Draw current customers from selling avenues like Amazon to your website?

[Basikboy]

I sell clothing (mostly graphic t-shirts) on most of the major selling avenues like Amazon and my current sales on said sites DESTROY my own website sales. Now I understand this is probably expected given their traffic but I mean the major selling avenue sites I use combined for 85% of my total sales. If I were to lose any of these accounts for any reason I would be In for some very rough times. I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket and I really need to stop this trend. I have had my own site now for 9 years and I have tried year after year of getting my website to compete with my other selling accounts only to see for the first time in the past 5 years my website sales drop over 30% this year! I have tried everything you can think of including, site revamps, social marketing, adwords, SEO services, blogging, youtube reviews, expensive Instagram product shout outs, contest giveaways, sponsorships, free shipping, 800 number so customers feel safe ordering and can even give us a call, email marketing, putting sales coupon fliers for my website in with orders I ship out from Amazon and the likes, lowering the prices to more than half of what i sell it for on the major selling avenues, you name it i have pretty much tired it. I just don't understand why I can sell so much on the major selling avenues but they won't shop with my site even when I give them huge discounts? Has anyone had any success with driving customers from the other heavy hitter selling sites to their own web stores? I would love some advice and or feedback on this. Thank you in advance!

[vangogh]

Can you point us to your site? Hard to know what might be the issue without seeing the site. Also when you say you tried everything, do you mean you tried yourself or your hired someone to do the work? What specifically have you done to increases sales through the site?

[stephanj54]

The invoice with your website address is a good step. Why not give discount coupons to your website on your amazon/ebay orders? Make it only valid on your website as to entice your potential customers.

[Basikboy]

The invoice with your website address is a good step. Why not give discount coupons to your website on your amazon/ebay orders? Make it only valid on your website as to entice your potential customers.

Actually the discounts I do give are only for my website. Amazon is actually not okay with you trying to pull customers to your own site, very frowned upon and if caught could cost you your selling account. I send sales flyers with discount codes to the orders on the other sites I sell on and don't see much of a return.

[Basikboy]

Can you point us to your site? Hard to know what might be the issue without seeing the site. Also when you say you tried everything, do you mean you tried yourself or your hired someone to do the work? What specifically have you done to increases sales through the site? I will gladly DM you that Info if you like but I would rather not put that kind of Information here.

[Harold Mansfield]

I sell clothing (mostly graphic t-shirts) on most of the major selling avenues like Amazon and my current sales on said sites DESTROY my own website sales. Now I understand this is probably expected given their traffic but I mean the major selling avenue sites I use combined for 85% of my total sales. If I were to lose any of these accounts for any reason I would be In for some very rough times. I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket and I really need to stop this trend.

First of all, I'm sorry you're having these issues, but I am glad that you posted this. I've been trying to make the case to others for a long time to develop and cultivate their own sales funnels and to not rely on solely others.

If there's any good news it's that you are having success on these sites.


I have had my own site now for 9 years and I have tried year after year of getting my website to compete with my other selling accounts only to see for the first time in the past 5 years my website sales drop over 30% this year! I have tried everything you can think of including, site revamps, social marketing, adwords, SEO services, blogging, youtube reviews, expensive Instagram product shout outs, contest giveaways, sponsorships, free shipping, 800 number so customers feel safe ordering and can even give us a call, email marketing, putting sales coupon fliers for my website in with orders I ship out from Amazon and the likes, lowering the prices to more than half of what i sell it for on the major selling avenues, you name it i have pretty much tired it. I just don't understand why I can sell so much on the major selling avenues but they won't shop with my site even when I give them huge discounts? Has anyone had any success with driving customers from the other heavy hitter selling sites to their own web stores? I would love some advice and or feedback on this. Thank you in advance!


First thing is that you can't compete with Amazon, so stop trying. I agree with VG that we need to see the site that isn't performing in order to rule it out as one of the problems. Consumers are unconsciously weary of websites that they don't know and any little thing could scare them off of making orders.

