New Strider site has higher average sale, but fewer orders - any ideas?

M

meherr

Member
Feb 4, 2006
67
38
18
Kokomo
www.bannerflowers.com
State / Prov
IN
We went live with our Strider site last June. I was crunching numbers today and was very happy to see that our average sale (including tax & delivery) is $80.50. That's exciting! When we had TF's site, our average sale was $62.46.

But then I realized that we averaged 58 orders/month with TF and now are only averaging 36 orders/month. That's not good!

Our average order, overall (Answering Service orders, walk-ins, phoned in, wires, and website) is $64.80. I would really like to boost my website orders. Anyone have any suggestions?

www.bannerflowers.com

Thanks,
Michelle
 
Do you have your own work on the site or stock photos? Do you make frequent changes to the home page pictures and descriptions? Do you have a blog attached to the site and have new blog posts often? Do you have a few bargain items to entice buyers, assuming you want volume over high end?That's all I can think of at the moment. I think Strider offers some extra SEO stuff for an additional fee, too, which may be worth it if you can't do it yourself. I know that my site (not a Strider) is always a work in progress, but has out performed my old TF site from the first day. I'm sure there are lots of good ideas ot there.
 
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Everything that Helen mentioned.

Teleflora uses a lot of tactics to drive traffic, now you need to do those things yourself. Strider offers an array of options for increased SEO that you can pay them for if you don't have the time to do it yourself. They are all of the things that Helen mentioned above except for the images. That is one of the keys that really takes some time. People are very drawn to those wire service, photo-shopped and stuffed designs with virtually no stems shown in the vase ~ well okay, so maybe three stems are showing. Designing some of those and getting good photos of them are key, I find that at least two thirds of what sells from my site were on the home page ~ so keep that fresh with a good assortment of designs that you can readily do and send out.

Two of my absolutely most popular are designer's choice, one that is blues and lavenders, and one that is screamingly bright hot pink, orange, and lime. The images show a ball of really tightly packed flowers and the description just says the flowers will be in those colors.

I have been working very little on my website and SEO and it shows in the number of sales I get from my Strider site ~ I'm actually pretty jealous of your numbers!
 
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Michelle... just a question... on your previous site, how many of those orders were wire outs for you? Consumers are wising up rapidly, and are finding local florists in the recipient city.

When I ran a search for "florist kokomo in" you came up #2 ... not bad, what was your ranking with your other site?
 
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I would echo what's been said already, and add this: Whenever I see a big change in order value that corresponds with a change in website platform I want to look and see what else changed. Your customers are still your customers, so if you are suddenly selling a different product selection at a higher price it might be causing sticker shock.

Also, remember that with the TF site you were paying ~$4 per order, so the average value of $62 = $6 profit if you're operating with an actual 10% profit (an ideal target), less $4 fee = $2 profit if everything goes perfectly. Even with fewer sales you'd be profiting $8 per order instead of $2 per order.

Do you have conversion rate numbers from the old and new sites?
 
Yes, Ryan, I totally agree that we are profiting more with the Strider site. I really don't miss the TF one little bit - I love our new site! As for conversion rates, no I don't have those. Is that something I can get off of Google Analytics? I used to check our analytics frequently, but lately I have the hardest time retrieving the info - it usually comes up with no info and I have to wander around the site for an hour to "get into" where I need to be. I really need to just sit down and make an effort :)

Boss - I really don't know how many of the orders were wire outs, but not too many, I don't think. You are so right that consumers are wising up. Our wire business is down so much from what it was 10 years ago - and that's a good thing! As for being #2, that's about what it was before, but you know...we want to be #1 :)
 
Your delivery fee is 20.00? What are other florist getting in your town? At the most it should be at 14.99.
I don't like that your shopping cart has no guest checkout. I would also add paypal as a check out option to pay.

