see your store has very few products. If the meaning of niche is sell only like yours, products related to "fan merch" then I don't believe in niche. I have more than 12,000 products in my store and it is growing. I always check trending products according Alidropship and other sources and made sure I have these products and created blogs about the items. But I don't limit my store to this products alone. I don't see any reason why one would not buy in a store with so many products and buy instead in a store with very few choices. Some people are interested in the products you sell but not everybody, how about the rest? Even people who are fan of this products, chances are they will end up buying something else which caught their attention while exploring your store, but if that is all you have, it will not happen. If the reason you stick to a niche is to avoid competition (I saw it in many posts), the reality is before we came and launched a store, thousands of other stores were already there. What ever niche you choose, thousands of other stores are already selling those products. So don't limit your self because of that myth.

My first sale was DIY tools, then a number of cheap beauty products, shoes, cheap jewelries, etc. As you can see, these products are not in one niche. So if you believe in "niche" with the meaning I stated earlier, don't expect too much. My advice, add more products. Don't limit your store because of stories you saw. There is no harm if you have many, the harm is when a buyer is looking for something and your store don't have it. I have that lesson, I had an online store selling food supplement and beauty products alone. It was not a dropshipping site. It never took off until I shut it down when the renewal of the hosting came.

Also, I add a note for buyers who don't have or afraid to use credit cards online. I assist them in ordering. They just have to order like ordering for real and proceed to pay without entering a credit card number. The order will fail and will appear as cancelled in the orders page but the details of the order like the name and address will be captured and I will use those information when I receive the payment they send, and use the cancelled order in auto order with AliExpress. The result is just like any other orders. We are selling world wide and in some under developed countries, very few are using credit cards. It worked.

So if you are looking for REAL stories, that is what I am telling you now. Not like the juicy stories you saw, just real one.

Thanks for sharing this story. It is very helpful. I am very interested in e-commerce, but I am style studying dropshipping and amazonFBA. To be honest I am still not sure what to choose.
With respect to your store, how do you deal in finding reliable suppliers? I guess you work with lots of suppliers with 1200 products.
Do most of them respect shipping times? The long shipping times with dropshipping worry me a bit and that is what makes me hesitant.
Many thanks in advance for your feed-back.

 

[justicel]

My store went live about the same time as yours. But I had my first sale about a month later. Since then it made more and slowly generate trust from buyers which is one of the most important. I post in social media but never paid for ads especially Facebook that is very expensive and you are never sure of the result. I did not pay anything else except Social Rabbit. It is where my store generated a lot of traffic and actually the sales. I tried the webrily, it never made any difference in terms of traffic until I decided to ask for refund.

Your story is not new, I saw a number like it here in the forum. I see your store has very few products. If the meaning of niche is sell only like yours, products related to "fan merch" then I don't believe in niche. I have more than 12,000 products in my store and it is growing. I always check trending products according Alidropship and other sources and made sure I have these products and created blogs about the items. But I don't limit my store to this products alone. I don't see any reason why one would not buy in a store with so many products and buy instead in a store with very few choices. Some people are interested in the products you sell but not everybody, how about the rest? Even people who are fan of this products, chances are they will end up buying something else which caught their attention while exploring your store, but if that is all you have, it will not happen. If the reason you stick to a niche is to avoid competition (I saw it in many posts), the reality is before we came and launched a store, thousands of other stores were already there. What ever niche you choose, thousands of other stores are already selling those products. So don't limit your self because of that myth.

My first sale was DIY tools, then a number of cheap beauty products, shoes, cheap jewelries, etc. As you can see, these products are not in one niche. So if you believe in "niche" with the meaning I stated earlier, don't expect too much. My advice, add more products. Don't limit your store because of stories you saw. There is no harm if you have many, the harm is when a buyer is looking for something and your store don't have it. I have that lesson, I had an online store selling food supplement and beauty products alone. It was not a dropshipping site. It never took off until I shut it down when the renewal of the hosting came.

Also, I add a note for buyers who don't have or afraid to use credit cards online. I assist them in ordering. They just have to order like ordering for real and proceed to pay without entering a credit card number. The order will fail and will appear as cancelled in the orders page but the details of the order like the name and address will be captured and I will use those information when I receive the payment they send, and use the cancelled order in auto order with AliExpress. The result is just like any other orders. We are selling world wide and in some under developed countries, very few are using credit cards. It worked.

So if you are looking for REAL stories, that is what I am telling you now. Not like the juicy stories you saw, just real one.