You need to develop your own branding and marketing and have the kind of presentation that wows people so much that they want to check you and and order something.
There are many sites that sell products like yours for higher than Amazon prices and do well because they have awesome sites and great marketing. It's not just about doing all the things and going through the motions, it's about whether or not it's any good.

Do you have a well put together profile page on Amazon that directs people to your website to see your full line of inventory?
Do you follow up your sales with thank you letters, ask for feedback and other things that would lead people to your company and website?
Do you follow up with second chance sales and newsletters that get people to your website to see your full line?

Like I said, first step is to see the website. If it's not right, everything that you do to get people to it is a waste of money.

[vangogh]

If you're not willing to share your website publicly, it makes it hard to promote it. You're welcome to send me a private message with the url, but I'm not sure what I can do to help if you want to keep the site a secret. Most of advice I would give would have to do with making the site more visible.

[Basikboy]

First of all, I'm sorry you're having these issues, but I am glad that you posted this. I've been trying to make the case to others for a long time to develop and cultivate their own sales funnels and to not rely on solely others.

If there's any good news it's that you are having success on these sites.




First thing is that you can't compete with Amazon, so stop trying. I agree with VG that we need to see the site that isn't performing in order to rule it out as one of the problems. Consumers are unconsciously weary of websites that they don't know and any little thing could scare them off of making orders.

You need to develop your own branding and marketing and have the kind of presentation that wows people so much that they want to check you and and order something.
There are many sites that sell products like yours for higher than Amazon prices and do well because they have awesome sites and great marketing. It's not just about doing all the things and going through the motions, it's about whether or not it's any good.

Do you have a well put together profile page on Amazon that directs people to your website to see your full line of inventory?
Do you follow up your sales with thank you letters, ask for feedback and other things that would lead people to your company and website?
Do you follow up with second chance sales and newsletters that get people to your website to see your full line?

Like I said, first step is to see the website. If it's not right, everything that you do to get people to it is a waste of money.

Unfortunately I do not feel comfortable posting my website as nothing i do is proprietary and my competition is always lurking. I have learned about this the hardy some years back and I will never put my info out there like that again. I will gladly DM you my website url.

You can actually not post any outside sales info on Amazon. I do follow up with sales with thank you letters and discounts for my website but not on Amazon as this can get you suspended. I send out newsletters 2/3 times a month.

[Harold Mansfield]

You can actually not post any outside sales info on Amazon. I do follow up with sales with thank you letters and discounts for my website but not on Amazon as this can get you suspended. I send out newsletters 2/3 times a month.

That's not exactly true. I shop on Amazon religiously and I know for a fact that some sellers have awesome seller's and author's pages where you get enough information to at least search for their website if it's nothing other than an accurate name of the company. This is where you branding comes into play. If your Amazon seller name, logo and other things doesn't match your company name, branding and URL of your website how can anyone find you outside of Amazon?

Also, I see sellers respond to comments, customer service issues and answering product questions and referring people to contact them via email to resolve the issue for them. Right there, if you're using company email that lets people know what your company website URL is.

When your branding is done right, no matter where your company is mentioned or how little information is given it should be easy for anyone to find you online with just an accurate name. Basic onsite SEO of a well built site will allow your website to be first for your own name, and your social media activity should follow so that you take up the entire first page of search results for your own name. That's half the battle. Most people screw this up by thinking multiple identities gives them further reach, when actually you're competing against yourself and NONE of them do well.

[Basikboy]

That's not exactly true. I shop on Amazon religiously and I know for a fact that some sellers have awesome seller's and author's pages where you get enough information to at least search for their website if it's nothing other than an accurate name of the company. This is where you branding comes into play. If your Amazon seller name, logo and other things doesn't match your company name, branding and URL of your website how can anyone find you outside of Amazon?

Also, I see sellers respond to comments, customer service issues and answering product questions and referring people to contact them via email to resolve the issue for them. Right there, if you're using company email that lets people know what your company website URL is.

When your branding is done right, no matter where your company is mentioned or how little information is given it should be easy for anyone to find you online with just an accurate name. Basic onsite SEO of a well built site will allow your website to be first for your own name, and your social media activity should follow so that you take up the entire first page of search results for your own name. That's half the battle. Most people screw this up by thinking multiple identities gives them further reach, when actually you're competing against yourself and NONE of them do well.

