Could ya'll make the member stores easier to find????

Hi all, I've considered opening a scif store at DG. But it seems many of them are not maintained.
I have a friend who has one and never sold a thing, hers at this time is empty as well as others..

I think if the stores were easier to find here on DG the stores would get more bussiness as well as make DG more $$$.

I'm thinking a separate tab that shows on the top of each page that says 'Member Stores' (or something simular) would make the stores easier to find and benefit everyone!

If not for Panamon Creel aka: Milan several members of the Hoya would still not know how to find the stores! thanks Milan!

That's a good point. At one point early on, there was a link to member stores; I don't know why it was dropped, or if Dave will re-add a link - I know he intended for the SCIF stores to be independent of Dave's Garden. (Many were created by DG members, but many others came to SCIF outside of DG.)

Having worked on DG's "marketing" for several years, I can sympathize with the difficulty in getting a new website to show up on typical internet searches. As commercial websites, it's probably difficult to get websites to link to you without fears of you stealing customers away from them. One thing we found when we were trying to gain more recognition for DG was to find gardening-related websites that had "lists of links" and ask them to add us. The more people who link to you, the higher you'll climb on Google's "radar screen". If there are similar "link pages" that relate to your offerings, those would be a great place to start.

And if you sell gardening-related merchandise, the Watchdog has proven to be an excellent marketing tool for many companies, from small to humongous ;o)

Terry, It has been awhile since I have been there - used it for some customers who wanted there sites, mainly local real estate, to score in the top of local searches. I think the site is www.ineedmorehits.com

that did not work.... let me check & get back to you.

got it ... it is www.needmorehits.com

The is still a link under extras.

Yes, it's still under Extras, but at one time it had a more prominent spot (before Dave converted us to the tabbed format you see now ;o)

The "Extras" section and the valuable information within goes often unnoticed by members. I guess that 'Extras" just isn't very inviting or does'nt sound like anything interesting could be inside.

Milan

Terry, Thanks for the info and input! I don't have a website, I just thought a member store would be a good format to sell a few extra plants and supplies.

A few of the people I know on the Hoya forum have thier favorite forums saved on favorites list & never really go to the Home Page. Lazy maybe, but I'm sure there are many more people out there on the other forums that do the same!
One of my friends has made $100. in four months with her store.... not great profit, but better than nothing!

Lesli that is a great idea, why didn't I think of it:-).

Blessings,
Awanda

Milan, maybe if we renamed the tab "lagniappe" that be more appealing than "extras"???

But then we'd have to post our resident Cajuns at the door to translate (*grin*)

hmmmmm.....well Milan suggested I talk to my keyboard in German, swear at it in French, and type on it in English. So maybe we need to post the Ubers at the door and have them swear at the Cajuns, or vice versa LOL

I don't think swearing at Cajuns is a good idea. They wrassle 'gators down there, don't they?

LOL

Ya but we Texan's ride bulls.....or is that we Texan's are fulla bull?

I too feel a more prominant place for the members stores would be more beneficial. I have a store myself & haven't even gotten one email let alone a sale since I've opened it. I myself sometimes forget they exist and I'm sure others do too. Just my two pesos! LOL.
Gemila

I would love to see the member's stores more accessible. It get's discouraging trying to keep them up, when people can't even find them.

Patricia

Well, one thing to keep in mind (as I raise my shield against the onslaught of rotten veggies and eggs ;o) is that the SCIF store is primarily a shopping cart. It can be used as your entire website, but other companies use it just for the product inventory/checkout function.

Marketing your store and wares to the world (not just DG) is a "necessary evil" (even the world's best moustrap needs to be marketed!) and I'm sure there are some folks here who can give excellent pointers on how to do that most effectively.

Well there's doer's and there's dreamers, so here I go. Check for a new thread. Someone else will have to come along and hyperlink it and add to what I might miss. EXTRA,EXTRA Read all about it!

Terry you make an excellent point about marketing. Those who have a ScifStore can't just sit back and expect a captive audience here, some ScifStores do well but all businesses large or small require the vendors to market effectively to do well.

