4 ms·

Show HN: My new side business

17 points by devcom 13y ago

devcom 13y ago
If you wouldn't mind I would love some feedback on this. I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. ANY feedback is appreciated!
- jere 13y ago
  My first thought was "hope you're good at baking cookies." >I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. Is "14 OFFERS SOLD!" BS then? One small thing: the "what's hot" products on the right looked like third party ads. Maybe it's just me.
  - devcom 13y ago
    Yeah the 14 offers sold is just to make the website not look like a ghost town. Put some activity on it. That's great feedback on the sidebar thanks.
    - sideproject 13y ago
      Love the honesty there. You should've said 114 then. Heck, how about 1140?
      - pseut 13y ago
        Go all the way: either "N" or an empty text field.
    - redguava 13y ago
      Integrity is a handy thing in business. Just hide the "X amount shown" until it's greater than 10. Don't put a false number there.
      - devcom 13y ago
        Truer word were never spoken. I will adjust the site. Thanks.
- prawn 13y ago
  How much traffic? A lot of competition in that space won't help.
  - devcom 13y ago
    Not a lot! Struggling with marketing at the moment. We are running multiple facebook ads and we are about to approach our local newspaper. Not sure what else to do. Google Ads?
    - laserlives 13y ago
      I was one of the founders of itsadeal.com.au, we've since stopped about 6 months ago to pursue other ventures. I would strongly advise against a newspaper ad, we went down this path and for $500, this got us about 5 subscribers. Google ads work, but remember to tie them into something you can make money off. It's not smart to compete using keywords such as "daily deals" unless you have a sizeable budget. A better approach is to customize ads which sell your products and if you have something with a large margin you should be able to come out on top (more effort, but much better ROI).
    - prawn 13y ago
      That's why you don't have a lot of sales then. I wouldn't be rushing to spend big on ads until the site was settled and smooth. If you can get a few niche products running at once and get some ads promoting that field, you might have some luck.
yataa 13y ago
My first thoughts were: 1. Don't make customers login to make a purchase, allow guest checkouts and this will improve your conversion rate. 2. The homepage is too crowded, reduce the number of call to actions/buy now choices.
- devcom 13y ago
  Ok guest checkout is a good idea, totally overlooked that. Thanks. With the homepage do you mean just have the single deal. And remove the deals on the side?
  - yataa 13y ago
    Yes, as nithinpb has said too, just focus on a single deal on the homepage. Users/customers will find it easier than having to scan through multiple options/deals.
wildcardww 13y ago
How does this differ to the 20+ other 'daily deal' sites in Australia? Is there a particular niche you are targeting?
- devcom 13y ago
  We wanted to make ours more fun for the buyer and have a 'theme'. All our marketing has been aviation themed, such as "fly in for a great deal". At this stage we kind of went broad, having a bit of everything to see which products sold more. We are a little limited to what our suppliers have at this stage. But the prices are still cheap
  - stephengillie 13y ago
    That's a neat marketing theme, but I'm unsure how today's deal, a shaped cookie dough press, ties into that theme...
    - devcom 13y ago
      good point. I guess none of the items are really themed. But we could possibly add some themed artwork on the picture?
  - redguava 13y ago
    When someone asks what your competitive advantage is... and your answer is "all our marketing has been aviation themed"... you're in trouble. You need to find a real competitive advantage if this is going to succeed.
mikescoffield 13y ago
How are you marketing it?
- devcom 13y ago
  Just facebook at the moment. Any other ideas?
  - frakkingcylons 13y ago
    I've used Reddit (you can advertise on specific subreddits such as /r/australia) and StumbleUpon. If you go the Reddit route, don't use an annoying amount of fluff words in the post title. That'll make 'em upset.
    - devcom 13y ago
      Hey thanks! I haven't got any experience with reddit but I have heard that you can upset them easily. I will look at some of the other posts to get an idea of what is suitable. StumbleUpon is a great idea! I used to use that all the time. Didn't cross my mind to use it. Thanks
  - mikescoffield 13y ago
    Maybe try blog reviews w/ 'exclusive' promos to the blogs' readers.
prawn 13y ago
If I was tackling this space without a monstrous marketing budget, I would pick a niche (art and craft, hobbies, gardeners, cookware, etc) and run with that. A lot of the best niches already have players - young mums has MumGo, wine has VinoMofo, etc. Going with a generic spread of products means you won't be ideal to anyone and you'll have to compete aggressively on price against established companies who already have volume, capital, marketshare and so on. For best results as a new entrant, if you can pick a niche you have an interest in, that would help a lot. You might already participate in niche forums that would make ideal advertising partners or early users, for example.
sideproject 13y ago
At the bottom you say it's SSL secure. And it even says "Click to verify". I clicked on it and it says "www.rogerthat.com.au is not a valid identity." Huh? SSL is.. almost.. mandatory as a bare minimum when you are doing some e-commerce transaction to at least give the customers some sort of confidence.
- devcom 13y ago
  Yeah we have purchased it. Hasn't come though yet apparently. I will chase that up. Thanks
redact207 13y ago
My $0.02 is that daily deal sites like this are tough to market, as you're only real ongoing customer base are those who want discounts. The tricky part is that they're a very diverse customer base so you can't base your pitch on what the products are and who should get the message. Like other people here have mentioned - if you had a niche it could make things easier. Ie: if you're providing deals on baking products only, then you can build some customer profiles (stay at home mums, japanese girls (don't ask, but it's a thing)), find where they gather and get your message in front of them consistently and build up a following.
- mikescoffield 13y ago
  My thoughts, too. Plus, it'll be very difficult to get repeat business. I run a couple ecommerce sites and repeat purchases / customer loyalty is a major part of sales. If your products don't have a central theme (i.e. target a focused segment), it is unlikely that a customer who bought random product A would be interested in random product B.
nithinpb 13y ago
I resonate with another comment that the homepage looks crowded. This idea reminds me of woot.com. I would do something like that. When someone opens the homepage, I would show one product to grab their attention and have them browse other products by scrolling or through Menu bar. Also, what does the button "Roger that" suppose to do? It wasn't intuitive for me that it's a menu button. Finally, I think you should use the top left space above the logo for something important rather than leave it empty. It will be displayed on all screen sizes and can be used for Menu options or something else.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Quite a lot of images appear to be missing, eg on http://www.rogerthat.com.au/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=09475 http://www.rogerthat.com.au/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=0.... The site only ships to Aus., that might be obvious to you but doesn't seem to be to me - to avoid traffic that's wasting your bandwidth perhaps you could sniff for ex-territory (using a geoip service) and refer them to a similar Amazon product on the local Amazon or to a site you have a link with in their territory?
fuddle 13y ago
The Facebook and Twitter links don't work for me.
missenlinx 13y ago
Good work. You should probably apply some basic SEO work to it also. e.g. your missing text in your <title></title>

