What is the best way to market an on-line Irish gift shop?
352760
Getting more visitors is one thing; and turning those visitors into buyers is another thing. If you are running an online store, you need to do BOTH.\n\nTo get visitors to your website:\n\n1. Offer the best products. Sounds like a no-brainer, but your products are your best advertisement - if visitors love your products, then they will go back and spread the word to others.\n\n2. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important -- and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools. Get a Recommend this Site script from websites such as cgiscripts.com and similar directories of scripts. Some even go as far as giving incentives to those who recommend the site to their friends. \n\n3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.\n\n4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News. Some sites that accept free press releases are PRWeb.com, PowerHomeBiz.com \n\n5. Advertise only if it will get you targeted traffic. Whether you use pay per click advertising or buying text links or buying banner ads, carefully monitor your return on investment. If possible, get metrics to tell you whether the PPC traffic is actually converting into sale. Google Analytics can show that to you if you are using Google Adwords.\n\nWith regards to getting the visitors to buy more stuff, here are some tips from the article "10 Ways to Convert Visitors to Buyers" http://www.powerhomebiz.com/072005/conversion.htm :\n\n1. Provide quality products or content. Good conversion rates start with quality and a great value proposition.\n\n2. Grab their attention immediately. Put your most important and succinct statement of what your website offer above the scroll (e.g. sales pitch, order button)\n\n3. It’s about the customer, all the time. Visitors will respond to your offer only if you can successfully make the case that your website exists for them, to provide them what they need and offer a solution to their problem. \n\n4. Design your page specifically for your target audience. \n\n5. Make it easy for them. Make the ordering process easy. An indicator of how well your process works is the ratio of abandoned shopping baskets to total orders – if this is higher than 10 percent, then it indicates that the online ordering process you have implemented is ineffective, or takes too long. \n\n6. Improve your site's copy. More than a tool to inform users of what the site is all about, the best type of web site copy explains to a visitor how your product will fulfill their wants, needs and desires. \n\n7. Think active! Use active voice to keep your customers motivated and fully engaged in the sales process. \n\n8. Increase trust factor. Trust is a key element of success on the Web. Visitors purchase only from websites they know will safeguard their information, provide them with quality service, and offer them products that are value for their money. \n\n9. Build customer loyalty. Loyalty marketing is a proven technique to increase conversion rates and improving bottom line.\n10. Study your metrics carefully. You must have a set of key performance indicators that you can look at every day to understand the pulse of your business.
793645
Proably something funny or cute that goes for a niche of people. Then shoot yer link to people when you can.
1187956
ebay, electronic boutique, babbages or flea markets
1062326
good idea but you need to find out if you can find customers for them.\n\nI guess the easiest way is to plan a few things first - what designs are likely to be popular, how much you are going to charge, which areas are you going to sell (locally, nationally or world-wide), how you are going to distribute your products, what about after sales service, etc.\n\nOnce you are through with the above, take a few good photographs, create a site on Yahoo Shopping, and go for it.\n\nBest of luck.
935616
Most important thing is dont give up. More competition the better. What you must try to do is make some difference from what you were and what is available in the other shop.\nFirst go through your sales history and examine what is in demand mostly,  ex. 1. what type of items 2. the quality etc. \nMay be books or candles are more in demand. See whether you can sneak a peek into the other shop. I'm sure that other person started his business after giving a careful consideration to you who has been in business for 18 years. \nDepending on your finances see whether you can change the stuff you have been selling, 'cos your stuff might be a little outdated. We cannot say from here 'cos it depends on what you have been selling. You can even put a small sale and get rid of the old stuff for a cheap price. that could attract more customers , but not for long. \nTry to change the look too. As someone else has said you can put lanterna and candles to make the place attractive. Also go out of the town to a posh big gift shop and see what they have done. You dont have to copy or I'm not saying you should, but that will give you an idea as to what the trend is. You might not even be able to do everything they have done too. \nMy experiance with gift shops is that they must change with the seasons of the year as well as retaining some for someone who wants to buy something such as a b'day gift etc. Also if a person can get something inexpensive but looks good and of good quality the better. So dont give up. Do a bit of research as to the needs of your community. \nGood luck!
