To give you an idea as to what represents “average conversion” for an ecommerce site, one of the best sources is the Fireclick Index, which measures 30 separate metrics across six ecommerce categories.  Because pool and billiards traditionally falls under the category of “Sports and Outdoors”, this is the closest we can get to having a baseline industry standard:

As you can see, for the last week of July 2010, the average conversion rate in this category was 1.3%.  This of course means that 98.7% of people who visited left without making an order.  Because they have an average number of pageviews of 8.3 and spent over 4 minutes on the site, it is clear that they’re interested, but for many different reasons, they decided not to place an order.  These visitors represent solid leads that will likely convert at a higher rate than targeting cold leads.  In order to get them back though, you have to retarget them.

There are a number of ways to retarget, but one of the newer tools is to work with a company that buys run of network ad space and shows your ad on other websites that the customer visits.  For example, when a customer visits the PoolDawg website and leaves without placing an order, they will see an ad for PoolDawg an the products that they specifically viewed when they log into their Yahoo Mail account, looking something like this:

The question of course is whether or not this actually works.  We just started testing this a few weeks ago, but the results have been extremely promising.  The conversion rate on clicks from these retargeting ads has been 36.7%, quite a bit higher than the industry average based conversion for PPC keyword advertising (currently at 1.8%).  It will be interesting to see if these conversion rates hold up as the campaign progresses.

There’s a surprisingly large propensity for pool players to spend time outdoors during the summer.  As a result, business slows down.  This is one of the reasons why you see so many stores that sell spas and pool tables.  Stores need to find ways to level out the seasonality, so they sell spas and pool supplies in the summer, then focus more on billiards once it starts getting cold again.

For me, this means that I get time to play catch up.  Summer is when we do the lion’s share of development for the PoolDawg website.  This summer, the focus has been customer retention.  By all accounts, we have a strong brand and people know what PoolDawg is all about, so I’m starting to focus more on retention and less on acquisition.  Among the items we’ll be rolling (or have recently rolled out) out this summer will be a few different retargeting tools, product reviews and social marketing.

Right now though, the focus is the PoolDawg catalog.  For us, the catalog is much more of a retention tool than an acquisition tool, although we will be doing some prospecting this fall.  Earlier this year, one of our primary competitors announced that they would be discontinuing their catalog which to me was absolutely shocking.  When we do our revenue per book analysis, catalog continues to be a very cost effective way to keep our brand in front of our existing customers.

At any rate, because we are a small company, the bulk of the catalog responsibility falls on the shoulders of myself and our graphic designer.  That means product selection, pricing, copywriting and concept all land on my shoulders.  Fortunately we have a kickass graphic designer, so we’re going to end up with a very unique looking book that both sells product and reinforces our brand and overall identity.

http://www.ecommercepodcast.com/2010/03/mike-feiman-from-pooldawg.html

I have no idea how it turned out, mostly because I can’t stand listening to a recording of myself.  Especially when I have a cold.

The early reports are showing an 11% increase for online sales across the board, which is a great sign considering the fact that our economy is a long, long way from recovery.  The question though should really be about profit.

Yesterday I took part in the annual tradition of vulturing deals from online stores.  I picked up a copy of Guitar Hero 5 for twenty bucks with free shipping from Amazon, I grabbed a wireless mouse and keyboard combo with free shipping for forty bucks from Dell and I almost bit on 20% off sales at the Dodgers MLB store and Palmer Cash (I do love my funny t-shirts).  I shopped the loss leaders and like most online shoppers, failed to add any “regularily priced” items to my cart.

All this makes me wonder if stores are really making any money on these crazy doorbuster deals.  I know we’re very strategic about what we sell and the price we sell it at when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials, but are stores really making much money on $3.99 DVDs when customers like me are only grabbing those deals and not bothering to even look at anything else?

The other side of this though is finding ways to get “off the clock” so to speak.  Because ecommerce is a 24/7/365 situation, there are always customers interacting with your site regardless of the day and time.  As a result, there is a nagging yearn to continually check to see how sales are doing, where you’re ranked, etc.  This past week while I was on vacation in Kauai, I found myself checking orders and site status on my phone a bit too often.  I did manage to avoid calling the office (which was a first), but I still couldn’t find a way to completely unplug.

Its almost like a drug.  Every time you see orders come in or check your Google rank (with high rankings of course), its like you get a moment of gooey euphoria.  The other side of this though is when you check and things aren’t going as well as you’d like.  That’s when the panic sets in and you start thinking things like:

“Is the site broken?”
“Is someone running a huge sale that I don’t know about?”
“Does everyone all of the sudden hate us?”
“Does someone have an inside track with Google to get their rankings higher than me?”

And the paranoia builds and builds until either a) sales and rankings improve or b)  you find a way to disprove every one of the hundreds of silly questions running through your head.  The real key though is simply letting go.  I can’t control Google.  Sometimes they’ll rank me #1, other times they won’t.  I know the basics of what’s important to Google (strong, well written, relevent content) and over time I’ll be rewarded.  Because I use Alert Site, I know within a couple of minutes if the site is down (which it almost never is).  If someone is running a “buy more, lose more” sale (as they do from time to time), I can’t control it and I’m not likely to match it, so I just need to ride it out.

That’s why I’m going to see if I can start applying some basic concepts of Buddhism to ecommerce – understanding that suffering comes from craving and the first step to finding enlightenment is the cessation of suffering (yes, I know that I’m Jewish and this is beyond armchair Buddhism, but I really like the whole Four Noble Truths concept).

Yiddish Word of the Moment:

Schmutz
Definition:  Dirt, gunk
Example:  You’ve got some schmutz on your face, let me get it off (proceed to then lick your thumb and wipe it off like any good bubbie would).