
Ask HN: How do we get our first sale? - jnardiello
Hello HN,
I&#x27;m writing here as I&#x27;m running our of options. Me and my wife have decided to invest a good chunk of money to bootstrap our own business. I&#x27;m a software engineer (currently employed in London), she has been working with high fashion handcrafted clothing brands for years (we are originally from Italy).<p>The natural choice we made was to start selling online the same kind of products my wife has been selling for years. The store is: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;polghi.co.uk&#x2F;<p>Long story short: we spent months going around Italy to get the best suppliers we could find (italian artisans mostly, which have 0 presence online and that were still interested in selling abroad), we set up the online store and started some heavy campaigns with Facebook and Adwords. I knew form experience that selling online was difficult BUT so far the result is beyond worst: 0 orders.<p>We have cut all the prices, started promotional campaigns. Nothing seems to work. Any suggestion? Am I missing anything?<p>This &quot;bootstrap your company&quot; thing is really becoming an emotional roller coaster.
======
Mz
You need to rewrite your landing page. It currently sounds like it was written
by someone who speaks English as a second language. Here is the current text:

Polghi is a niche fashion brand that offers a contemporary view of “elegant
simplicity”. The designs of our exclusive clothing and accessories line have
been conceptualised to facilitate comfortable yet refined outfits.

Polghi is a blend of the finest artisan traditions of "Made-in-Italy" and the
newest technological trends. We rigourously follow the life of our range of
pure cashmere products from their origin as handpicked fibres to post-
manufacturing quality control.

Our dedication to excellence and to the highest quality in all our endeavors
is something we wish our customers to experience firsthand.

_-----

Suggested edits to start:

Polghi is a new brand that offers a contemporary view of _elegant simplicity_.
Our exclusive line of clothing and accessories are comfortable to wear yet
present a refined image.

We blend the finest artisan traditions of Made-in-Italy with the newest
technology to bring you practical beauty. We follow the life of our pure
cashmere products from their origin as handpicked fibres to post-manufacturing
to ensure the highest quality control.

Our dedication to excellence and to the highest quality brings the best and
most beautiful fabrics and designs to our customers.

\----

Do not use the word niche. It signals small rather than exclusive. If you sell
high end clothes, you need to be a bit of a snob about it.

~~~
jnardiello
I'm blown away! Thank you so much for this!

I do realize that speaking english as a second language is an issue
considering our target. We definitely need to find someone to proof-read our
texts and landing pages.

~~~
Mz
Get yourself a copy writer. Look for someone who is a native speaker of
English who writes proper UK English. Look for someone who knows how to write
about clothes for a high end market in specific.

Instead of calling it "niche", you might try describing your business as a
_boutique._ Boutique is the correct word (at least in the U.S.) for signaling
that you are a small but upscale business. Most of the time, when someone is
describing a business as "niche", they are basically dismissing it as small
and irrelevant. There are exceptions, but those exceptions do not appear to
apply to your business model.

Here is one of those exceptions and their business history is a good read:
kitchen.johnnycupcakes.com/story/

I would describe Johnny Cupcakes as a niche business because of the limited
scope of their products. They are very focused on one thing, they do that one
thing and they do it well: They mostly produce limited run t-shirts with their
unique set of themes. IIRC, it started as just t-shirts. They appear to have
expanded their product line to other items, but it still all follows their
weird little theme. From what I gather, they are quite successful.

Best of luck.

~~~
luxpir
I can give you a hand. UK born and bred, translator/writer and familiar with
'converting' web copy. Just a once over to get you started, if you like.

------
jkahn
I know nothing about fashion so take this with a grain of salt.

Your products are definitely on the very high end of price when it comes to
clothing. Do people buy expensive clothes from a brand they've never heard of
online? Maybe you're better suited to a bricks and mortar store so people can
touch and feel the product, without the heft of a well known brand behind you.
If not a store, then supplying other stores.

The discounting strikes me with cognitive dissonance. You're trying to sell a
premium product - why would you discount? Personally I'd never buy clothes
that were this expensive outside of a premium suit. I am a purchaser of other
premium products, though. Look at what the brands you want to imitate do. Do
they discount? Do they do run out sales? Better to just change your price if
you didn't pick the right one. If someone's looking for a discount, they're
probably after a $20 sweater, not s $500 one.

~~~
jnardiello
Bricks and mortar store is something we are considering. To be fair, we don't
have enough money to actually setup a "proper" store BUT in London it is
possible to open pop up stores, which you can rent for a few days or a few
weeks. We are probably going to do that as I'm 100% convinced that our
products are actually the best marketing we have.

Beside that, the "discount" topic is a hot one. We are still in the process of
testing our assumptions. So far, all we know is that if we sell full-price
imitating the "big brands" in our segment, we get 0 attention. As you
mentioned, people are after brands and we are still unknown.

