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Hi,

I don't know if this is allowed on the introduction forum, or if it will be considered unsolicited spam/advertising.

I am currently in the early days of launching a new FLGS and online web store. But have hit issues with how to best promote our website.

We seem to get plenty of traffic, we are trying to be very competitive on price and offering reasonably priced shipping with almost instant dispatch on all orders.

The thing is, the sites online been live a few weeks and while the first 2/3 weeks had almost no advertising of any kind; we did receive a lot of orders each day (not huge numbers but more than I expected).

However although everything went well, all orders were dispatched quickly and have been received by cutomers (we have had 100% 5 star feedback so far). However orders this week have literally halted.

I understand these things are cyclical and we don't have enough data to really jump to conclusions, but I am very pro active and along with pretty much adding a new product line every couple of days and locally promoting our physical store I don't really know how best to promote us.

I guess I was wondering if anyone on here has any tips for a fledgling company in terms of how to get us "out there".

A bit more background, we are actually a 7 year old company that is mainly involved in IT and has decided to diversify so all the stock and investment is being covered by our parent company. We only list accurate stock on our website, and we only list items we actually keep in stock as a constant line (for better or worse).

I know other business just fill their websites with every item available via their distributors, take orders then order the item once a customer has placed and order but that's not something we want to do. That means our product library on the web store is comparatively small compared to most over web stores (although it is growing slowly).


Sorry about the wall of text

TL'DR: Set up a new gaming business that's up and down at the moment and need ideas on how to best promote our USP (cheap prices, same day dispatch, next day delivery).

Website URL for critical feedback: http://goblingaming.co.uk

No issues with what you've done so far.

Best of luck with it all.

Dakka, Warseer etc all run banner adverts/similar which, AFAIK, are generally beneficial.

Site look nice too

Thanks for your feedback.

We are proud of the website, we want to get the balance of utility and ease of use right.

With regards to the advertising on DakkaDakka ect, I was wondering if DakkaDakka specifically did sponsorship deals of any kind. The problem I have though is a 100% UK based target market and I realise DakkaDakka is popular across the globe.

Anyway, many options open to us. Thats kind of why I am asking for ideas. Thanks Again

I've just took at look at your website and from a customer point of view I think you need to look at the design again.

I'm using an iPad to browse and can't access the sub menus which means I'm left with viewing the things advertised on your home page, a lot of the people I game with usually browse on some kind of tablet and I can only imagine that it's the touch screen feature which may cause smart phone user issues too.

Although I understand the simplistic colouring of the website it doesn't entice people to buy, if you look at other UK based companies such as Dark Sphere and Elemental Games you will understand possibly what I mean.

Just a few quick observations, hope your business does well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've just took at look at your website and from a customer point of view I think you need to look at the design again.

I'm using an iPad to browse and can't access the sub menus which means I'm left with viewing the things advertised on your home page, a lot of the people I game with usually browse on some kind of tablet and I can only imagine that it's the touch screen feature which may cause smart phone user issues too.

Although I understand the simplistic colouring of the website it doesn't entice people to buy, if you look at other UK based companies such as Dark Sphere and Elemental Games you will understand possibly what I mean.

Just a few quick observations, hope your business does well.

Goblin Gaming reminds me of a now closed local store, "Goblin Games"

I'm on my computer right now, but if what PastelAvenger said is true about not being able to access the sub menus by touch devices, then that will need some taking care of, for obvious reasons.

As a whole I think the site is looking great, and I very much approve of the simple and clean design. Best of luck!

I bought from an Ebay seller that also has an online store. Tucked in the package was a coupon to encourage me to shop from their store, which I did!

Works fine on my Android phone and tablet. I'll take a look at the store and see if you match/beat the deals I usually get.

Best of luck in any case.



YOU DON"T STOCK INFINITY!

Hey guys thank you so much for your feedback so far.

I will try to cover all the points raised so far:

We will definitely be looking to improve both desktop and mobile versions of the site.

