# Website Sales



## DCBluesman (Sep 3, 2009)

Every few weeks someone asks whether or not they should set up a website. While there is a certain warm feeling in seeing your products on the web, I think most folks really want to know whether or not web sales are sufficient to make the development and maintenance of a website worth it. So, give us your thoughts.


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## rjwolfe3 (Sep 3, 2009)

90% of my sales are through my website. I can't do shows because I work every weekend. I don't like Ebay because of their fees and that there are so many cheaply priced pens on there. I haven't tried Etsy. The rest of my sales are through word of mouth and just plain luck. Lately though, my website has become stagnant so I don't know. I know you have to keep up on it at least weekly to be profitable.


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## Greg O'Sherwood (Sep 3, 2009)

Between $250 - $500.

My website is only a couple months old and I only have a few pics on there (not very good ones at that). I actually made the site as part of a masters course I am taking. The website cost me $125 and took me 4 hours to build - and I've never made a website before! Thanks to GoDaddy's WebsiteTonight included software.

I've been turning for less than 10 months and I have made enough to pay for a remodeling so I can have a dedicated turning room!

I'd say 60% of my sales are through the website.

.


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## OKLAHOMAN (Sep 3, 2009)

My web site is a complement to my show sales ie: when my show customers show off their pens to their co-workers,family etc and they want to know how to get a pen like theirs they give them my card with the site on it and I've sold quite a few that way also as I'm a Private reserve dealer and stock most of their inks and also the refills for rollerballs, I always tell my customers that they can get refills from my site and I'll shio them free, you won't beleve how many have gone to the site to order refills and also bought/ordered another pen. Sales generated just from the site not many but that's hopefully going to change.


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## Displaced Canadian (Sep 3, 2009)

At this point I don't have a web site. I'm thinking about it. I'm wondering about just selling blanks. I just want something to pay for my condition.:biggrin:


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## Chief Hill (Sep 3, 2009)

Well I don't have s website either.  Time/startup costs etc.... I will keep trying shows/word of mouth emails etc and work towards a website pending how much I can sell to fund it all.


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## bradh (Sep 4, 2009)

I have been running my site for about 4 years. I started with a free site and thru that I learned a lot about web sites and search engines. 
  I moved onto a paid site after about a year. I get over half my sales thru my site now, but it took about two years to get it ranked in search engines and build up the traffic. It did not start making money (sales thru web exceeding web site costs) until the third year. It also takes a lot of time to keep the site current and interesting.
   A web site is a good tool, but it will take a while to build traffic and sales.


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## Dvoigt (Sep 4, 2009)

I have had my site up for about 6-8 months, I have spent alot of time working on it, and while I have gotten alot of inquiries for custom pens, I haven't had any follow thrus..  So it seems to be more of a product showcase than a sales tool right now.  All the pens I have sold have been word of mouth... 

http://handmadewoodgifts.com


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## diamundgem (Sep 4, 2009)

Same here, I've had my site up for about a year. Can't seem to get it on the search engines. Can't even find it my self. I have had a couple of sales but it's about dead as a door nail.   

www.writetoapoint.com


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## Dvoigt (Sep 4, 2009)

Meh, maybe i'm doing something else wrong.  If I search for "handmade wood gifts" i'm of the front page of google and yahoo.  But I can't find my self if i'm searching for "wood pens" or something like that.  But how often are people specifically looking for "wood pens".  That is why I went the more general route... but that also leaves me open to expand to other wood gifts that aren't pens


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## traderdon55 (Sep 4, 2009)

I import my pen kits from overseas and have been reselling them in a couple of the area woodturning clubs. I have wanted to set up a website to sell them as well as my pens but I have never gotten brave enough to try to set up a website. I am not too computer smart but one of these days I will probably get one of my daughters to help me set one up.


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## Dvoigt (Sep 4, 2009)

I personally don't understand having a site that would sell both pen kits and finished pens.  Sure sell both, but have 2 different sites because people that are going to buy yours pen kits won't buy a finished pen, unless maybe it is a killer pen or maybe they are cheap enough to resell (but that would raise a bunch of other questions).  And, conversely, people that would buy a pen wouldn't want a pen kit... and they would just see that you are selling a pen kit for $5 and a finished pen in that kit for $60 and that would be a huge turn off, and they'll think your price is way out of line, even if you have some rare $20 blank for it.  

