Difficult To Order

I feel that with the phone covers only being on pixel.com, it's creating confusion. If we push our artists sites on social media, thats fine. But some customers come via FAA and wouldn't have a clue as to how to find the covers. If that's the only product they're looking for, they might give up and leave. Or worse yet, go to the "featured" phone cases. That's just my opinion.

Shirley, since you are in personal contact, ask them to order directly from you (use Paypal for payment). Then print/ship locally or order/drop ship from your favorite POD. Personal contacts can be money in the bank for years to come.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

send them to your artist site, it has everything. i can't imagine why its hard to order. there are 2 phone choices. as for the rest, tell them to play with it.

i do wish we had everything on all sites, it is confusing.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Dan's suggestion is best. I do it quite often, especially with....shall I say, youth challenged folks that do not peruse the internet :)) or any combination of people with on-line difficulties.

Being a retail seller, it's of extreme importance to get them to check-out ASAP It's always best to have at least a few options to take over the steering wheel when a sale looks like it may be taking a quick left or right.

Thanks for all the info. everyone!

If you get the opportunity, watch someone order from a POD site. Unless they do it often and are familiar with the interface, you will be astounded that orders ever get placed.

A few years back a woman at a dinner party wanted to buy two pieces of my art. She said "Let's do it now" and hopped over to her laptop. I gave her a POD address where I had my work at the time. She found the pieces easily, but faltered at sizing/substrate/framing/matting choices. She got a tape measure and evaluated the intended walls. She was on the verge of becoming overwhelmed and I was on the verge of losing two sales. I said, "Let me send you some framing options tomorrow and I'll handle the ordering for you." I sent her screen shots of both pieces, ONE frame choice and a link to Paypal. Done deal.

Whenever possible, I always handle transactions myself.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Wow it never occurred to me that it would be hard for someone to navigate purchase. I have a couple of ladies telling me they really want a piece of my art but can't figure it out...I thought they were just being nice and didn't really want anything. Maybe they can't figure it out.

More choices is not always a good thing. Every time someone has to think and make a choice it can lead to them giving up. Seven or so paper choices? Is that really needed? You have to spend 10 minutes learning about the different papers.

Then there are links in the cart that lead people away from ordering such as "Upload you own work". Or "enter your coupon code here" which causes many to start searching the net for a coupon code and perhaps never returning.

It goes along the same lines as our own cluttered pages... blog, press release, contests... really hoping there's an upgrade in the works to give us the ability to de-clutter.

Yes, I have tried to organize my images so when you open my page, they are consistent. It's almost impossible. As I have it set up now, only my galleries open first. But even then, people don't know you have to click on them to open the galleries.

I would love to be able to organize them better. I'm not sure that all the art I'm uploading is a good thing.

I also wish we could choose which products we want to offer.

Shirley, you CAN choose which products to offer, but that doesn't really help if a person wants to buy a certain product that you aren't offering they will go somewhere else. On other sites, (not POD) work is offered framed with only one frame available or canvas.

Jessica, I can eliminate acrylic or metal or what ever I don't want to sell?

Also, on a separate note, can I delete others posts here if they are not related to the conversation?

I wish Sean would get together a group of first timers to faa and make note of their difficulties...it would be very telling....
The galleries should MOST DEFINITELY say " click to open"

Marlene, that would be great!

You can't eliminate metal or acrylic yourself. You would have to ask permission for that but those are easy to order and you don't want to eliminate any potential sales. I think its all the choices with mats and frames that can be tricky. No, you can't delete others posts. You can only delete your own if it's 24 hours or less since you posted.

I have someone that seems overwhelmed with the choices. She likes a lot of different ones and framing seems daunting. I told her that she'd want a canvas piece then, but she still wasn't sure what to do. So I clicked the canvas option and E-mailed the link to her.
You can send the links that way for all the images they are interested in, but you can't choose the options for them. It defaults back to the phone cover, canvas, etc...page of your image.
When you have a customer who seems overwhelmed, make it as easy for them as you can. Offer to do it for them, purchase under your name and put their address in as the ship to address. After you get the money, of course. Don't forget to charge them the cost that they would have to pay and not what you'd have to pay.

Some customers are decisive, some need help deciding and seem to be difficult, but really they might just not trust purchasing online. Walk them through the process so they feel at ease.

mostly the paper choices confuse me. they all look the same, i wonder which choices are never chosen overall -- in frames, mats, paper and so on... and just drop those totally. just to make less choices.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike, that's what I think too! (should I be scared? LOL)

I'd love to have every customer give me the opportunity towalk them through...sadly, that is not the case for most sales.

Me too. Maybe I could write up a "walk through" to send to everyone who says they want a print.

Jani, add to your favourites and let them see in there a couple of choices

They can then go straight to the cart

To me,

To be customer friendly, FAA has to guide customers to what they want to buy, and NOT what FAA wants them to buy .

WOW (I rarely use that expression) excellent topic and discussion. Giant smile :)) A few KEY, really excellent facts to highlight here:

@ Roger S. "To me, To be customer friendly, FAA has to guide customers to what they want to buy, and NOT what FAA wants them to buy ."

@Edward F. "More choices is not always a good thing. Every time someone has to think and make a choice it can lead to them giving up. Seven or so paper choices? Is that really needed? You have to spend 10 minutes learning about the different papers."

@ Dan Turner "If you get the opportunity, watch someone order from a POD site. Unless they do it often and are familiar with the interface, you will be astounded that orders ever get placed."

@ Heather "It goes along the same lines as our own cluttered pages... blog, press release, contests... really hoping there's an upgrade in the works to give us the ability to de-clutter."


Those are just 4 excellent samples of exactly how to streamline and simplify the purchasing/check out experience. I could easily eliminate 3 of the print paper options, or set my preference to a default by choice for the thousands of customers that overlook the option. Same with the frame picker, I do NOT want MY clients "bleeping" around with 80 frame options, I could settle on 8 or 10 and be done. (that I find suitable for my personal style-and make up 90% of my framed sales)

As Heather says, I am 100% in agreement. I see no reason why shoppers even see the drop down menu's for the Community. The Blog,Press releases etc. should all be hidden under the ABOUT tab.