Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (2)

How much product should I show on my site?
September 29, 2008

Subscribe to Retail Online

I get this question a lot: how much product should I place on my web site when I have thousands and thousands of SKUs?  I always tell them that depends on what you're trying to accomplish.  Do you want to test merchandise to see if there's any interest in it (do people search for it, do they look at the product on your site) or do you want to alert your customers that you have the product and to come into the store to buy it?  Or is your top goal being an online retail store that sells all your merchandise? 

If you're new to this whole arena, I suggest starting out small.  Your hosting service may allow a maximum amount of server space, and images take up your limit.  Also, taking good pictures (and I cannot stress this enough) can be overwhelming if not done properly.  You're putting together a catalog and if you're inexperienced in this, you can get discouraged easily.  So what do you do?

1. Select 10-25 items from each category
2. Take good, high quality, well-lit photos of each item
3. Post them to your web site (ensure they're at 72 dpi so they load quickly for your customers)
4. Monitor them each week to see what type of response you're getting.  If some are doing better than others, replace them with another product
5. Announce on each page (same place) that you feature new products each week and to continue to check back often

Here's what others have done:

• Kuhlman
• Zella Brown
• Caravan Beads To Go

Posted by Suze Bragg on September 29, 2008 | Comments (2)