Now we are trying to see if there is a segment of people who care about
quality and is ready to pay a bit of money to get higher quality but still
would never pay 250$ for a scarf from the big brands as they realise that it's
all about the empty brand with little quality behind.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, it's really important to have the chance to
speak with someone about this stuff (other than my wife, of course).

~~~
mozumder
If you have good products, try some of the trade shows first:
[http://www.modemonline.com/fashion/mini-web-
sites/tradeshows](http://www.modemonline.com/fashion/mini-web-
sites/tradeshows)

Thousands of wholesale buyers will be able to see your products here. You will
find out quickly enough if your products are good or not, based on the actual
quality of your product.

You'll also meet industry people that can help you with advice or offer to
sell you your products. Learn from the fashion experts there.

------
no1youknowz
I would say, you don't have a traffic problem. But what you have is a metrics
problem.

Do you have any metrics associated with the flow of traffic.

1) Are you seeing what happens when you place banners on facebook?

2) What demos are clicking (if any) your banners.

3) Where are you losing people. Are you direct linking to your home page, or
are you pairing a banner with a product page?

4) What is the title of the headline that you are using?

5) What is the copy of the product page that you are using after the FB
advert?

6) Are you doing any sort of re-targeting? Do you make the checkout process
easy or easier on revisits?

7) Are you capturing any data from people who are visiting?

8) Do you have any type of newsletter?

9) How do people know you have slashed prices, are you telling people why they
should buy at your site?

So many things I could go on. Put it this way, I have sold other peoples
t-shirts on facebook as an affiliate. It's not terribly difficult, but the
devil is in the analytics.

1) Images

2) Headline

3) Copy

4) Call To Action

5) Devices / Useragents

6) Geo-location

7) Retargeting

8) Opt-in

9) Funnels.

All of these matter and if you get it done right, not only will you start
making sales. You'll start to make a lot of sales!

Good luck!

~~~
sdnguyen90
Most of that is a premature optimization IMO.

First of all, are you sure you are targeting the right market?

I've worked with fashion companies with similar price points as the OP. At
that price, many people expect heavy branding or very good quality.

Since you're looking for a quick win, you should put your focus on improving
the product pages. Your selling point is the product's quality. You need to
emphasize the product features on every page. You currently only have a few
sentences on each one. Also, you have a great opportunity to tell a story with
sourcing the product from artisans in Italy.

I see too many people jumping into conversion rate optimization when they
don't have their base marketing strategy figured out.

~~~
jnardiello
> Since you're looking for a quick win, you should put your focus on improving
> the product pages. Your selling point is the product's quality. You need to
> emphasize the product features on every page. You currently only have a few
> sentences on each one. Also, you have a great opportunity to tell a story
> with sourcing the product from artisans in Italy.

This is absolutely true. I honestly think that we should both try to find an
"empathic" connection with our customers AND tell them the story behind each
product describing the months of work we spent traveling the country to
actually truly get the best, both in terms of raw materials and local hand-
made production

------
ddingus
This screams Pinterest!

Setup an account and start pinning. Secondly, purchase some of their sponsored
pins.

The other path I would take is to send out some clothes to people who can
recommend, review and talk about them.

~~~
jnardiello
Thanks for the suggestion. Pinterest is a recurring subject, you are not first
one suggesting it but none of us ever used it. I do definitely need to spend
some time with it.

~~~
ddingus
Well, it has spread like wildfire among women, particularly younger women.

They see stuff that represents their style, pin those, and get followers who
also appreciate both the things and the sense of taste about things.

Secondly, they use it as that, "I want" or "feel of shopping" type experience,
and that's a big part of what the sponsored pins are about.

A lot of women I see using the site use it to spot trends and or help them
figure out what their look is, or could be, and that's inclusive. Dress, home,
etc...

It's not enough to have good looks. It's about who is talking about them and
some exposure. Just running an AD might net you a click from a woman who is
intrigued, or who has her own well defined style and tastes.

Getting some sharing and discussion may well see you a lot more clicks from
women who follow trends and or other women.

The language on your page might use a tweak too. It's clean and clear, but not
entirely suggestive. I would get help changing that, if it were me.

~~~
jnardiello
> The language on your page might use a tweak too. It's clean and clear, but
> not entirely suggestive. I would get help changing that, if it were me.

Thanks a lot for this. Both me and my wife are non-english, it's really hard
to choose the right words. We might need some help from a professional
copywriter.

~~~
ddingus
Indeed. Good copy is tough. Hope you see sales soon!

------
mrcsparker
If you want to attract a buyer like my wife (she isn't here at the moment, so
I am guessing) have a US-based version of the site in US dollars. She buys a
lot of clothing online, and this looks like the type of clothing that she
likes to wear.

A lot of the higher-end retailers in the States allow the buyer to exchange
online products in-store. Your return policy looks fantastic - I think that
she wouldn't think twice about ordering.

I will ask her when she gets back. It is really beautiful looking clothing.

~~~
jnardiello
Added to the to-do list, tomorrow I'm going to add multi-currency support to
the store!

