Basics for putting a B&M store online to increase traffic?

[dynocat]

Just talked to a local mall type antiques/gifts store. They've been in business over 4 years, but have no website. Their goal is to increase store traffic. The business is owned and run by someone with very little advertising/sales experience or know-how. Their print and media advertising is sporadic due to finances.

My thoughts are to first get their store online. Where would you start?

1st Buy domain name (storename.com is taken (parked) but the other variations are availabale.

2nd Set up basic website with photos, intro, directions and ???

What other basic advertising would be helpful? They have very little in the way of business cards, brochures, etc. easily available.

I may be hired to help them with this. Even if I'm not, I'd like them to increase traffic since we recently started selling our products there.

Thanks for any and all advise.

[phanio]

I would say that you should first define what you what the website to do. Do you want it to just be an advertsing/informaiton portal or more like actually selling product. Then work on getting a site designed for your needs - domain, site, seo.

You might try to find out if their customers actually go online for information regarding their product offerings. If their customers don't go online to find information about their types of products - then an online site may not be neccessary right now given the limited finances.

If you can better determine how their customers find them or where they go for information (current and potential customers) - then you would have a better idea on how to start marketing their business. - Remeber, marketing is more than advertising - it is also about understanding the needs of your potential customers and getting the right message in front of them on how you meet that need.

Other ways that you could help market that business - low cost ways.

Assuming they are local and only have local customers:

Contact local media players - newspapers, TV stations, etc and try to speak with local reporters or managing editors. Expalin your business and offer your story. They may run a piece about you for free - these groups struggle with content and usually love good, local stories. Also put yourself or the business owner out there as an expert - thus, if they do run a story about their induatry - they may come to the business owner for a quote with reference back to the store.

Find a good selling, low expense product and promote via discount or even free. This can help drive people to the store - where you then have a good chance of selling them additional products - just make sure you have good sale processes in place. - You can create a press release regarding the promotion (then fax, email, drop off) to your local media players.

Call around to local social groups like the Rotary club or Lion's club and let them know that you (or business owner) would be willing to be a guest speaker. These groups usually struggle to get speakers. Then, put together a short 10 to 15 minute presentation about the trends or history or something neat about your industry. At the end of the presentation, hand out business cards or some flyers. The great things about these groups is that many who attend - are influencers in their communities and will speard your information to their friends and groups.

If you have customer information - you could try a small mailing or email campaign - to get those past customers back into the store - just include in the mailing or email something that will entice them to come back in.

You could also take small hanging flyers and place them on door handles or mail boxes.

You could find other stores in your area and work on joint marketing campaign - thus splitting the cost. Or, if you are in a mall or strip mall - get together with the mall management to see if you can get in on their marketing.

That is all I can think of off hand, I have not done local marketing myself in years - all I do now is national.

I am sure that others on here can offer more advice and don't be affraid to search the web for low cost or free marketing tips.

There are also local Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) or SCORE (offices or online at score.org) that are funded by the SBA - thus free to use and could help you brainstrom ideas, ceate messages as well as (most important) find out more about your cusotmers to include the demographics around the store location.

[vangogh]

I agree with everything Joseph said. Step one is deciding what the site will do. Maybe it's step 1a since you might as well purchase the domain as soon as possible.

Since this will be new territory for the store I might start small with a simple brochure style site. Put up some basic info about the store, directions, hours of business, etc. Then you can start expanding in ways that give customers of the brick and mortar store an incentive to visit the website. Maybe you can have printable coupons or offer a way for customers to leave feedback about their experience. You could even offer the coupon in exchange for customers taking a survey.

I would definitely get some other marketing materials going, a business card at least that can be displayed on the store's register and it should naturally have the web address on it.

It makes sense to eventually set up an online store, but you may want to think through how it will work. Someone will have to monitor the store to know when there's a sale. How will items be shipped? Will there be extra discounts for ordering online? You may also want to take some time to explore the different shopping cart applications out there instead of jumping into one. There are plenty of free options, but you'll find some easier to work with than others and some that will or won't have certain features you need.

Of course for the site to be successful whether it's a full online store or just a few pages of information it will also need to be marketed. Eventually it should be the focus of all the store's other marketing. Most everything should be directed someplace on the site since it can offer more information.