17 points by devcom 13y ago

If you wouldn't mind I would love some feedback on this. I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. ANY feedback is appreciated!

jere 13y ago
My first thought was "hope you're good at baking cookies." >I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. Is "14 OFFERS SOLD!" BS then? One small thing: the "what's hot" products on the right looked like third party ads. Maybe it's just me.
- devcom 13y ago
  Yeah the 14 offers sold is just to make the website not look like a ghost town. Put some activity on it. That's great feedback on the sidebar thanks.
  - sideproject 13y ago
    Love the honesty there. You should've said 114 then. Heck, how about 1140?
    - pseut 13y ago
      Go all the way: either "N" or an empty text field.
  - redguava 13y ago
    Integrity is a handy thing in business. Just hide the "X amount shown" until it's greater than 10. Don't put a false number there.
    - devcom 13y ago
      Truer word were never spoken. I will adjust the site. Thanks.
prawn 13y ago
How much traffic? A lot of competition in that space won't help.
- devcom 13y ago
  Not a lot! Struggling with marketing at the moment. We are running multiple facebook ads and we are about to approach our local newspaper. Not sure what else to do. Google Ads?
  - laserlives 13y ago
    I was one of the founders of itsadeal.com.au, we've since stopped about 6 months ago to pursue other ventures. I would strongly advise against a newspaper ad, we went down this path and for $500, this got us about 5 subscribers. Google ads work, but remember to tie them into something you can make money off. It's not smart to compete using keywords such as "daily deals" unless you have a sizeable budget. A better approach is to customize ads which sell your products and if you have something with a large margin you should be able to come out on top (more effort, but much better ROI).
  - prawn 13y ago
    That's why you don't have a lot of sales then. I wouldn't be rushing to spend big on ads until the site was settled and smooth. If you can get a few niche products running at once and get some ads promoting that field, you might have some luck.

yataa 13y ago

My first thoughts were: 1. Don't make customers login to make a purchase, allow guest checkouts and this will improve your conversion rate. 2. The homepage is too crowded, reduce the number of call to actions/buy now choices.

devcom 13y ago
Ok guest checkout is a good idea, totally overlooked that. Thanks. With the homepage do you mean just have the single deal. And remove the deals on the side?
- yataa 13y ago
  Yes, as nithinpb has said too, just focus on a single deal on the homepage. Users/customers will find it easier than having to scan through multiple options/deals.

