My Muse is Open for Business!!

[jazzdrive3]

www.eyeontheballimages.com (http://www.eyeontheballimages.com)

I also have a company blog/search engine trap at blog.eyeontheballimages.com (http://blog.eyeontheballimages.com)

The niche I chose was within sports collectibles and memorabilia, but I wanted to focus just on framed images, nothing else. I know there are other guys out there that just want a cool picture/poster to hang on the wall, and that's it. So now there is one place they can go to find the photo they want, already framed. Because what normal guy wants to spend time shopping specifically for a frame or getting a custom one made?

All of our products are ready to hang on the wall or put on the desk right out of the box.

I learned a lot through this process, keeping in mind that eventually I want to outsource as much as possible. The only time consuming part is adding and removing products from the site, especially if you want good SEO. So that's the first thing that will be gone from my hands once I get things going, as it is just data entry with a slight twist.

I'd like to thank the Four Hour Work Week for introducing the correct paradigm, and for letting me know about drop shipping in particular.

Luckily, all I have to do is make only 2 or 3 sales a month to break even, so the risk is hardly even there.

Let me know what you think. And honestly the hardest part of this process was trying to get the site to look decent in most browsers. That damn IE6 installed base kills me every time. I had to hack some fugly css and html, with the added bonus that it had to be within the limited constraints of what Yahoo Store gives you to work with, in order to make everything work. After that, everything was just invested time.

[alexandra]

The site looks very professional and clean. I love how everything is easy to see and find, there is nothing distracting me from seeing your merchandise. Very easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.

This muse is also a great idea! I am certain that you won't have any issues with making those 2-3 sales to break even :)

I know a few people that would be interested in these products...especially during the holiday season for gifts.

I wish you all the best with this.

Alexandra

[Marcie]

Congrats! Let us know how it goes, your site looks good!

[Killman]

Hey Jazz,

Great idea, great website...just a great Muse!

One small thing I saw on your blog. you have 'sing' where I believe 'sign' should be: We’ll be adding new products literally everyday, so keep checking back, or sing up for our ...

Other than that, my opinion is that you have done a great job!

[jazzdrive3]

Thanks for the comments.

Typo has been fixed. Thanks.

[luv2trvl1]

Hi Jazz,

This is my first post to the list...

Comments: great mechanics to your web site, good niche, clear focus and as a sometimes overly nervious and distrustful internet shopper, nothing on your site scares me or triggers red flags. I would buy here, if I had the need!

Sorry if you have covered this in other posts, but how much time and/or cost did it take to get your site to this level?

And, what are your plans to help drive customers to your site?

Thanks for sharing!

[jazzdrive3]

Break down of costs:

Logo Design: $100 from eLance
Misc Web Graphics Design: $75 for a design contest at osempire.com

Yahoo Store sign up: free
Yahoo Store hosting: $40 per month
Merchant Account: $10 per month as a "statement fee".

Man hours: 100+ in the past month working during my free time.


I plan to market with Adwords and social networking. About 1 hour after submitting my site to stumbleupon.com, I had about 50 unique views from. Now I site at over 200 just from that reference, and the day is not even over yet.

No numbers on the adwords yet, as they have only been running for an hour or two, and it takes about 3 hours for numbers to come in.

[MrFurly]

I plan to market with Adwords and social networking. About 1 hour after submitting my site to stumbleupon.com, I had about 50 unique views from. Now I site at over 200 just from that reference, and the day is not even over yet.



Just curious if you know how many of the views from stumbleupon turned into customers?

[cartoonfan1983]

I like it alot! Great, great job!!

[jazzdrive3]

Just curious if you know how many of the views from stumbleupon turned into customers?

Out of the 100 unique visitors so far....none. Ha.

It's not the most qualified traffic, but it does get some free exposure.

[thin]

Hey Jazz,

Excellent site. As far as a muse, I really like the fact that it is so straight forward. Its got a clear niche and the site doesn't get in the way of the product. I tend to go a little overboard, so this site is a great reminder for me to keep it simple and to the point :)

Looking forward to hearing about your results!

[IdeaDirect]

Please do keep us posted. I loved the book as it really struck a cord with me. I've been very entreneurial all my life and have started many, many businesses with similar concepts as Tim... automated, positive cash flow, elimination of time required, scaleable. While it was always easy to get a business up and running, actually making decent money with the site was a whole 'nother matter. I've had sites selling supplements, all-natural dog treats, ebooks, asian home decor, imported leather journals, personalized gifts, fishing flies, drop-ship vendor guides, etc. I am very knowledgeable about PPC, SEO, site design, adwords content sites, etc. I just can't quite find that magic formula for building a sustainable AND profitable business.