I had this conversation with a girl at my work where her mom had bought a slimline pen that was acrylic and wood for like $80 and on the same site the guy was selling the kits for like $5.  She was shocked at how cheap the kits were compared to the price of the pens.  I told her I would make a similar one for half price, she told me that I better because the kits are so cheap!  

I think it is just asking for questions.


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## rixstix (Sep 6, 2009)

I haven't posted in *quite a while* due to other commitments and actually building a website to sell 'stuff'.

I firmly believe in having a website for sales but am making significant changes due to the results of a recent survey so that PayPal will not be the only way to make payments.

Recently, one of our vendors (not pen/hobby related) commissioned a sizeable customer survey because they found that the number of customers adding items to their shopping cart was nearly double the average BUT the number of customers actually finalizing the purchase was less than half published internet conversion rate.  *The result of the survey overwhelmingly indicated that the reason the shopping cart was abandoned prior to finalizing the purchase was that PAYPAL being the ONLY means of payment.   The second reason was that they were taken 'off-site' to finalize the payment transaction (ie:  PayPal)  *This vendor has enough sales to obtain PayPal's lowest transaction rate and to have PayPal apply that rate to all of their vendors like me.  It is nice to only pay 1.9% for transactions but on the other hand, it doesn't do much good if no one is making purchases because of PayPal being the only option.  Customers making purchases for higher dollar totals want to use their Credit Cards in a conventional manner.

This vendor has now made changes so that payment can be made using conventional CreditCard payment methods in addition to PayPal.  Customers are now presented a secure payment screen & no longer taken to another website to finalize payment.  Though the change has only been implemented for about a month, it sounds like the conversion rate has already improved significantly.

I realize this has nothing to do with getting potential customers to your website to make a sale, but it can significantly impact the number of sales actually made.  I've learned a lot over the past 6 weeks about Security Certificates, traditional merchant (credit card) accounts and other parameters necessary to implement everything.... and made a few mistakes along the way.  As soon as I get our precious metal jumpring site completed, I'll be converting the pen site to accept credit cards in a traditional manner.


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## Dvoigt (Sep 6, 2009)

I guess I never thought of use paypal as really being that much of a deteriorate.  I never was for me, but I'm not every one.  

So if you don't use just paypal, don't you need to get a 3rd party shopping cart with secure payment options to integrate into your site?  How much does that cost, I like paypal because it is free and easy to intergate, but if it deters sales, then what it the point.

Any suggestions on what is the best way to set up without paypal?


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## rixstix (Sep 7, 2009)

There are many people who have successful sites that use PayPal as the only means of accepting payment. I fall into a category that does not like to use PP as my primary form of payment and the survey results fit my style of buying, so I tend to give it significant validity.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert but have learned a lot over the past 2 months setting up Zencart for my shopping cart. It is complex but not overwhelming for someone with a bit more than entry level computer experience. Has modules built-in for using PayPal Pro setup which makes PP transparent to the user (doesn't leave your site for the PP site). Also has Authorize.net module built in for similar functionality as PPpro. Authorize.net (generally speaking) is a bit more economical for less than 2000 transactions per month. After that, PPpro becomes a bit more economical. I use my own processor and the Authorize.net gateway builtinto zencart. 

Zen-cart is free and there are many free customizable templates available. I use IAPmember - TOOLCRAZY's hosting program & it has a zencart install script included.


Basic requirements for automatic, online CC processing: 

Online merchant account (PPpro & Authorize.net setup are included w/ zen-cart setup.) It's just a matter of correctly completing the PP or Auth.net application & becoming an approved merchant.
Private IP address is required. ($30 per year)
SSL certificate is required ($30 - $80 per year) Get the one that is sold by your host. I bought a GoDaddy cert and later found that many people have trouble installing it with a different host because of GoDaddy's 'intermediate certificate'
Zen-Cart install (free with most hosts) best installed using the hosting company's installer software because it also performs the php database setup to be used. Before starting, BUY THE ZENCART BOOK and become very familiar with it PRIOR to any more setup than the basics. It will eliminate many, many headaches.
So, all that said and done, the monthly average for fees

$20 - Website hosting, IP address, SSL cert (more as traffic grows)
$30 - PP/Auth.net gateway fees
$xx - transaction fees


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## Parson (Sep 12, 2009)

Just because you get a pen-selling web site up and running doesn't mean you'll sell your fine pens. The savvy businessperson works hard to drive potential buyers to his or her site.

