Thread: Market Research

Hi,

In the next couple months, I'm planning to open an online store. I'd really like to hear from y'all about what you like and don't like about online stores. I'll give you some of my own examples but I'd really like to hear yours.

What brings you back to a website?
What sends up your red flags?
What would you like to see in an online store?

Likes:
1) nice, professional website
2) fast shipping
3) new inventory (not the same old stuff)
4) quality products (nothing is worse than getting your costume and it looks completely cheesy

Dislikes:
1) poor and/or slow communication with customer service
2) website that is hard to navigate
3) custom orders that take months and months to get

What else?

Besides what you already wrote:

Likes:
- frequent updates; if something is out of stock, update that immediately.
- making everything clear: do you make that costume in my size and have to wait for it 4 weeks, or 3 weeks or 6 weeks or not sure. Or you have it readily available in acertain size and which ones.
- professional, but warm emails - if I see a caring but professional person behind the emails I am more likely to buy and come back.

Yikes:
I have to think about that. I guess it would be the absence of likes :)

I agree with the ones you have listed - so here's a quick list for me.

Likes:
1) Contact information easy to find and friendly
2) Professional wording, return policy, etc.
3) Ability to search by size
4) Items in-stock
5) Pictures and accurate descriptions of all items

Dislikes:
1) Rude or unprofessional wording or communication
2) Misrepresentation of items
3) Hidden fees/costs
4) Disorganized websites

If you're going to be selling costumes, please use professional photography! I dislike cheesy sites with a poorly-lit model standing in front of a sheet. It looks unprofessional. Also, detail photos are also nice--so the buyer knows what she's getting.

Likes:
Fast shipping
Reasonable and clear shipping costs (if you want to sell the CD for $20, sell it for $20... don't sell it for $10 and charge $10 to ship!)
Reliable, professional communication

Dislikes:
See above--basically I dislike vendors who don't project a professional image. This includes poor photography, poorly designed website, poor communication, and poor customer service.

ETA: Good luck with your business venture!!!

Others have already given great feedback. I really like Mahsati's suggestion of searching by size availability.


Likes: allows me to pay via paypal so I don't have to hassle with entering all the shipping, billing, and credit card info

Offers clothes big enough to fit tall people. At nearly 6 feet in height, I find it difficult to find pants with the 35-inch inseam that I need (when barefoot) or skirts long enough. And of course, we tall people also tend to have bigger bone structures, so we tend to need large sizes like XL.

Dislikes:

based on a Microsoft web server and written in Microsoft's tools (the reason I dislike vendors based on Microsoft technology is that Microsoft tends to be weaker on security than UNIX and Linux, and if someone's going to be accepting and storing my credit card information, I want their system to be as secure as possible!)

requires me to "create an account" in order to place an order. (I hate having yet another login and password to remember, plus I'd rather not have my credit card information stored in yet another place.)

Agree with above.

Honesty!!! I recently purchased items from a popular site. Received an email saying - in stock shipping tomorrow. After numerous emails back and forth and empty promises finally received a refund after starting a paypal dispute. I have been told from a few people that this business always takes at least 6 to 10 weeks to deliver. If the business had been honest about availability and/or delivery time, it would not have been a problem.

Keep it coming, this has all been good info!

Would you be interested in a website that sold gently USED costumes on consignment?

Would you feel more confident about the purchase of a used costume, if you knew the seller pre-screened and personally inspected each costume for quality?

Would you consider selling your own costumes on consignment for terms of 1 to 3 months?

I would have NO problem paying a $350-400 for a costume that originally retails for $7-800, is gently used and clear descriptions / pictures are provided for the flaws. Kind of like buying off if the Swapmeet boards from here.

Also: live models (belly dancers) are so much better than mannikins, or clothes on a hanger. I want to see what the costume would look like on a flesh and blood body. I would even like it more if the model is not a size 0.

The consignment question is a good one. For me it (as both a buyer and a seller) it would depend on how it would be set up.

As a Buyer
As a costume lover, I'm always interested in finding new resources for quality costumes. I would certainly be interested in it, but don't know if I would give much more weight to "pre-screened" costumes until as the seller you developed a good reputation (costume quality, selection, etc) through a number of transactions. Also, it would depend on how thei costumes are screened, which brings me to...