wildcardww 13y ago

How does this differ to the 20+ other 'daily deal' sites in Australia? Is there a particular niche you are targeting?

devcom 13y ago
We wanted to make ours more fun for the buyer and have a 'theme'. All our marketing has been aviation themed, such as "fly in for a great deal". At this stage we kind of went broad, having a bit of everything to see which products sold more. We are a little limited to what our suppliers have at this stage. But the prices are still cheap
- stephengillie 13y ago
  That's a neat marketing theme, but I'm unsure how today's deal, a shaped cookie dough press, ties into that theme...
  - devcom 13y ago
    good point. I guess none of the items are really themed. But we could possibly add some themed artwork on the picture?
- redguava 13y ago
  When someone asks what your competitive advantage is... and your answer is "all our marketing has been aviation themed"... you're in trouble. You need to find a real competitive advantage if this is going to succeed.

mikescoffield 13y ago

How are you marketing it?

devcom 13y ago
Just facebook at the moment. Any other ideas?
- frakkingcylons 13y ago
  I've used Reddit (you can advertise on specific subreddits such as /r/australia) and StumbleUpon. If you go the Reddit route, don't use an annoying amount of fluff words in the post title. That'll make 'em upset.
  - devcom 13y ago
    Hey thanks! I haven't got any experience with reddit but I have heard that you can upset them easily. I will look at some of the other posts to get an idea of what is suitable. StumbleUpon is a great idea! I used to use that all the time. Didn't cross my mind to use it. Thanks
- mikescoffield 13y ago
  Maybe try blog reviews w/ 'exclusive' promos to the blogs' readers.

prawn 13y ago

If I was tackling this space without a monstrous marketing budget, I would pick a niche (art and craft, hobbies, gardeners, cookware, etc) and run with that. A lot of the best niches already have players - young mums has MumGo, wine has VinoMofo, etc. Going with a generic spread of products means you won't be ideal to anyone and you'll have to compete aggressively on price against established companies who already have volume, capital, marketshare and so on. For best results as a new entrant, if you can pick a niche you have an interest in, that would help a lot. You might already participate in niche forums that would make ideal advertising partners or early users, for example.

sideproject 13y ago

At the bottom you say it's SSL secure. And it even says "Click to verify". I clicked on it and it says "www.rogerthat.com.au is not a valid identity." Huh? SSL is.. almost.. mandatory as a bare minimum when you are doing some e-commerce transaction to at least give the customers some sort of confidence.

devcom 13y ago
Yeah we have purchased it. Hasn't come though yet apparently. I will chase that up. Thanks

redact207 13y ago

My $0.02 is that daily deal sites like this are tough to market, as you're only real ongoing customer base are those who want discounts. The tricky part is that they're a very diverse customer base so you can't base your pitch on what the products are and who should get the message. Like other people here have mentioned - if you had a niche it could make things easier. Ie: if you're providing deals on baking products only, then you can build some customer profiles (stay at home mums, japanese girls (don't ask, but it's a thing)), find where they gather and get your message in front of them consistently and build up a following.

mikescoffield 13y ago
My thoughts, too. Plus, it'll be very difficult to get repeat business. I run a couple ecommerce sites and repeat purchases / customer loyalty is a major part of sales. If your products don't have a central theme (i.e. target a focused segment), it is unlikely that a customer who bought random product A would be interested in random product B.

nithinpb 13y ago

I resonate with another comment that the homepage looks crowded. This idea reminds me of woot.com. I would do something like that. When someone opens the homepage, I would show one product to grab their attention and have them browse other products by scrolling or through Menu bar. Also, what does the button "Roger that" suppose to do? It wasn't intuitive for me that it's a menu button. Finally, I think you should use the top left space above the logo for something important rather than leave it empty. It will be displayed on all screen sizes and can be used for Menu options or something else.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago

Quite a lot of images appear to be missing, eg on http://www.rogerthat.com.au/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=09475 http://www.rogerthat.com.au/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=0.... The site only ships to Aus., that might be obvious to you but doesn't seem to be to me - to avoid traffic that's wasting your bandwidth perhaps you could sniff for ex-territory (using a geoip service) and refer them to a similar Amazon product on the local Amazon or to a site you have a link with in their territory?

fuddle 13y ago

The Facebook and Twitter links don't work for me.

missenlinx 13y ago

Good work. You should probably apply some basic SEO work to it also. e.g. your missing text in your <title></title>