If your wife will decide to be our first customer, tell her to get in touch
via mail. We will be super-happy to offer free shipping to the US :)

Thanks a lot for the kind words regarding the products, they are (quite
literally) our craft!

------
kamphey
Have you thought of getting into People's views with YouTube influencers?
Since you do need someone to check out the clothes and "recommend" them,
digitally this gets you a very targeted audience.

Depending on your budget you can go big and spend on influencers making
specific videos, or go low budget and have them do shoutouts during their
regular programming. or just send them free clothes.

Here's a few that might be good:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGentlemanCove](https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGentlemanCove)
[https://www.youtube.com/user/DulceCandy87](https://www.youtube.com/user/DulceCandy87)
[https://www.youtube.com/user/lindsayslatest](https://www.youtube.com/user/lindsayslatest)

Here's a few things I thought while on your site:

1) It looks like you're in the sheep business. 2) It took me a bit of digging
to get to "Products" and even find out how to purchase anything. 3) You can
deliver something directly to your potential customers that they are looking
for, based on at least season. Right now I might look for hoodies or sweaters,
show those right away!

~~~
jnardiello
Having a list of youtubers or bloggers is probably the next thing we will do.
We will try to get in touch with them and see what we will need to do in order
to get some coverage. The hard thing with our core business is that our stock
is limited. Because everything was made by either artisans or local family-run
laboratories we had to place our orders with months of advance (in order to
make sure they had the time to prepare everything) and products are still
limited.

Before sending out samples, we need to make sure they are well-worth it!

You made a good point saying that we should show straight-away products that
relate with the current season. We will probably remove the "Bestsellers"
(which actually are not bestsellers at the moment btw) with something more
relevant.

~~~
kamphey
Feel free to email me if you want to get into YouTube Influencers. I work in
the YouTube world and am happy to help fellow hustlers! kamphey @ gmail.com

------
akg_67
> we spent months going around Italy to get the best suppliers we could find
> (italian artisans mostly, which have 0 presence online and that were still
> interested in selling abroad)

Did you make similar "offline" effort on customer side like going around and
talking to the potential customers? It seems you took "active hands-on"
approach for supplier acquisition, but you are taking "passive hands-off"
approach for customer acquisition.

While online promotion through advertising is good, I will suggest do some
offline reach out to potential customers. Consider going around the places and
events where people who like high fashion, handicraft, clothing hang out. You
need to find a few early adopters who can be brand ambassdors. You need to be
in close contact with some of your early potential customers so that you can
see their decision making process, hear their comments, etc.

Time for some guerrilla marketing.

[1] If you can identify a few vendors, places, or events, offer to give them
at cost all the sale of your line, display few pieces of your clothing with
oversize tags on the clothing, banners directing to see more choices at your
website.

[2] Ask a few people who mingle in such groups to wear your "attention
grabbing" clothing that would potentially spur conversation among people.

[3] Show up at the gatherings of targeted people wearing your own clothing
with a small tag hanging out, like you just bought a new piece of clothing and
forgot to remove the tag before wearing and going out.

[4] Instead of buying gifts for any occasion to your friends and family, give
out pieces from your clothing line as gifts.

[5] Take some of your low cost clothing to a few consignment stores who sell
"high fashion clothing" and sell them as seconds. You will also gain insight
into pricing.

[6] Hang out on online forums relevant to your line of clothing. Become a
subject matter expert on such forums.

------
buildops
Have you done marketing? Do you have a marketing plan? Who is your target
audience - your first buyer? Ads don't help if the people who are likely to
buy from a no name (regardless of quality) don't know about you.

First thing is to develop a marketing plan - target audience/first market,
then promotional channels, price (cheaper isn't always better - if you are
priced like a cheap Chinese knock off but are high quality Italian fashion, I
won't trust your claim), and product - which you are working on

------
seanwilson
Not something I know much about but I like the clean professional look of your
site. Good luck! By the way, I noticed the Pinterest link at the bottom of the
site is malformed and 404s.

------
LarryChiang
My six mentors mentored me to "Cross the Chasm from the Right". The first sale
should be a rebated sale where 100% of the money gets refunded after the
supermodel wears the clothing item and then tweets or Instagrams this.

Then you execute marketing and sales protocol: "#ReGram"

~~~
LarryChiang
The rebate is done using sales protocol; "#LCRRM". It is what I learned at
Engineering 145, "Startup Entrepreneurship" (how to pay for Stanford by lec
12, #ENGR145)

BTW, i used #LCRRM to launch "Reverse VC". tier one VCs paid me thousands to
pitch. Do not think I am great. Think of my mentor: Mark McCormack.

He did all sorts of sales 'protocols'. I made a hashtag for his "Signature
business recipes"

------
jnardiello
Apparently we are receiving quite a few visits (and some positive feedback)
from the US. We do really appreciate all the help we got on HN.

If any of you guys will decide to place an order, please use this coupon code
during the checkout: FREEUS

It will give free worldwide delivery :)