As a Seller
How would you see my costumes to determine quality and condition? Photos? Do I have to ship it to you, then if you don't take it, you ship it back? That's a lot of shipping back and forth. But if you only determine quality via photos, I think I can also judge about the same given the same photos (so as a buyer, this wouldn't impress me much). Also, as a seller, how much commission do you take? What's your web traffic and sales like? What benefits do I get from listing the costume through you rather than, say, here on bhuz or even ebay? These are all things I would have to consider before listing a costume with a consignor.

Aazura, those are excellent questions!

Definitely food for thought...

I would certainly want to address those concerns on my policies page and in a FAQ, etc...

My initial plan is to have the prospective consigner send me several pictures to help me determine quality, if I like it, they would ship it to me. I inspect it, if I like it, I keep it and try to sell it, if I don't like it I send it back to them. Or if it doesn't sell...

So, it's only shipping once from the consigner, and once from me. That's not a lot of shipping.

But the success of it would be my eye for quality during the initial photo screening. I'm hoping to be able to weed out most and not have to send too many back.

I'm thinking about actually specifying what shots I want...

My target group re: consignment are those that just don't want to deal with multiple buyers, or don't want to deal with bhuz or other means to sell. They just want someone else to do it...

I completely understand that some time will have to pass to build my brand and reputation as a good screener...

I was thinking about 30% commission.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great idea! And I'm sure I would visit your site to check out you inventory (... just like I'm always trolling the Swap Meet page even when I don't have any money to spend!!).

But as a seller, I don't know I would use the service unless it gave me some kind of "edge" that other selling outlets don't. And since the success of a consignment business is largely determined by the amount and quality of the items it consigns, you need to find out if you'll have access to good "stuff." So then, I guess, you need to determine if there is enough of a market in quality used costumes from sellers who don't use sites like Bhuz or eBay. I'm not sure Bhuz is the place to find this market research, since most of us here are comfortable buying/selling here (though I'm sure there are exceptions). Not sure where I woudl suggest you post this question... maybe a yahoo group or other kind of group that doesn't involve selling??

Of course you could just go for it as part of your larger web store and see what happens. As long as your whole business isn't based in it, I don't see that it could hurt any to try it out for a while.

Originally Posted by aazura

Dislikes:
See above--basically I dislike vendors who don't project a professional image. This includes poor photography, poorly designed website, poor communication, and poor customer service.

And let's not forget about misspellings and/or typos! ACK!

Deborah (who doesn't misspell very often, but who generates lots of typos!)

Although I personally wouldn't be likely to buy used costumes from a consignment vendor, I would cheerfully encourage my students to do so if I believed the vendor to be honest and reliable.

As for whether I'd be willing to sell via consignment, I'm not sure. 30% is a pretty high commission. Buyers would expect the used costume to be significantly marked down due to having been used, so between the markdown and a 30% commission level, I'm not sure whether selling through consignment would be attractive to me. Not ruling out, just saying I'm a bit skeptical.

It's cool...Consignment isn't going to be my bread and butter...only an option offered to those of interest.

I am planning to sale new costumes and all in-stock.

I dislike sites that mix their used and new costumes. I personally don't want to buy a used costume (I don't perform enough to need a whole wardrobe of outfits), and when I do buy a new costume, I don't want to worry that I have misunderstood the web site. In other words, if you're going to carry a mixed inventory, make sure you have very clear designations of which costumes are brand new and which aren't!

In a similar vein, I'll put in a vote to cancel Marianna's suggestion to show the costumes on live models. I'm exactly the opposite--I'd rather see the costume on a mannequin, not a person! If I'm buying new, I don't want makeup stains, funky odors (perfume/cigarettes/garlic/whatever), or any other icky surprises that might result from a model trying on the outfits for the pictures.

And speaking of pictures, please make sure to show the full costume, front and back!

My friend runs a site for consignment goth/alternative clothing called Velvet Garden - Gothic Clothing Marketplace [Velvet Garden] Buy/Sell New and Vintage Gothic Clothing and Accessories. you might want to check it out for comparison.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

My friend runs a site for consignment goth/alternative clothing called Velvet Garden - Gothic Clothing Marketplace [Velvet Garden] Buy/Sell New and Vintage Gothic Clothing and Accessories. you might want to check it out for comparison.

Just to hijack - I have bought many things from there in the past...all excellent!

