marketing Do you have a web site and ...

AJ Drew

AJ Drew

Mainly just curious, but also trying to get a grip on if folk go the website path or stick with the various services like Facebook, Shoppify, and so on.

So, do you have a website? Please share the url.
If you have a web site, do you use software for it? Wordress?
If you have an online store, what is the software? Woocommerce?

Have noticed a lot of folk sell pods, seeds, and sauces without having a web site. Its often more of here is what I got, send me something via paypal sort of thing.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Super Hots Canada Food and Plants
 
Built from scratch and has been up for over a year and listed on my business cards. Though, to date, there's not been a single order placed through my website. I haven't heard from anyone to indicate that there might be errors with the shop/checkout, so I'm chalking it up to needing to build a customer base that trust my products and will refer their friends & family towards my business.. I think without an initial following that will vouch for what I do, then people won't take a chance on ordering from my website, so I'm working hard to build that between local sales and sales made through people contacting me through my FB page.
 
I'm contemplating rebuilding it to put more focus on the products and to make it more flexible for mobile viewing, etc. My inventory is also gravely outdated.. so I need to update the number of products I have in-stock.
 
I am having much better results from my Facebook page, even though it only has around 150 followers, and so far no noticeable orders seem to have come from my Twitter account even though I have nearly 1400 followers there.. I think Twitter & Instagram are great for sharing photos & attracting new followers, but Facebook is more likely to lead to sales since it's focus is more towards having people actually communicate so people seem to feel more inclined to reach out with inquiries there.
 
I think websites prove most effective when you already have a strong customer base / trusted following... So, overall, I'd say for online sales a combination of a website & FB page would do great, with maybe Twitter and/or Instagram to help share photos and attract new followers that you can push towards your FB & website.. That's just -my- impression, though. More successful vendors can probably much better help with advice on this. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Super Hots Canada said:
Super Hots Canada Food and Plants
 
 Though, to date, there's not been a single order placed through my website.
Click to expand...
 
I might be able to help with that.  Won't maintain it, but can set up a Wordpress site with Woocommerce and then answer questions about how to make things work on it.  No offense intended, but you site is fairly clunky.  Anyway, if you got an account with Dreamhost, I know their set up.  Think they are like ten bucks a month or something.  Anywhere else, I would need you to at least get Wordpress installed or make sure they offer FTP access. 
 
Wouldnt want a thing in return because initial setting up something like that is easy.  Worse case, might take an evening.  Your site wont be what you want, but you can then sort threw themes to change the look and feel.  If you use woocommerse for the online store part, I can tell you how to solve problems that are not well documented n like that.  But it would be mainly you doing things.
 
Internet is so large that I honestly do not think there is competition.  I think it is more like seed dealers should work together, trade seeds, help with sites, and the likes.  If you ever sell fresh pods, oh man I could send to you dozens of customers every season because I can not ship there.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AJ Drew said:
 
I might be able to help with that.  Won't maintain it, but can set up a Wordpress site with Woocommerce and then answer questions about how to make things work on it.  No offense intended, but you site is fairly clunky.  Anyway, if you got an account with Dreamhost, I know their set up.  Think they are like ten bucks a month or something.  Anywhere else, I would need you to at least get Wordpress installed or make sure they offer FTP access. 
 
Wouldnt want a thing in return because initial setting up something like that is easy.  Worse case, might take an evening.  Your site wont be what you want, but you can then sort threw themes to change the look and feel.  If you use woocommerse for the online store part, I can tell you how to solve problems that are not well documented n like that.  But it would be mainly you doing things.
 
Internet is so large that I honestly do not think there is competition.  I think it is more like seed dealers should work together, trade seeds, help with sites, and the likes.  If you ever sell fresh pods, oh man I could send to you dozens of customers every season because I can not ship there.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the offer, AJ - I certainly appreciate that, but it's not needed. My background is in web development & graphic design, so I already have my own hosting. I can easily setup any domains/subdomains with CMS's like WordPress within a few clicks. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
hottoddy said:
I use Wordpress with Woocommerce ... BUT may move to Shopify soon. I get tired of the endless updates and things breaking,
Click to expand...
 
It is definitely a challenge to manage your own stuff.  I could be wrong, but I am fairly sure Pepper Joe, Butch Taylor, and Primo use managed solutions.  So you would be in good and profitable company.  Thing is, I am fairly sure the search engines prefer the DIY sites.  Other than the paid advertisements and Pepper Joe who has tons of inbound links, I do not see a lot of the managed solutions coming up high in search engines.

Things breaking?
 
BTW: Your site runs fast and looks clean.  Picked up a few things I needed.  Checkout was flawless.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AJ Drew said:
 
  Thing is, I am fairly sure the search engines prefer the DIY sites.  Other than the paid advertisements and Pepper Joe who has tons of inbound links, I do not see a lot of the managed solutions coming up high in search engines.
Click to expand...
 
SEO is the most important regardless. You can rank very well with solutions like Joomla and Wordpress and it is all about the templates that run on them using the write scripts or your technical knowledge putting them in the right place. 
 
A lot of DIY sites still use 'keywords' which is very dated. 
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
JoynersHotPeppers said:
 
SEO is the most important regardless. You can rank very well with solutions like Joomla and Wordpress and it is all about the templates that run on them using the write scripts or your technical knowledge putting them in the right place. 
 
A lot of DIY sites still use 'keywords' which is very dated. 
Click to expand...
 
Absolutely.  When I used the term DIY sites I meant  DIY as opposed to lets say Etsy or Shoppify stores.  I think the cookie cutter sites tend to rank lower.
 
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AJ Drew said:
 
Absolutely.  When I used the term DIY sites I meant  DIY as opposed to lets say Etsy or Shoppify stores.  I think the cookie cutter sites tend to rank lower.
 
Click to expand...
Yeah, most of them have a place for the Google scripts and what not but if you do not have access to the root of the website at the file level, you are missing out on all the other search engines that require files instead of scripts in code. 
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
AJ Drew said:
 
...

Things breaking?
 
BTW: Your site runs fast and looks clean.  Picked up a few things I needed.  Checkout was flawless.
Click to expand...
 
Every once in a while something on my site will stop working or render incorrectly. Usually, this is related to an automatic update of WP, Theme, plugin, etc. I'll have to dig into things manually (via FTP) and fix things - which can be frustrating and time consuming. I try to check things out after updates.
 
 
Thank you for the order! I'll get one it right away.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top