There's a bit of a catch22 that's going to happen. Since this will be the store's entry into the web they probably won't want to invest a lot at first, meaning the site will need to be small. However a small site like that with little marketing to promote it probably won't do all that much. It's why I suggest looking for ways to tie the online experience into the offline store experience. That should at least market the site to the store's current customers.

On the bright side other than the cost to develop the site (which doesn't have to be much), the cost to keep the site operating is minimal. $10 a year for a domain and $10 a month for hosting.

[dynocat]

Great ideas. I will be meeting with the owner next week to get a better idea of their needs. I'm doubting they have a mission statement, business plan or much of anything else in place.

I might suggest the domain name, a basic information site and online newsletter sign up. I would also suggest business cards, a simple third cut brochure handouts , in-store email sign up. I'd suggest she come up with topics and ideas for a monthly newsletter to lure the people in.

Since the store is huge with period rooms and lots of nooks and crannies it would be hard to sell online the multitude of products. Their focus(es) seem to be antiques, vintage, handcrafted items and lots of other "junk., The layout is such that they could easily do monthly events like customer appreciation, holiday themed specials, a talk by experts in their fields, etc.

I would suggest godaddy for the domain name but where is the cheap hosting and what is needed to set up a simple site?

[vangogh]

As far as an online store is concerned you could always try selling some of the store's products if not all. If not then the site can work to direct people to the store.

I use GoDaddy for domains too. There are plenty of hosting companies that should charge between $5 and $10 a month for shared hosting. Keep in mind that the cheaper you go with hosting the more likely there will be problems with the site. By no means is price the only reason to choose one host over another, but know there are hosts out there offering hosting for $1.99/month and you will probably have problems with them.

For awhile I used Lunarpages to host clients, but I'm not going to be switching to use HostGator based on my experience and some client's experience with both. Either will be able to host your site as will many other webhosts.

[Patrysha]

The host I recommend to my clients is the one I host with, because I know I've had to deal with their support (and it was excellent every time) and when they had an outage they got ahead of their guarantee and we crediting accounts when downtime exceeded their uptime guarantee when their servers went down for a while (before many of us had even known that the sites were down).

For $5 a month you can't expect better than that and I've seen plenty that charge more that aren't that attentive and supportive.

[greenoak]

we have an antique/gift/garden shop and love our online website , blogs and facebook.......to us our main website is a big billboard for our store... .....
we put the www on everything , all the paper that goes out...and in all the ads....

we have no desire to make it a selling site...and havent seen that actually work for many in our field....that would be a whole other business....and look around is it working for anyone you know?
just the billboard is great and brings in all kinds of money and customers..i think our key was putting on lots of tempting pictures..... see here Green Oak Antiques--Located in Rochester Indiana. Privately Owned Antique Shop. Online Sales (http://www.greenoakantiques.com) our goal is to get people to actually come to the store...not buy something on line....
when i see other stores selling WELL online i might try it...mostly i hear from others in my field that its huge work and few sales....we are too general...if we had deep inventory in a specific niche i might be more tempted to try it...
my advice is keep it big and simple and looking good for what you think your customers would like...
ann

[pete]

There are plenty of hosting companies that should charge between $5 and $10 a month for shared hosting. Keep in mind that the cheaper you go with hosting the more likely there will be problems with the site.

Oh Bearded One, I respect much of what you say, but that was a low blow.

Not just to me and my $4.49 per month hosting, but to many others, as well. You have been online for a long time and possibly don't realize that everything involved with hosting is basically commodity driven, with everything larger and cheaper by the week. (Although I'm told memory will go up for the next couple of years.)

The hardware is fast and cheap. Bandwidth is to the point they almost pay you to use it. Service can make a difference, and quite honestly, I moved 100+ clients 3 times within a year until I found one that responds to a messed up email problem as if the server were dead in the water. Took some hunting, but I now have one. And my prices are the same as when I started.

Please bite your tongue on that statement, it's simply not correct. :)

It's not the price, it's the people.

Moving on, greenoak is right. Most of what such shops are selling is one off goods, not a maintained inventory.

I would have a weekly special, probably one for each "department". If nothing else, it will rotate some images in peoples' faces. Maybe a "print your own discount coupon".

And listings in Craigs List. Put every piece of junk possible there, in as many categories as possible, not so much to sell it (but they may), simply to expose the name to people looking for used anything.

Brochure site. Maybe a page for each department, each page with a changing special.

Also maybe their own Craigs List - I'm looking for --------.