Mar, thanks for the reply. Do you work for alidropship? I had a store on shopify with 5,000 products from aliexpress and none of them sold. In fact some of the stores that sell millions in sales have less than 500 products. The idea is ... you dont want to create another aliexpress but create a narrow line of products. Im struggling to understand where your argument comes in until I see your store if you could pls show us what it is. Mine is www.justiceleaguesworld.com. Also with alidropship service is really bad. They now removed the chat option in their website. I paid for 2 orders on in the last2 months for a SEO article and I got one that was riddled with broken English like it was written by a primary school kid. I am still waiting on the revision and I also ordered a SEO package and its now about a week and no update from alidropship if it is being worked on or what. I also found another website that offers store and after checking it was actually alidropship themselves. Am I being tricked into a scam here or what

 

[Mar]

Thanks for sharing this story. It is very helpful. I am very interested in e-commerce, but I am style studying dropshipping and amazonFBA. To be honest I am still not sure what to choose.
With respect to your store, how do you deal in finding reliable suppliers? I guess you work with lots of suppliers with 1200 products.
Do most of them respect shipping times? The long shipping times with dropshipping worry me a bit and that is what makes me hesitant.
Many thanks in advance for your feed-back.

I have more than 12,000 products, not 1,200. The long shipping times is not because it is a dropshipping site, rather it is the standard shipping times of AliExpress. Yes, there are lots of suppliers, they call it sellers. AliExpress is dealing with them not you. Although you can communicate with them for inquiries and other concerns.

 

[Mar]

Mar, thanks for the reply. Do you work for alidropship? I had a store on shopify with 5,000 products from aliexpress and none of them sold. In fact some of the stores that sell millions in sales have less than 500 products. The idea is ... you dont want to create another aliexpress but create a narrow line of products. Im struggling to understand where your argument comes in until I see your store if you could pls show us what it is. Mine is www.justiceleaguesworld.com. Also with alidropship service is really bad. They now removed the chat option in their website. I paid for 2 orders on in the last2 months for a SEO article and I got one that was riddled with broken English like it was written by a primary school kid. I am still waiting on the revision and I also ordered a SEO package and its now about a week and no update from alidropship if it is being worked on or what. I also found another website that offers store and after checking it was actually alidropship themselves. Am I being tricked into a scam here or what

My store is Alidropship. I have stated in my prior reply. By selling narrow line of products you are inviting very few people to your store, only those who are fans of these products. How many of these few would buy? No wonder you don't have sales. If your store is selling specialized products like industrial machines that no other store is allowed to sell, meaning you are the sole distributor, you won't have much visitors, but since yours is the only store they will buy from you. But if your few products are being sold by everybody, you will be lucky if one visit your store, much less buy. I am sending you my website in your PM.

 

[Ola]

does webrily work for you @Mar ?

 

[Mar]

I tried it, it don't help a bit. There is another version but I am yet to see good feed back about it.

 

[Ola]

send you pm

 

[justicel]

hello Ola ... i havent tried webrily ... i read other members saying it didnt work

 

[justicel]

what do you two think... i used to have a store on shopify which I closed and i can use the same domain name but change the current store to that name and continue to run store but with different products ... whats your advice

 

[Mar]

what do you two think... i used to have a store on shopify which I closed and i can use the same domain name but change the current store to that name and continue to run store but with different products ... whats your advice

It is really up to you. If you are comfortable with the domain name then you don't have to change it. If the name of your store is not specific to a product then you don't have to change it, just change the products.

 

[justicel]

thanks Mar. I want to change to a name that is general as the current one might be too close to copyright issues. i picked www.tiaremarket.com. Tiare means flower in french polynesia so it means a new beginning new year new store what do you think

 

[justicel]

i bought host so justwaiting for alidropship to set up then i point the dns to it and done

 

[justicel]

i can code so will pick a good wordpress theme

 

[Mar]

It is a nice name. Name of a store is important, one that is easy to remember too.

 

[justicel]

thanks will let you know when i get started adding products

 

[shazuae]

My store is Alidropship. I have stated in my prior reply. By selling narrow line of products you are inviting very few people to your store, only those who are fans of these products. How many of these few would buy? No wonder you don't have sales. If your store is selling specialized products like industrial machines that no other store is allowed to sell, meaning you are the sole distributor, you won't have much visitors, but since yours is the only store they will buy from you. But if your few products are being sold by everybody, you will be lucky if one visit your store, much less buy. I am sending you my website in your PM.

hi mar can u please also send me ur web url on PM

 

[meeyule]

If the meaning of niche is sell only like yours, products related to "fan merch" then I don't believe in niche. I have more than 12,000 products in my store and it is growing. I always check trending products according Alidropship and other sources and made sure I have these products and created blogs about the items. But I don't limit my store to this products alone. I don't see any reason why one would not buy in a store with so many products and buy instead in a store with very few choices. Some people are interested in the products you sell but not everybody, how about the rest? Even people who are fan of this products, chances are they will end up buying something else which caught their attention while exploring your store, but if that is all you have, it will not happen. If the reason you stick to a niche is to avoid competition (I saw it in many posts), the reality is before we came and launched a store, thousands of other stores were already there. What ever niche you choose, thousands of other stores are already selling those products. So don't limit your self because of that myth.

