Your store is live, the products look great and everything works. It’s been two months and not a single order. So what’s wrong?
The best-looking shop on the quietest street
It worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, so it should work for you, right? Build the store, open the doors and the customers will find their way in. Well… yes and no. Online, they very rarely just find their way in.
Think of your store as a beautiful little shop. The shelves are packed, the lights are on and the till works perfectly. The only problem is that it’s on a quiet back street with no signboard, and almost nobody walks down that street. Two months of no sales usually means one of two things: either nobody is walking past, or people are walking in and leaving without buying. The fix for each is completely different, so let’s find out which one you have before you change anything.
Is anybody actually walking past?
Start with your visitor numbers. If you’ve connected Google Analytics, look at how many people visited your store over the last 30 days and where they came from. If you’re not sure where to find this, ask your platform’s support team to help you look.
If the number is close to zero, take a breath, because that’s actually good news. It means there’s nothing wrong with your products, your prices or your store yet. Nobody has seen them! You have a traffic problem, and traffic problems are fixed by telling people the shop exists. No visitors, no sales. No sales, no proof that anything else needs changing.
In that case, don’t redesign a thing. Skip straight to last week’s post on finding your first ten customers, and start putting up signboards on the busy streets where your customers already spend their time.
They walk in, look around, and leave
If people are visiting but nobody buys, the problem is inside the shop. Something is making shoppers put the item back on the shelf, and it’s usually one of these.
- Delivery surprises: The product is R250, the shopper is ready, and then the courier fee appears at checkout. That surprise is one of the most common reasons people abandon a cart. Make your delivery cost clear before checkout, on the product page or in a banner, so nobody feels ambushed at the till.
- Photos that hide the product: Dark, blurry or cluttered photos tell the shopper you’re not serious, even when you are. Shoot in daylight against a plain background and show the product from more than one angle, including one photo of it in use.
- No reason to trust you: South African shoppers are cautious online, and fair enough. If there’s no About page, no contact number and no returns policy, a stranger has no way of knowing there’s a real person behind the store. Add all three and introduce yourself.
- A price without a story: If your candle costs more than the one at the shops, say why. Handmade, local, natural ingredients, small batch. People happily pay more when they understand what they’re paying for.
- A checkout nobody has tested: Buy something from your own store on your phone, from start to finish. You’d be amazed how often a missing payment option or a confusing step only shows up when you try it yourself.
What to do this week
- Check your visitor numbers for the last 30 days, so you know whether you’re fixing the street or the shop.
- Place a test order on your own store from your phone and note anything that made you pause.
- Ask three people who aren’t family to browse your store and tell you honestly where they hesitated or would have left.
- Fix the single biggest problem they found before you touch anything else.
- Then spend the rest of the week getting people through the door, starting with the people who already know you.
Wrap it up
Two months without a sale feels personal, but it rarely means your idea is bad. Most of the time the shop is fine and the street is empty, or the street is busy and one small thing at the till is scaring people off. Figure out which one it is, fix that one thing, and go get people walking past. If you’re a BeNimble merchant and you’d like a second pair of eyes on your store, chat to our team.
Because truth be told, a beautiful online store that nobody visits is just a very well organised storeroom.
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BeNimble Team