Your site looks great. Please do keep us posted.

[Webzu]

Looks awesome jazz! Way to go!

[jazzdrive3]

So far, after 5 days, I have all of one sale. This is with about 1000 unique visitors.

So obviously, the conversion ratio ain't so hot.

I'm getting about 50 visitor per day from google adwords, and my CTR's have a respectable average of 1.5%, individual keywords ranging from .67% to 8% CTR.

I'm beginning to get some organic search results, which makes me happy, as it means my SEO labor was not in vain. But so far those have amounted to about 9 visitors.

If I could get a conversion rate 1% I could turn a 100% ROI profit. A rate of .5% would let me break even. Rough approximates, of course.

So I'm asking for some specific help. Please go through the site and see if there are any hiccups, anything at all that might keep people from buying. This includes the cart. I'd appreciate it if some people did test transactions. Don't enter in any information of course, but just get to that page.

I'm looking for reasons why my visitors are not converting. Any reason at all. Please be brutally honest.

Thanks in advance.

[Jimmy013]

You said to be honest, so I hope you do not get upset.

Your website looks good, great easy to use, there was two problems, maybe will help you:

1. The price of the items way too high. I have a couple of framed autographed photos of players, Derek Jeter, Ronnie Lott, and Carmelo Anthony all purchased for less than $50 at he mall sports shop.

2. I know NY sports and their teams. I was checking out the pages, of the NY teams, for the NY Mets you had Aaron Heilmann? I watch a couple of Met Games a weeks and would never buy an Aaron Heilman photo he is a pro player but not a superstar worth $129.00.

Dude, your idea is great and could really work, I would do a check through of the players you have and make sure each of them is a star for their team, lower the prices, and three with google marketing maybe target area pricing...Local area pricing is it called? Focus Keywords on player names and team names.

But in all I really like your idea. With the price being to high, I am having the issue getting video games for real wholesale prices. Every where I trun, they want me to really believe the video game wholeale price is $45-$50, which would be absurd.

Jimmy

[jazzdrive3]

You said to be honest, so I hope you do not get upset.

Your website looks good, great easy to use, there was two problems, maybe will help you:

1. The price of the items way too high. I have a couple of framed autographed photos of players, Derek Jeter, Ronnie Lott, and Carmelo Anthony all purchased for less than $50 at he mall sports shop.

2. I know NY sports and their teams. I was checking out the pages, of the NY teams, for the NY Mets you had Aaron Heilmann? I watch a couple of Met Games a weeks and would never buy an Aaron Heilman photo he is a pro player but not a superstar worth $129.00.

Dude, your idea is great and could really work, I would do a check through of the players you have and make sure each of them is a star for their team, lower the prices, and three with google marketing maybe target area pricing...Local area pricing is it called? Focus Keywords on player names and team names.

But in all I really like your idea. With the price being to high, I am having the issue getting video games for real wholesale prices. Every where I trun, they want me to really believe the video game wholeale price is $45-$50, which would be absurd.

Jimmy


So you think I should only focus on the stars? I thought it would show some good depth to have some of the lesser known players.

Do you happen to know what brand of photos you bought? Were they framed? What was the overall quality?

Which prices on which items do you think are too high? The basic 8x10 framed photos without any extras? Or did you have something else in mind? What would YOU pay?

And thanks for the comments and suggestions.

[ChiTowner]

Hi there

what web pages are you sending your adwords visitors to? The best bet is NOT to send PPC visitors to your homepage, but to a specific product page. So, if the ad mentions a specific player's name, send the visitor to that player's framed photo page - don't send them to the home page and make them search around for the item they want

hope that helps
Debbie

[jazzdrive3]

Most of my adwords groups are targeting specific team pages. Should there be an ad group for every major player as well?

[Jimmy013]

The store is in the staten island mall it is a chain sports collectable store comes with authentfcation certficates...

Check out this website very close to yours but prices are lower

http://www.legendsgallery.net

I can understand your angle about lesser known players, but bottom line is people aren't going to ball games for Aaron Heilman, they are going for Carlos Beltran...

Jimmy

[jazzdrive3]

Thanks for the link. They seem to have a different supplier. What they are selling their basic for is lower even than what I get mine for at cost.

