Please help me with marketing by sharing your ideas

Australia
August 27, 2012 5:32am CST
Those of you who know me know that I have started my own business...almost a year later, the internet side of things is still very slow & I seem to be losing more money than making money with my website & facebook group as the majority of my income comes from my weekend flea market stall... I sell not only second hand goods but my knitting, crocheting, phone cases for touch screen phones (which I am the cheapest in town according to my customers), lingerie, clothing & I am starting to specialize in plus size clothing... I have tried marketing both the facebook group & the website only to get more views & members...there has yet to be more sales... My question to you now that you know the basics is....how would you market this business & why?
1 person likes this
2 responses
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
31 Aug 12
In my honest opinion, you might want to start by looking at what you are selling rather than your marketing techniques as all the good marketing in the world will not make people buy products that they do not really want or need. Need being the key word, especially in these times when people are cutting back on those things that are not really important. I am not really sure how well clothing goes online as I would never buy clothes online, particularly those like lingerie that you need to fit well. I have bought t-shirts from Cafe Press and others online but that is it and the quality is not always that flash. My thinking is that most people would like to actually see the clothing and feel the quality before buying. As for the phone covers and all that. There are so many people selling that stuff online that it would be hard to stand out or be competitive, especially seeing as you can buy them extremely cheap from China with free shipping! I think that you need something unique, something that is different and special. Find a niche that you know and go with that instead, just keeping your current stock for market stalls where they sell better.
• Australia
12 Oct 12
I agree with the phone cases...they are my biggest sellers at the markets but online, it's hard to compete with those cheaper direct from China where i get my stock from... Clothing is/can be difficult to sell online but they seem to be popular on ebay - now if only I had an account there :( I have since taken the website down as it was running at a loss...I am just using my facebook group & also listing my craft items on madeit. If only I could find a unique niche...
@airasheila (5454)
• Philippines
27 Aug 12
a pleasant day moonchild1au, as you have said, you already have a website, hence, from this, you can promote and market your offline products. you may take pictures and post some description to make those items more saleable. since you have also mentioned that the majority of your income comes from your market stall, then, why not take a photograph of the items you display on this stall then post it to your website. from these points you will be able to generate more sales and more income to come.
• Australia
28 Aug 12
I had never thought of adding a photo of my market stall to my website, thanks for the idea