My input is a little scattered, but these are just general things that would make my experience visiting a bellydance website less memorable:
1) It bothers me when people post 27 pictures of costumes in my size that they've already sold, but only have 2 currently in stock, neither of which are my size (posted right below). Does the universe just do this to taunt me? I would recommend that you only post costumes that are currently available - although I wouldn't mind a gallery of past costumes, provided that they aren't on the same page.
2)Try to streamline your ordering with a service like paypal.com - when a website offers this, I am much more likely to buy from them, since I feel that my credit card information is truly secure.
3)A quarterly newsletter with a coupon definitely gets my attention

Aesthetic notes:
1) Please, please, please do not have music playing on your website. Nothing jarrs me more than another voice coming on the speakers, over the music that I already have playing on my computer.
2) Flash introductions/websites are a pain to navigate, and I can never save pictures of the costumes that I like, for further consideration. As someone who tends to mull over costumes, I like to have that feature.
3)Unified color scheme and fonts are appreciated - it discredits a site in my mind when there are 14 different sizes, colors, and directions of lettering scattered around a page

...if I think of anything else, I'll let you know!

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

In a similar vein, I'll put in a vote to cancel Marianna's suggestion to show the costumes on live models. I'm exactly the opposite--I'd rather see the costume on a mannequin, not a person! If I'm buying new, I don't want makeup stains, funky odors (perfume/cigarettes/garlic/whatever), or any other icky surprises that might result from a model trying on the outfits for the pictures.

interesting... i thought that was just me... i don't like to see models in the costumes. if it's new i want to feel like i'm the first one who is actually going to be in it. (i realize that may or may not be true... but i don't want to see someone else in the costume and then know someone else has been in it!)

i agree with what others have said. for me, website design is a big factor. if a site is too plain, overly jazzed with flash and sound, or contains a lot of spelling/grammar errors, i have a tendency to look elsewhere.

good luck with your site!

I'd agree on the no music, no flash, no animations. They're all annoying and/or amateur. A poorly designed, overly crowded site is also annoying. Have your most anal acquaintance copy edit the site once you get it up. Typos, misspelled words and misuse of its and it's all look very amateur.

I hate having to click through too many screens to find the info I need.

As a non-traditional size (i.e. short & fat) I'd like to know if a costume could be special-ordered.

thx for posting and bumping this am reading too:)

I am more likely to buy something if I see a model with my colouring wearing the costume. So I would say have a mix of models with different colouring.

1. RETURNS:
For me to buy from an online vendor they must offer returns on all items. Because I can't see, touch, feel, try on an item I am buying online, I MUST be able to return the item for a REFUND. This is critical when we're talking a
$500+ costume. I think on items over a certain $$ should have free shipping. I prefer when a site inlcudes a postage paid shipping label for returns.

2. STOCK: only show items in stock. I hate that you have to sift through 20 pages of unavailable costumes on the Dahlal site. I hate that the Bellydance with K/Johara site has millions of sold costumes & hardley anything for sale. If you're offering custom orders have one button that directs the customer to an 'inspirations' page of costumes & styles & another for off-the-rack, ready to ship costumes in stock.

3. GOOD PHOTOS & ACCURATE DECSRIPTIONS: Photograph the entire costume. Show me the bra, belt, skirt & hem--close up/detail pics of each & a few shots of the ensemble on a live model or mannequin. Show me front and back. Show & list all accessories, if there are no accessories, list that. If there are features like a detachable waist strap, list that. Measure the costume--like many people do on the swap meet.

4. Prompt service--return emails & calls within 48 hours.

5. Consignment: I wouldn't put any of my stuff on consignment, only because I have had very good luck working with the swap meet here. I do buy new & used costumes so I would possibly buy consigned items.

I am a vendor. One thing that really turns me off is when I read...

"I get over 1 million emails a day so don't expect a response"

I too get inundated with lots of emails full of questions and stuff. I make it a point to answer every email that comes in no matter what. I know we are all busy and have a life (heck, I vend, teach, dance, have a full time job in IT, and a mom) so I understand. But placing a message on your site that says, "don't expect me to answer your email because I get over 100 a day" is not good customer service.

I have actually not bought costumes from certain vendors because of this...

You can at least say - I will get to your email within 48 hours or something like that. Saying "never" says to me --- if you have an issue, do not expect a response. IMO.