When you posted the first time, I was actually in the process of lowering most of my prices.

[jazzdrive3]

Alright, I've made a few changes.

- Added a Live Support option in the left hand navigation. This allows me to track when people are browsing in real time as well. Nifty little program.

- Added a friendly 100% money back guarantee, and call attention to it in the top right hand corner.

- Added sale prices to most of my products.

Please look around again and see if there is anything at all that might keep people from buying.

Thanks.

[jpm]

Jazz -
I like the site. Clean and to the point. If your customers are seeking what you sell, I think you will be successful. Unfortunately I don't know that many customers who visit your site will be actually looking for what you sell, and even if they are, there is not a clear value proposition for them in order to buy. Go back to page 150 in the book and re-read paragraphs 2 & 3.

You need the equivelent of the ipod's "1000 songs in your pocket". The better your benefit statement is the more likely your customers will be to buy. A good strong value prop will also help you better identify your market, target your advertising, and get better hit and conversion rates.

I'd put the statement just below the web page banner and above the featured products.

best of luck...

[alexandra]

Today your left hand navigation area is loading at the bottom of the page for me. I'll hit refresh and see it at the top for a split second but then it goes all the way down to the bottom. I have to scroll to see it.

[jazzdrive3]

Today your left hand navigation area is loading at the bottom of the page for me. I'll hit refresh and see it at the top for a split second but then it goes all the way down to the bottom. I have to scroll to see it.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Are you using IE 6.0? For some reason it can't take the image being there without going wonky. None of the CSS hacks I try will fix it. *grumble* shoddy microsoft programming *grumble*.

So I just kept it from being displayed in IE 6.0 for now until I can figure out how to fix it.

Works fine in IE 7.0. At least there starting to learn from their mistakes.

[jazzdrive3]

Jazz -
I like the site. Clean and to the point. If your customers are seeking what you sell, I think you will be successful. Unfortunately I don't know that many customers who visit your site will be actually looking for what you sell, and even if they are, there is not a clear value proposition for them in order to buy. Go back to page 150 in the book and re-read paragraphs 2 & 3.

You need the equivelent of the ipod's "1000 songs in your pocket". The better your benefit statement is the more likely your customers will be to buy. A good strong value prop will also help you better identify your market, target your advertising, and get better hit and conversion rates.

I'd put the statement just below the web page banner and above the featured products.

best of luck...

Based on most of the analytics, they now the site sells framed sports products. Unless they just can't read or aren't reading the ads before they click on them.

I'm not really sure what a value would be from a marketing standpoint. "Ready to hang on the wall, right out of the box" is really the best I can come up with right now.

[alexandra]

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Are you using IE 6.0? For some reason it can't take the image being there without going wonky. None of the CSS hacks I try will fix it. *grumble* shoddy microsoft programming *grumble*.

So I just kept it from being displayed in IE 6.0 for now until I can figure out how to fix it.

Works fine in IE 7.0. At least there starting to learn from their mistakes.

Yes, I am using 6.0 :)

[final_id]

Works fine for me -- I'm on Firefox, weird hunh? :) -- but I'd suggest:

1. you have way too much text on the front pages. I have seen this before -- lots of good ideas, but they're all just RIGHT THERE at the top. Look at a website like Knoxville Cigar (http://www.pipesforless.com/) (which is another Yahoo store) or Fountain Pen Hospital (http://www.fountainpenhospital.com/) for an idea of how to simply dive right in to converting viewers into customers.

2. you haven't defined yourself. What does Tim say: "they can hate you or love you but they can't misunderstand you," something like that? Are you just selling lots of pictures of sports people? In which case, why can't I get Pele? :) Or are they only current players? Or are they currently popular players? Or ... what? I need to know why your site is the niche for ... whatever it IS the niche for. Otherwise I'll just think of you as one more image reprinter, and not as the "go-to" guy for exactly and precisely the one thing that you actually ARE the guy for.

I hope you don't mind these rather general suggestions. Just some thoughts thrown out there. And by all means, if you find that you're profitable even though you reject my ideas, HECK yeah! then reject my ideas. :) I'd like to know what the formula is, on those sorts of subjects, and if my suggestions are bad then I'd like to know.