I've paid thousands per month on google adwords campaigns, but I've discovered that SEO is much better, lasts longer, and is just an investment of time. Search Engine Optimization is the key to success... and learning to write and post short articles about the the quality of a hand made pen, why one should buy your gold titanium models instead of another's 24k gold plated pen, and the amount of work that goes into making a quality pen is what will separate you from your competition.

Just remember these simple rules for top google ranking:

1. Keep the article under 800 words. 500 is a good target number.
2. Use your keywords in the opening paragraph.
3. Embed hyperlinks to sections (Acrylics, woods, etc.) and subsections (fountain, ballpoint, etc.) of your products.
4. Ensure the article has substance for the reader.

The last tip is really hard... get other web sites to link to various pages on your web site.

One way to do this is to comment on blogs and forums like this one and put specific links to different pages if the blog asks for your website information.

Hope this helps!


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## btboone (Sep 12, 2009)

I've found that Adwords is a very good way to go for me.  I've had a site for many years and have achieved first page results on my most important search terms by years of tweaking.  I've found that although I spend over $5000 per month on Adwords, it actually makes sense to do that.  I recently looked into doing some ads for another search engine and did analysis on my website traffic.  It turned out that in the last period that the software had tracked, 2600 hits were from Google, and exactly 2 were from the other search engine, Leapfish.  This confirmed what I had already experimented with; I tried reducing the ad revenue per day then tried increasing it as well.  The sales figures for the more expensive days more than made it worth the increase on the stuff I was selling.  This is why Google is doing so well.  Even though they have you wrapped around their finger, they are the only game in town.  In my case, it actually makes sense to pay them absurd amounts of money.  I haven't found any other form of advertizing that comes remotely close.  In that same tracked period I mentioned, the second search engine on the list, Yahoo, got about 80 hits and MSN about 50, Bing about 30.  If you're not on the first page on Google's search for your item, you're not anywhere close to what's possible.


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## OKLAHOMAN (Sep 12, 2009)

Glup!!Gulp!!!Glup!!! $5,000 a month, I'd have to sell 100 pens per month  @ avg. of $150 each  the first 33 pays for the ad the next 33 pay for the site and merchandise the next 33 profit less my time making 100 pens.


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## btboone (Sep 12, 2009)

Different search terms cost different amounts.  On highly competitive catagories like digital cameras, they will cost something like $6 per click, whereas something less competitive might be something like $.10 per click.  If you do a search for digital cameras, people will be paying dearly for that top ad placement, but it obviously pays off for them to do so.  Anything pen related won't be nearly that expensive, and you can limit daily expenditures.  You can be assured that if you were to bid up to a certain amount per day, like $25, at the end of a month Google will have ads to average EXACTLY that per day.  They don't overlook a cent.  They are very good at what they do.  Again, I certainly wouldn't be doing it unless it paid off big time.


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## Jgrden (Sep 16, 2009)

I've tried eBay and Craig's List with no success. Someone always has a cheap pen that attracts attention.


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## Glenn McCullough (Sep 16, 2009)

I dont have a website, I have a blog. From there you can get to my photobucket that has my available pens and sold pens. The cost is free and alows those I meet to "go shopping". I have sold maybe forty or so pens from people I sent there to shop in the last two years. Then they email me their order and use paypal. I sold a $115.00 pen and another $65.00 one that way, this week.


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## JohnU (Sep 16, 2009)

I was happy to see this post.  I dont have a website but always keep the idea in the back of my head for the future.  Most of my sales are word of mouth and local groups coming back for custom ideas after I donate to their charities.  To me its just a hobby but someday I would like to try and make a serious profit.  I sell to people at work and occasionally get christmas, birthday, and retirement gift orders.  To those looking for sales, Ive always had great luck with sales with teachers, medical staff, cops, outdoorsmen, and business offices.  You'd be suprised how many pens you can sell when you pull out a small variety with mixed resins and color and offer them the use of your pen.


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## Kaspar (Oct 6, 2009)

This year, $100-250 (bit of a surprise actually.)  That's on average, but  really it comes in spurts for me.   However, the website is $10 a month, very basic, but easy to set up and adjust.  So if it sells even one pen, it's paid for itself, and I have something to put on the business card, and good place for people to see what I do anywhere a computer happens to be on and the subject comes up.


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