You came up #1 organically for your city. Site SEO is good. Do you think the product selection is as good as before with your Teleflora site? I like the sliding banner of products on your home page. I would consider adding prices to the items if that's possible. I would try to add some local specials to your home page to see if your orders go up. If you have the flower inventory I would add more choices. Try to hit specific price points including 29.99, 39.99 and 49.99. Remove the valentine rose reference under roses. Go through each category and see if your hitting all the correct price points.
Perhaps do some limited ppc. Target your city and flowers and florist. Perhaps surrounding towns. That way you come up another time on first page.
Have you claimed your local google page. If so upload some pictures. See my page here.
What's with your facebook page. No activity. Here's mine
On your home page I would move Why buy local down on right. Funeral home link to footer. Card sentiments lower right side also. Move up categories. Your sited does look good. Keep working on it.
 
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WOW and many thanks - I'm glad you saw that delivery fee thing - that was set up in the beginning stages when they were importing everything and I didn't catch it. It was only listed like that in the "unspecified zip code" field, so if they entered a zip code, it wouldn't show that $19.95 fee. So many things to check, recheck and test... Our delivery is $9.95 - weird thing is, we've never had a delivery fee come across as $19.95, so we never noticed it.

I added the prices to the slider and will work on moving those other items you mentioned. As for Facebook, we must do better. I'm on it!

Thanks for looking at it! Great advice!
 
Melissa... did you have this page on your other site? https://www.bannerflower.com/delivery/delivery-policy/

It states your delivery fee at $8.00... also, If I came into your store, and paid full delivery fee, and wanted a single rose delivered... would you do that? Personally, I do not think you should have the $30.00 minimum for delivery... I sell a single rose on my site for $7.95 in celo, with a $9.95 delivery... they sell some, I also have a single rose in a 4" cube for $24.99 and it sells all the time... even if you don't have items listed for less than $30, I would not have that headline up there....
 
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This is what is so hard - there are so many variables! We do actually charge $8 for in town delivery (even tho it says $9.95 on the check out). We can get really specific on our POS system with our delivery fees, but can only do by zip code with our website. When we get a web order and the delivery is only $8, we only charge $8 and put the extra money back into the flowers. If the delivery is more than $9.95 (but still in a local zip code), we just eat it - couldn't think of a good way to do that (however, I DO need to change it to $9.95 on that page to avoid that confusion). As far as the minimum, we did that a few years ago because we have a very large delivery area and felt like we couldn't send our driver on a 45 min - 1 hour round trip trek for an order less than $30. We started the $3 surcharge so we could make exceptions, but I suppose that doesn't really make sense. We'll have to think some about this... How big is your delivery area?

You are right tho, I will just remove that information! Thanks you guys - it is very, very helpful to have other eyes look over my stuff - it's so hard to proof something you've looked at for so long! Keep 'em comin'!!!
 
meherr said:
How big is your delivery area?
Click to expand...
About 720 square miles.... we go about 25-30 miles in each direction from the store... and in some cases even further...

I list my delivery online at $9.95 and charge that on every order... average it out and it works, as the vans are usually going that direction anyway... we average 20-30 deliveries per day.

No, I would not really want to go 30 miles for a single rose plus delivery, but it does not happen that way very often, and I want to be all things to every customer... lose a little on a few orders, but make a bunch on most of the rest... funerals, like the one today with 10 or so pieces, each have a delivery charge, that subsidizes those inefficient ones...
 
I have roughly 130 zip codes listed on my website, with pricing for each. It took me several hours to do it but that way I am never sorry about selling a single rose.

I had one for Valentine's Day that was almost 35 miles away. For a single rose and a teddy bear. They paid more for the delivery than the product but they DID pay for the delivery. The only caveat was that it was for before 3:00pm delivery.

Rather than upset a customer by turning down an order, and who ordered far in advance, we called it the "relay rose". My husband brought it to my parent's house the night before because he works about 10 miles away from them. It was water tubed. My parents live about 10 miles away from the town it was going to, so my dad delivered it before noon on Valentine's Day.
 
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