[jazzdrive3]

Works fine for me -- I'm on Firefox, weird hunh? :) -- but I'd suggest:

1. you have way too much text on the front pages. I have seen this before -- lots of good ideas, but they're all just RIGHT THERE at the top. Look at a website like Knoxville Cigar (http://www.pipesforless.com/) (which is another Yahoo store) or Fountain Pen Hospital (http://www.fountainpenhospital.com/) for an idea of how to simply dive right in to converting viewers into customers.

2. you haven't defined yourself. What does Tim say: "they can hate you or love you but they can't misunderstand you," something like that? Are you just selling lots of pictures of sports people? In which case, why can't I get Pele? :) Or are they only current players? Or are they currently popular players? Or ... what? I need to know why your site is the niche for ... whatever it IS the niche for. Otherwise I'll just think of you as one more image reprinter, and not as the "go-to" guy for exactly and precisely the one thing that you actually ARE the guy for.

I hope you don't mind these rather general suggestions. Just some thoughts thrown out there. And by all means, if you find that you're profitable even though you reject my ideas, HECK yeah! then reject my ideas. :) I'd like to know what the formula is, on those sorts of subjects, and if my suggestions are bad then I'd like to know.

Ok, I made a few changes to the home page per some of your recommendation. Please give any feedback or changes you might suggest.

Also, The IE 6.0 bug for the live support is fixed, if anyone wanted to know.

[buddha377]

You want honest feedback, you got it. I do not bs people, that you can count on.

Site looks good, etc. But that means shit. Your problem is one that the book addresses. You forgot to test properly. To minimize the pain of building a product only to find out that no one will come: test, test, test. You must know there is a market before you spend time, money and energy. Period.

1) Did you market test the product? That means did you actually buy keywords and dry test? Did you get anyone during that test to click on purchase? Did you have analytics software out there to KNOW for a fact that people were clicking on the purchase page? My guess: No. You must test it UNTIL you have people clicking on the purchase page repeatedly. Meaning you have to do multiple iterations of the product pages and do new campaigns until you have traffic to the PURCHASE page. Traffic to the site means nothing. Traffic to the purchase page means EVERYTHING!

2) You have chosen a product that already exists so you have to compete on price. You will lose that game. Its why third party sellers on amazon can't make a living, because they always have to undercut everyone.

3) You don't come across as premium AND unique, so you can't justify your prices and hence your customer's can't.

You have two choices from here:

1) Cut your loses. Go back to the drawing board. TEST a new product. Once your TEST is successful THEN BUILD your product. Remember that starting something is no justification for finishing it. If you can't walk away then you can't play this game.

2) Build a few test versions of the site with different prices, even prices you can't actually charge right now, and target specific campaigns to those pages. Have your purchase page say "sorry that item is backordered. Check back soon..." Put google analytics on that purchase page. Check often.

Good luck,

Buddha

[jazzdrive3]

@Buddha

I guess I did ask for it. Thanks for commenting.

But let's see. I already have google analytics installed, with specific goal tracking. Currently, I'm averaging 3 people per day clicking on the add to cart button of a product.

Numbers always lie. In a traditional test, 3 sales a day, 90 sales a month, would be awesome when just starting off. But everything is not as cookie cutter as the book makes it out to be. If I could live off of testing numbers, I'd already be making my dreamline requirement.

Price isn't the only way to compete (although most of my prices now match, or are a little bit lower, than the major competitors I've scoped for the exact same product). There are different types of marketing to try, plus service and guarantee's. For instance, many who sell similar products will not accept returns unless the product is defective, and if they do, they charge an exorbitant restocking fee.

I am getting ready to launch a differently swayed adwords campaign, with keywords geared toward a major superstars product page, so they will not have to browse when they get there. We'll see how that changes the numbers. But one step at a time.

Heck, type in framed sports in google. I'm already number 9 on the first page. My SEO will certainly begin to pay off sometime in t hefuture.

Again, the testing you describe is great and all, but it is far more accurate if you're doing a hard sell for a single product or a very small series of products, which clearly my site is not in that genre.

[buddha377]

Jazz, you can take a shot, good for you. I don't always wear a velvet glove when giving advice. :) But a million people telling you "atta boy"means nothing. Most people are just afraid to say what's on their minds, hence we get nowhere in life because no one wants to offend us, or worse they really have no idea how to fix it.

I agree with you, nothing is as cookie cutter as the book. Nothing in life is. But the principals are solid. I think his testing works best for single products. However, I think it can be adapted.