[vangogh]

Sorry Pete. It wasn't meant to be a low blow. :)

All I really meant was that you're going to get more if you up your account to VPS or a dedicated server. With the shared hosting I'm really talking more about the larger companies where sometimes service is lacking. I've had sites with a variety of hosts and I've also had clients on those same hosts at the same time.

I've seen where my clients sites were all fine, but maybe mine ended up being down more often than it should due to something on the server. I've seen it the other way around too.

If you look around at hosting reviews it's funny because for every person that seems to think one company is awful there's another that thinks the same company is the greatest on earth. I think when it comes to shared hosting sometimes your satisfaction comes down to the luck of the draw and which server you ended up on.

To me what distinguishes one host from another comes down to their service. I accept that things happen as sometimes the server is down. How fast does the company respond? How much are they willing to help me when I call?

But again with cheaper I really only meant you're going to get more by moving up from shared hosting to a VPS or moving up from a VPS to a dedicated server. I didn't mean it in the sense that if you pay $6.99 over $4.49 you're getting a better deal.

[pete]

But, it still depends.

We are talking about shopping carts for small businesses in this thread. Other than Magento, which I will not host, the popular freebies and most of the "$300 and less" carts require hardly any disk space. Some are less than 100MB - YES, MB. My starting cpanel space is 200MB, with the assurance I will double it when they get to 160MB. Out of 150 or so, I have increased one.

Bandwidth is negligible. I even negotiated DOWN from the standard allocated bandwidth when I leased the server, since I knew it would not be used.

So to tell someone with CubeCart, Zen Cart, OSC, etc, they need VPS to run their 125MB shopping cart at a cost of $50 or so a month is not right.

You may be making statements based on your experience with other types of customers, maybe graphic intense, loaded with sound, whatever. But for simple "mom and pop" type shopping carts, even some fairly sophisticated ones, there is simply no demand. In any given month, with an owner who is adding working regularly on his cart, he will be by far the leading user.

Small businesses could only dream of having enough business to slow down a server. :)

Sad, but true. There just isn't a lot of traffic to carts.

[vangogh]

Pete I never suggested using a VPS. Please don't put words in my mouth. Read my first couple of posts again. The first time a VPS came up was in response to your reply, which was a sub conversation in this thread. Also look again where I mentioned that you get what you pay for in hosting. I was referring to the $1.99 hosts, not someone like yourself.

I don't think anyone starting out needs to get a VPS right away. I think shared hosting would be fine. However I do think sites can outgrow shared hosting and if and when they do the next logical step is a VPS.

[pete]

Sorry, by the time I get here I'm 10 minutes from bed and often a bit bleary-eyed.

I've never had anyone close to needing a VPS setup. I had one for a few months, and while I know it was the company I was leasing it from, the experience was not good for me.

I did have one hosting client running CubeCart V4 who had maybe 5,000 ink and tomer cartridges listed. There were times he could slow things down for everyone. Nothing we could do would make it better. The CubeCart developers finally convinced him to move to their server - at over 1o times the cost.

Several months later he told me it was exactly the same on their server, wished he'd have stayed with me, as I actually treated him much better. Turns out there was a problem in their code, which they swore could not have been the case when he was with me. He had so many almost identical items, so many HPs and Canons and Epsons, etc. that the script could not handle them as it should.

He could have been on a dedicated server and still would have had the problem. :)

[vangogh]

No worries. It's not a big deal. I just wanted to make clear what I was saying.

I can only speak to my own experience with hosting. I've worked with a variety of companies for my own sites and my client's sites. I think most people are fine on shared hosting and that's generally what I'm going to recommend to someone starting out.

What I've seen though is you don't have to grow all that much before shared hosting can actually hold you back. I'll use my own site as an example.

I had been on shared hosting accounts the entire time I was online up until this forum. I decided to put the forum on a VPS, because I thought it would likely require more resources than typical given all the database requests. I'm sure shared hosting could have handled it, but I wanted to be safe. About a year ago I started promoting my main site more. I'd publish a post a promote it only to awake to find my host had shut the site down claiming it was using too much resources.

My site was hardly pulling in so much traffic that it should have been causing problems. However from the time I had originally set it up is was down more often than it really should have been. Many of my clients were with the same host and never had a problem. I suspect my site ended up on a server that was either oversold beyond a reasonable point, or one where some of the other sites on the server were using a lot of resources, or just happened to be a problem server.