The navigation on mobile does only let you see the primary categories, however it does then display all sub categories across the top of the page selected. We understand this however is not that user friendly.

When talking about the look of the site, in particular the colour. We did start with a green/white website with more colour too it. This didn't receive as much positive feedback as the current theme.

In our opinion a website is never finished, it will constantly change to meet the expectations of its user-base. We are keen to listen to feedback and implement change where possible.

We have been sending out letters of thanks with each order, which include unique promo codes for additional discounts to try and encourage repeat orders. We do though ultimately hope our first class delivery, same day dispatch and huge discounts off RRP do that anyway.

We are hoping to have Infinity in stock very soon, we literally have orders coming in waves each week from various suppliers. Next week we should have an additional 350 items from Games Workshop, a huge order from Spartan Games which will include everything from both Firestorm Armada and Planet Fall.

The reason we look so light on product ranges, is that we categorically refuse to list items that are not physically on our shelves or on the way after a restock.

I believe too many companies just list anything they "can" stock, rather than what they "do" stock. This should be considered fraud when people are led to believe the item is being sent out within days (most suppliers take two weeks with your first orders).

I know this lack of product lines will be off putting but with new lines coming through all the time we should catch up with time.

Anyway, thank you so much again for your feedback. We will look into both the menu, colour scheme, and how best to build brand awareness and loyalty.

Cheers,

James - Goblin Gaming

Iv just gone through everything on your site while using my iPad 2. It all worked fine and I was very impressed with your prices. Bookmarked and I will be visiting again. Good luck.

Thanks Col!

If you are thinking of ordering anything this month there is a general promotion with 10% off until the end of November.

The code is: NOVEMBER10

I've been on your site again and the sub menus seem to work fine so it must have been an issue on my end, however I find the ability to search by product and not by faction specifically to GW a bit overwhelming.

Great discounts though and I will definitely look at using yourselves in the future.

Hi PastelAvenger,

Thanks for looking into the issue further. I am glad it seems resolved but to be sure it wasn't anything at our end we will do a review of the site on Monday morning with our developers.

I look forward to your first order

Just had a lil looksy
Looks good, I'l definitely be back when I'm looking to buy.

Found browsing your stock a bit overwhelming, (actually I only looked through the Games Workshop stuff so far), having a section for each faction would help a bunch when trying to locate a particular thing. Another set of subsections, or being able to arrange alphabetically at least would be useful.

Still, site looks nice, seems easy enough to use other than 40k being a bit of a large, unsorted section.

I've registered an account, will certainly be back soon.

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka

Hi HairySticks,

I have taken on board your comments and I agree about the poor navigation of armies/races in the Games Workshop range. This issue if not tackled now will just continue to get worse as we add new games and ranges.

I therefor am in the process of redoing the menu navigation and re categorizing all of our product's.

I suggest the following:


TABLETOP GAMES >
WARHAMMER 40K >

SPACE MARINES
ELDAR
NECRON
IMPERIAL GUARD
ORKS


This would do away with the current sub categories of:

SciFi
Fantasy
Steam Punk
Horror


As always your feedback if invaluable and if you wouldn't mind letting me know your thoughts on this proposed version of the menu I would be grateful.




Cheers,

James

Update:

Menu changes have now been made and any feedback positive or negative would be great. Thanks guys!

Hello

Firstly, good luck, new game stores always welcome. Your store seems to be sci/fant focused. Is that intentinal or do you plan to expand into historical ranges?
Warlord Game's Bolt Action for example has become very popular.

Hello! Welcome to Dakka Dakka!

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven't responded sooner. Many thanks for your feedback and support.

Many many thanks to those Dakka Dakka members who have been good enough to place orders with us, that was not the purpose of this post, but its very appreciated.

To answer Pete's question. We are currently working our way through various brands and ranges and we have no intention to limit our range in any way. So yes we will definitely be stocking historical ranges too.