My Amazon name is the same as my website (brand name) minus the dot com. My webmail all ends with my website url as well. In fact all my selling accounts have my brand name. I don't use any other names.

[Harold Mansfield]

My Amazon name is the same as my website (brand name) minus the dot com. My webmail all ends with my website url as well. In fact all my selling accounts have my brand name. I don't use any other names.

Excellent.

[vangogh]

I got your message with the link to your site and I promise I won't post the link. I honestly don't think you need to worry about posting the link, but it's not my place to post it.

Does the site attract a reasonable amount of traffic? Do you mind sharing some information about how many people visit the site each month and things like that? I want to understand if the problem is more to do with not enough people visiting or the site not doing a good job convincing the people who do visit to buy something? You mentioned selling more on Amazon and similar sites. I'm trying to understand if people buy from your site directly with a similar conversion rate to how they sell at these other sites.

My gut is telling me the problem is that you aren't getting enough traffic to your site compared to Amazon, etc. and you'll have to find a way to attract more people to the site. One thing I do notice on the site is that your product seems more geared toward me, but it's only ever modeled by a woman. I think that sends something of a conflicting message to potential customers.

[DeniseTaylor]

Offhand, I would say this could be a trust issue as well as a traffic issue.

First, people expect to buy things from sites like Amazon. That's why they go there. Additionally, they know the Amazon platform, for example, so they know their transaction will be safe.

To overcome your problem, you would have to solve those two issues on your own website. Get enough targeted traffic and instill trust in your visitor. To begin with, do not use anything even faintly spammy on your site. You have to be known as friendly and trustworthy and spammy techniques are the opposite of this.

Can you use Adwords to drive more targeted traffic?

[NahidHasan]

I sell clothing (mostly graphic t-shirts) on most of the major selling avenues like Amazon and my current sales on said sites DESTROY my own website sales. Now I understand this is probably expected given their traffic but I mean the major selling avenue sites I use combined for 85% of my total sales. If I were to lose any of these accounts for any reason I would be In for some very rough times. I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket and I really need to stop this trend. I have had my own site now for 9 years and I have tried year after year of getting my website to compete with my other selling accounts only to see for the first time in the past 5 years my website sales drop over 30% this year! I have tried everything you can think of including, site revamps, social marketing, adwords, SEO services, blogging, youtube reviews, expensive Instagram product shout outs, contest giveaways, sponsorships, free shipping, 800 number so customers feel safe ordering and can even give us a call, email marketing, putting sales coupon fliers for my website in with orders I ship out from Amazon and the likes, lowering the prices to more than half of what i sell it for on the major selling avenues, you name it i have pretty much tired it. I just don't understand why I can sell so much on the major selling avenues but they won't shop with my site even when I give them huge discounts? Has anyone had any success with driving customers from the other heavy hitter selling sites to their own web stores? I would love some advice and or feedback on this. Thank you in advance!

==> Have you calculated your conversion rate. According to your post I can guess you are getting a good amount of traffic in your brand website, am I right? If that is the case, here are few things you need to consider like, traffic source, bounce rate, visit duration, returning visitors etc. These data will help you identify the exact issue you may be facing.
==> You might need to redesign your site. It should looks like a reliable brand and should have wow feeling.
==> Focus on branding and Search engine traffic. Take every steps to make it visible and popular. I will not suggest to do everything yourself, take help from a growth hacker. Things will start changing :)

[Basikboy]

Thank you all for your responses. I don't get nearly as much traffic as my other accounts. I attached an analytics screen shot of the last 30 days on my site. In regards to conversions, In the last 30 days I have received 241 orders. Mind you this is my busiest month of the year so sales are up. My advertising is mostly sales flyers to customers who have already purchased from me on other selling avenues, blog reviews and lots of Social and Email marketing. I have tried Adwords a few times and lost a good amount of money, even when using a so called Google certified "expert". I have also dumped money into a few different SEO companies with little to no help and I was also ripped off by one company. I don't have much trust at all in SEO or PPC companies anymore.
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