I think things like the above are common with larger hosting companies, which is where my luck of the draw comment comes from. With someone like yourself I suspect you pay more attention to each server and don't push the overselling like the larger companies do. I wouldn't think my experience above would happen with you.

[greenoak]

pete im glad to see someone who kind of agrees about small general businessess and selling sites....
the advice to go for it is so widespread and the evidence so sparce....

i got so far as buying a site before i faced the realities, as i see them anyway, and backed away ...it would cost me dozens of hours to go for it...and i pay at least 10$$ an hour...and then how much to maintain it and keep it current...
ps....the easy advice im talking about and the whole idea that most businesses are doing it and its a natural progeression is more in the mainstream press, than thoughtful discussions here ... i had to conclude that my merchandise just wouldnt make it....
i know tons of stores who tried and wasted so much energy for nothing...
ann
Green Oak Antiques--Located in Rochester Indiana. Privately Owned Antique Shop. Online Sales (http://www.greenoakantiques.com)

[pete]

Most of my hosting clients are online only, many with "day jobs". Some do depend on their online shops, as I do, but to many it is a means to rise above being simply a wage earner. Some are very successful. Others don't last 90 days.

My hosting business is sort of "pin money" to me. I actually started it to help out people who were buying from SMC and wanted their own sites at a reasonable cost, rather than the $2000 SMC wanted.

My main business is dropshipping from China, with which I can make a decent living. Last year, with that as my main source of income the site had a total ANNUAL bandwidth of 21.26GB. The site uses less than 200MB of disk space, the MySQL database is 3.75MB. I'm just posting this to show that even a successful online site does not require a lot of server resources.

Here is the totals for the year 2009 -

Unique Visits - 33624
Number visits - 53163
Page Views - 471656
Hits - 2076542

I do zero SEO. My only traffic comes from forum posts and forum signatures - some paid, but still just threads, no banners, etc. And, of course, word of mouth, but traditionally sellers don't tell others of their sources. I sell to resellers worldwide and dropship for them all over the globe.

I spend little time working on my dropshipping site. The design is a couple of years old and crappy. With several hundred Chinese cell phones available, I offer less than a dozen. Nothing is name brand, all unbranded, with the exception of refurbished Nintendo and BlackBerry products.

I could be a poster child for how not to do things, but it works for me. And I have time to do what I want.

However, there are many small shop owners who do simply "put their shops online" and expect to sell more. Some do, particularly those with specialized goods. But those who are used to getting "retail" prices in their B&M store who expect to do the same to the same customer base online are often in for a rude awakening.

[vangogh]

i had to conclude that my merchandise just wouldnt make it....
i know tons of stores who tried and wasted so much energy for nothing...

Selling products directly through a website is not the only reason to have a site. There are plenty of ways to make a site work for any business.


I do zero SEO. My only traffic comes from forum posts and forum signatures - some paid, but still just threads, no banners, etc.

Just imagine how much more traffic you could get if you did practice SEO. I'm not saying you have to of course. All the things you aren't doing are simply other avenues for pulling traffic. Each naturally has a cost associated with and so you have to decide if it's worth investing in.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. You don't need to do seo to have a successful site. Search traffic is just one form or traffic, albeit one that can drive very targeted traffic if done right.

To put the numbers into perspective. I do practice seo. The numbers you listed for the year are similar to the traffic I get in about 5-6 weeks, with search traffic being the biggest portion.

[pete]

I am "triple retired" and am doing about all I care to. I want to avoid employees. And my main reason for any of it is not income as much as spreading knowledge around forums where many "how do I" questions are asked about small businesses.

I've had booths at trade shows for years, sold and installed systems in about 40 states, know as much as anyone I've met on sales taxes, etc. I come to spread this around and if I make some sales, fine.

I often play the devil's advocate, mostly to encourage others to think outside the box.

Been there, done that and don't mind sharing (except women).

[vangogh]

Which is all perfectly acceptable. You're clearly making a conscious choice to keep your business at a certain level. I do the same thing. As someone who delivers a service, I can only realistically serve so many people. At some point the only way to take on more clients would be to hire employees or outsource some work. At the moment I don't want to do either and so my marketing is set to bring in only as many clients as I can reasonably handle.


I often play the devil's advocate, mostly to encourage others to think outside the box.

I try to do the same for the same reason and because it sometimes helps to stoke the debate.