Mar, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I'm by no means a dropshipping guru (you can read my dropshipping story here: https://forum.alidropship.com/threads/and-heres-mine.4567/ ), but I have many years of experience in a related branch.

The advantage of a niche store is that you're attracting people interested in your niche, who are more likely to buy. When you try to think like a potential customer, ask yourself this: Say the customer is interested in cat-related products, do you think he's more likely to walk into a shop selling only cat-related products, or to the flea-market where you can buy anything from a roll of barbed wire to a 2nd-hand police uniform? The customer doesn't want to be distracted by other things, he wants to see products related to cats.

It's about quality of traffic, not quantity. If I sell cat-related items, I don't want a customer in my store who is actually looking for a power-drill, then sees a nice little cat-collar bell and buys it on impulse. I want a customer who comes looking for a bell for his cat, and then sees that I have a few different ones to choose from - he's way more likely to buy it. Of course impulse buying exists, but that is where you can use AliDropship's upsell and cross-sell feature.

As you can see from the stats of my two dropshipping stores, I get very little traffic, yet I get sales. On both shops I had my first sales within the first month. That's because I target my customers by niche - they come there because the niche excites them, not because there's a store that sells anything under the sun and they hope they might find something they need or like.

Focusing on a niche also focuses your marketing efforts You need to really understand the niche to be able to think of the proper keywords to use, the proper language to use when you market it. You have to know WHY your potential buyer is interested in cat-bells. Does he just want to know where the cat is hanging out, does he think it's cute, or does he want to put a bell on his cat to warn birds that they're about to be eaten? If you get it wrong in your product description, you lose the buyer's trust, and he goes to a different store where he thinks the store-owner actually knows what he's talking about.

Niche is also about SEO. Many people seem to think that it's all about Facebook or Instagram to get your customers. Whereas proper SEO costs you nothing, and is way easier when it's focused on one niche. Google will give your site a higher score if the Google spiders see that your store name, content and meta tags are all about the same thing.

Finally, imagine that your store becomes really popular and you start getting millions of visits per day. If your store is tightly niche-related, you'll be getting few visitors, but a high proportion of them are ready to buy. With a general store you'll be getting a huge volume of people just aimlessly browsing around, with just a small proportion of them buying. This will necessitate upgrading your hosting, because it will slow your site down, and you'll exceed your bandwidth allocation.

 

[Mar]

Mar, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I'm by no means a dropshipping guru (you can read my dropshipping story here: https://forum.alidropship.com/threads/and-heres-mine.4567/ ), but I have many years of experience in a related branch.

The advantage of a niche store is that you're attracting people interested in your niche, who are more likely to buy. When you try to think like a potential customer, ask yourself this: Say the customer is interested in cat-related products, do you think he's more likely to walk into a shop selling only cat-related products, or to the flea-market where you can buy anything from a roll of barbed wire to a 2nd-hand police uniform? The customer doesn't want to be distracted by other things, he wants to see products related to cats.

It's about quality of traffic, not quantity. If I sell cat-related items, I don't want a customer in my store who is actually looking for a power-drill, then sees a nice little cat-collar bell and buys it on impulse. I want a customer who comes looking for a bell for his cat, and then sees that I have a few different ones to choose from - he's way more likely to buy it. Of course impulse buying exists, but that is where you can use AliDropship's upsell and cross-sell feature.

As you can see from the stats of my two dropshipping stores, I get very little traffic, yet I get sales. On both shops I had my first sales within the first month. That's because I target my customers by niche - they come there because the niche excites them, not because there's a store that sells anything under the sun and they hope they might find something they need or like.

Focusing on a niche also focuses your marketing efforts You need to really understand the niche to be able to think of the proper keywords to use, the proper language to use when you market it. You have to know WHY your potential buyer is interested in cat-bells. Does he just want to know where the cat is hanging out, does he think it's cute, or does he want to put a bell on his cat to warn birds that they're about to be eaten? If you get it wrong in your product description, you lose the buyer's trust, and he goes to a different store where he thinks the store-owner actually knows what he's talking about.

Niche is also about SEO. Many people seem to think that it's all about Facebook or Instagram to get your customers. Whereas proper SEO costs you nothing, and is way easier when it's focused on one niche. Google will give your site a higher score if the Google spiders see that your store name, content and meta tags are all about the same thing.

Finally, imagine that your store becomes really popular and you start getting millions of visits per day. If your store is tightly niche-related, you'll be getting few visitors, but a high proportion of them are ready to buy. With a general store you'll be getting a huge volume of people just aimlessly browsing around, with just a small proportion of them buying. This will necessitate upgrading your hosting, because it will slow your site down, and you'll exceed your bandwidth allocation.

My answer is simple. If that is the case, AliExpress and thousands of other online stores who are selling several million products would not have succeeded.