Why am I not getting any sales?

I recently moved the site https://www.jamesportwines.com/store over from a basic old school store to a zen cart shop. Since the move I've also invested into alot of marketing with yahoo and google. It looks like im getting plenty of hits, I tested the checkout, it works fine. Can anyone help me? What could be causing customers not to buy?

My counter history:
03/24/2008 202 - 282
03/23/2008 208 - 239
03/22/2008 235 - 286
03/21/2008 207 - 259
03/20/2008 319 - 385
03/19/2008 179 - 229
03/18/2008 499 - 548
03/17/2008 165 - 191
03/16/2008 304 - 316

Thank you for any help! it is GREATLY appriciated!

Note- i am aware that my SSL expired a few days ago, its in renewal right now.

Do you have google analytics installed? I'd check how many unique visits you're getting per day alongside the avg time folks spend on the site -- provides more info then the default counters.

Also, I'd monitor the "Who's Online" tab to watch the visitor click through activity. Might be that carts are being abandoned at some point during the process. I'd definietly get the SSL seal going soon though.

Ill have webalizer stats which gives me all that info like google analytics would give me.

I installed the SSL this morning, should be good again within 24 hours, but even over the last 6 months which the SSL was active i only got 3 sales. I just ran a test with paypal and credit card and both work flawlessly, customer creation also works flawlessly. Shipping charges are calculated correctly (15$ for 2 bottles of wine)

please help!

Just a few thoughts:

1. Do you have enough choices or just a few products.

2. Do you sell the same products than my local liquor store ? where I can get the same bottle for a lot less if you are charging me $7 for shipping a bottle.

3. Are your prices discounted enough ?

Usually, if I am looking to buy something on line, it is because I can get a better price. It has to be a lot better for me to wait. If the price difference is almost nothing, I buy it local and get it right away.

$15 to ship 2 bottles of wine seems a lot to me. I can get a good third bottle for this price at my local liquor store. I would only pay that for an excellent wine that I cannot get anywhere else.

I cannot really tell you more since you did not give us your site URL and can't visit your site.

Google Analytics is nothing like Webalizer. Webalizer will not show you cart abandonment or track goals. You should also set up Yahoo conversion tracking and Google conversion tracking for you PPC ads. These two will help you determine what terms and ads are actually converting once you start getting sales. What are you advertising exactly? ...what terms, etc? Perhaps your ads are not targeted enough. What's the competition for those terms like compared to you?

I linked the site in the first post, but here it is again https://www.jamesportwines.com/store

The winery only sells a limited number of wines, but whats got me is that they used to make more sales before switching to ZC - Same products, Same prices.

I will set up google analtyics, it sounds like a great tool. My search terms are VERY item specific and link directly to the product page.

The first things that come to mind regarding the switch are..

1. Maybe you have a cart abandonment issue. ZC uses a pretty verbose sign-up form that's a little repelling. How does your new checkout process feel compared to your old site? Does it feel like more or less work to complete?

2. How do your new product/landing-pages feel compared to your old ones. Are they more or less busy. How compelling are they now vs. then?

3. It might be seasonal. Sales in general for my all sites are are down more then expected for this time of year.

Hi -- I know your wines I have been to your vineyard years ago when I lived on Long Island. During the 1980s I would visit the north fork often for wine.

Why are you not getting sales has to do with what you are doing to get sales. IF you just have a website up and relying on adwords and google to help you then you may as well be the Maytag Repair man.

People will only come to your store if YOU get them there. How big is your email list ? Do you have a complete list of people who have been to your vineyard in the last 5 years ? If so do a postcard mailing to them with your web address on it -- offer a FIRSTTime Coupon with it, free shipping something to get them buying. Consider a Wine Club ..... I see you do free shipping on a case -- make products as cases as well and in the product title say SHIPS FREE.

Having a webstore just means you now have a new outlet and you will need to work this just like your other methods of selling. I work my websites easily -3-4 hours a day searching for markets, customers, doing email, communicating with potential customers etc. You need to infiltrate communities (like this one) find webboards where you can share information and they will come to you. If you cant find one then you need to create one (webboards are easy to create)

Imagine that you just invested $500,000 in your new store location. Now go find your customers.

Good Luck,

JDS

Suggestion:

Bump the size of your pictures on the list view. Oh, heck, I just looked. Your product pictures are tiny too. BUMP 'em, and bump 'em HARD. At least 400px - you've already lost the right side column, so you have room.

You also need to increase the text size a notch, and add some padding to keep it away from the borders. White space is your friend.

There's also a mod to allow checkout without creating an account. I've been wanting to get around to installing it, but haven't yet. That may get past some of the zen cart "we want to know about you" bit.

Lose the two-bottle minimum. But on the first page, explain that there is a two-bottle minimum for shipping. People may want one bottle of each, but balk at two of each. For that matter, put a welcome note, and one of the happy smiling photos on the home page. Then some BIG links to the bottled goodness...

Assume several things: People are stupid. People are lazy. People are paranoid. If you make it simple, easy, and everything looks locked up tight (meaning corporate), you're golden.

Idea: Sell a "wine of the month club" thing...

It seems like you're getting plenty of suggestions here.
Webalizer really is weak compared to Google Analytics (Urchin).
If you cannot pin point a set of specific problems with all these suggestions than you need to install GA and set up some goals for add to cart, and all the other phases of check out. Then study the trends you see.

for instance, If you notice that 10% of your visitors add-to-cart and only 1% actually make it to the thank-you page than you have 90% cart abandonment. Look at the difference between each phase and address the biggest deltas first.

Also, read this... http://www.jerbroo.com/2008/05/01/ecommerce-success-check-list/