I've started a number of businesses that didn't have a market when I got there. It hurts. Big time. This book is going to kill a lot of people. They all think they can start with a 4 hour work week. No way. The beginning is hard work and proper execution, only then can you automate. It also gives people the illusion that you can just throw some crap on the web and make bank. A lot of people will start building me-too products and get hurt real fast.

What makes Tim different is that he has amazing pattern recognition ability and he can see flaws in the system and exploit them. it doesn't mean other people can't do it, but they are few and far between.

You have drive and ambition. That's a good start. Do yourself a favor and know when to hold them and when to fold them. You need to find a way to test and if you can't make tests work, fold 'em up and start something else. If you can't find a way, you aren't being creative enough. Get out a journal and write out testing ideas for 20 minutes every day for the next five days. See where that gets you. Assume it can be done and that you just need to find the way. If it helps imagine you have a gun to your head and you have to figure out a way to test this business or die.

What if you took the three biggest stars in each sports league, football, baseball, basketball, plus maybe one legend and put up a dry test site for only that. That would minimize your testing. The thing is, testing works. You must brainstorm until you find a way to properly test. It sounds like you didn't get a enough clicks, but still wanted to push forward with the site anyway and hoped you could find a market. Maybe you can. But you need to keep testing. Find a way. Market testing not Tim's principal, its a very old one, he just updated it for the internet age. Keep refining your pages and the stars you choose until you get enough clicks and know how to change your main site.

Keep at it. As Thomas Edison said, "I didn't fail when I made the light bulb, I just found 1000 ways not to do it."

All the best,

Buddha

[final_id]

Buddha:

I think one thing that's central to the "Tim philosophy" is, to reject societal conditioning. As you say, he can see flaws in a "system":

What makes Tim different is that he has amazing pattern recognition ability and he can see flaws in the system and exploit them. it doesn't mean other people can't do it, but they are few and far between.


That system might be the typical way of doing business, as you're describing here. Or it might be (and I think this is a more important point) a whole cultural system. For me at least (and I think for a lot of other people who won't admit it) America is broken. We're nearly all of us working 70 hours a week yet we're less productive (worker by worker, hour by hour) than an average east-Asian or west-European employee. We're getting less vacation time, more school hours, and spending more money on health care and police and prison systems, than most of those locations, but GETTING LESS FOR IT.

What we've lost is the ability to discern effectiveness, in the name of applying effort. In other words, if we're seen to have our nose to the grind-stone painfully, then we are lauded; while, if we're seen to be having a good life, we're excoriated. This is a problem for a lot of reasons. Tim addresses this in an interview I read on line, where the interviewer talks about America having been made great by the "Puritan work ethic" (or some other cultural myth). His answer is excellent:


{Question:} As you know, the United States was made the most powerful nation on Earth through "the Puritan work ethic" and "deferred gratification". How do you view your New Rich "economic slight of hand" as affecting productivity in this nation?

{Answer:} I don't think this country was built on the "Puritan work ethic." I think this country is built on entrepreneurship and dissent. The U.S. as it stands is not productive. Our per worker productivity ratings are worse than Europe and Asia. The Four Hour Work Week isn't about being idle, it's about being focused on the results-driven, not the hyperactivity-driven.


This is from the interview that starts here (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/326611/interview_with_timothy_ferriss_bestselling.html) and the question appears on the bottom of page 3 (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/326611/interview_with_timothy_ferriss_bestselling.html?pa ge=3) though the answer appears at the top of page 4 (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/326611/interview_with_timothy_ferriss_bestselling.html?pa ge=4).

[javi]

Jazz... what merchant account provider are you using?

Very nice site.

Thanks,

J

[zoot]

It's been a few months. Any more sales? How close are you to your dreamline?

[jazzdrive3]

I'm using the merchant account from Network Solutions. Free to sign up and the cheapest rates I could find. The only real hassle was the American Express sign up.

@zook,

Not even close. This muse is a dud. The only thing I've sold are Maria Sharapova pictures. I'm going to hold out until after the holidays to see if I can pick up and sales to cover the losses, but them I'm selling it.

But I have several other potentials in the works at the moment.

Anyone interested in the domain/content? I have several pages ranked on the first page of google for certain keywords, and I get about 30 free visitors a day. The domain could be worked into something else, and it's age and google pagerank are a plus.

[dwculver]

on my computer at this moment i couldn't get your site up..I was sent to Ask.com

[Carlos]

the site's not working, I can't view it

[Bradinator]

this post is over 2 yrs old