86519
Try Gurellia Marketing.\nthere are a lot of great books on the subject.
535817
If you believe that people will BUY your product on-line, just try it. \n\nGet started at \nhttp://www.google.com/ads/\n\nConsider a low budget at first, then increase it as needed after a few weeks.  Be patient and watch what happens.
155781
Any local stores in the area. Go to the local merchants that may offer nice wedding gifts and request to set up registery. Most stores are more than happy to get the business.
912036
Make a list of companies that may be interested to reach your audience and advertises to similar websites.\n\nGet their contact person (you can try sending an email first, without sounding spammy). Submit your proposal -- e.g. instead of spending X amount of dollars advertising, you can reach X number of users by simply donating prizes.\n\nIn our case for example given that we are an online publisher for home business entrepreneurs, we get donations from book publishers who give us their newly published books for free that we give away to our subscribers. One of the big publishers send us regularly 10 copies of each title -- and it's because we are reaching an audience that they want. \n\nSo we had to create a Book Store page that features the new titles that come out and review their books. It's a perfect tit-and-tat arrangement that has worked for several years now, and more publishers are coming on board and giving us books.
366036
Go around town to local garage sales. Go in the afternoon when folks are ready to deal. Buy good clean items & resell them on eBay.
246930
Dublin has great treasures waiting on saturdays at yard sales. get a newspaper and mark the ones in the same area with different colors so you can catch em all without a lot of driving around(might be walking distance). I'm sure your girl will find something she can't live without or never thought existed!\nGO SALEING!!
212833
The best way is to use marketing strategies that can reach this audience directly instead of using shotgun approach. This is a very specific market, and needs specific ways to reach them. Here are examples:\n\n1. Direct mail. It is cost effective easier to target this audience through direct mail pieces rather than an ad for example at Washington Post\n\n2. Advertise in trade associations catering to animal veterinarians. These publications are what they will read so your products need to be seen in these publications\n\n3. Find out what websites they visit and you can run some text sponsorship or banner ad campaigns. Be careful to measure your ROI.\n\n4. Be visible in trade shows catering to this market. You need to be there.
1185005
Solicit those who are relevent to you business. Frame shops, Reproduction Printers, other Artists, etc.
350687
if you're a small business, don't start advertising on websites yet.  \n\nDo some local advertising first to see what kind of response you get.  If you're located in the US, a good option is to do some direct mailing locally through clippermagazine -- see their site link below.\n\nhttp://www.clippermagazine.com/\n\nIn response to what the person below me said, local advertising is NOT expensive compared to larger-scale advertising.  Clipper mails out a small magazine to people in your area with a full-page ad for your business along with coupons customers can use.  \n\nMy brother used Clipper when he started out with his tanning salon and he received a great response without spending tons of money!
783577
I used to own a gift shop and in order to buy merchandise I attended trade shows.  At trade shows there are lots of independent sales reps that carry multiple product lines.  My advice is to attend as many trade shows as possible and bring samples of your product.  Meet some of the reps, see who you click with.  Some are really pushy and have questionable ethics.  Some are very nice and sincerely interested in acting as a liaison between suppliers like yourself and store owners like me.  Find reps by checking out their booths, seeing what other lines they carry and if your product would compliment their mix.  Then watch how they interact with potential customers that approach their booth.\n\nAnother possible sales tool is to go to your local yellow pages, and get the names/addresses of stores in your area that you think you would like to see sell your cards.  Then send them a cover letter with a free sample of your cards.  Envision how you would like to see your cards displayed and in what kinds of stores, then contact those stores and sell your vision.  Explain how you think your cards would sell themselves and how you would supply them.  Emphasize the good service that you can offer.  Keep track of who you sent samples to, and then a week or two after you mailed them, call the owner of the business to see if they received the sample and if they would like to see more.  You're selling by taking baby steps, which is more comfortable than cold calling.  If you believe in your product, then your enthusiasm for it will help you succeed.\n\nGood luck!!
929894
www.annsummers.ie\n\nThen within the site go to 'annsummers stores' and all the Irish ones are listed.\n\nYou kinky person...\n\nOk but i just tried it there and it worked for me???\nGo to annsummers.com so and search stores from there?
502423
ebay, yahoo shop, or froogle.