I've noticed that a number of products listed in ScifStore inventories do come up in the first few pages of google. I had a very effective if rather unintentional key words ... a box of 4 candles (fork handles?) ... it from an old comedy sketch but unfortunately I seemed to have grabbed the attention of people who were genuinely looking for fork handles ... oooppps I bet I wasn't on their list of favourite people for the evening. However, it does prove that simple key words are important and need to be carefully chosen.

Say you have several plants of strawberries to sell and list it on your inventory,you won't even make the first 10 pages of google if you just list it as Strawberry plants - $2 each. A short, well phrased couple of sentances can make all the difference. Few products sell themselves and if you are a small business you need to sell the idea and yourself as much as you do the products.

Good points, Baa!

Here is the hyperlink; http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/467684/.
The responses already there reflect some of the same and some stores are empty. Since I'm considering one, I'll check further. There is a statement at the bottom of the store menu claiming they are all active.

I'm for member stores to be more accessible. I, for one, would definitely give them some business.

It doesnt help that the Extras tab is only there when you are on your homepage....

The extras tab is still there when you are on any of the pages for any of the tabs on that line (e.g. FAQ, My Info, etc.)

This message was edited Nov 10, 2004 10:01 AM

..yes, Pville, but to get the list of extras that includes the DG member stores, you have to be at the Home tab. I just started a member store the other day, having fun and spending a LOT of time learning to use it. The only person who has come, was sugarweed, because I mentioned it and gave her the url link.
And when you get to the extras page, you have to scroll WAY down, even past the address exchange, which many people seem to not know exists.
So thank you Leslie & Sydney and everyone for bringing this up. Seems it would be on Dave's todo list, and maybe this thread will move it up a notch :-)


I only have a few items in there right now. But if I see traffic picking up, I will take the time to add more.
Tamara

I've been thinking of starting a store with my craft items, but I've held off just for this reason. I didn't know how much traffic these stores actually got.

Thanks, Corny-Girl! That was my point, Pville.

I want to see these stores full and doing loadsa biz!

JoanJ~If you go ahead and start a store, it will show you the traffic and where it came from. Then you could decide how much time you want o put inot your inventory. To show up, you need one item with inventory of one.

NEWFLASH........My store report says I had seven hits in one day. A couple were mine, so I guess someone was looking. It also shows users or "members". I have one--yeah!!!

Lets show our support of each others' efforts in teh scif stores. So when you visit a store you like, let them know you were there by signing in as a user. I will be doing the same. If I get enough hits, I may even start a newsletter about bargains or slaes or something...

Just a hunch here, but going to far in promoting stores could be a "be careful what you wish for" situation. The DG user agreement states:

"Members are restricted from utilizing the Dave's Garden services to create business opportunities, without express prior written permission from an officer of Dave's Garden. This includes, but is not limited to, advertising products or services in any communication medium, including, but not limited to, the discussion forums and the member E-mail system."

Just trying to be a bit sensitive to all Scif store owners who are not necessily DG members and store owners who are DG members but have storefronts at other sites. The same person/company may own both the DG and Scif store sites but as I understand it they are separate entities. If Dave provides the marketing visibilities that are being asked for by DG subscribers, then in all fairness, he would need to allow all storefront owners the same oportunity to market their wares on DG and that might not be consistant with the goals of DG in general.

got it, boy are you thorough.

But, he could still (are you listening Dave Whitinger?) move the link for extras to a tab at the top!

and ignore the email I just sent you LOL

LOL....no problem at all Fritch. Did ya ever find those planets you were lookin for? :-)

no, haven't even been online for a couple of days now. Gettin gready for my sis and BIL coming in a week.

How much does it cost to have a member store? Do you get to advertise anywhere on DG?

Interesting posts as we are also considering opening a Scif store in the near future. We have some of the same concerns as those listed. We would be selling plants through our Scif site and believe that subscribing to Plant Scout as well would solve the 'marketing' problem (i.e. there would be a direct link to our store through the PDB). Am I wrong? Any input from everyone would be appreciated.

CaptMicha, you only pay if you sell things and no we shouldn't advertise on DG full stop as part of the AUP.

Here's the link to the FAQ http://www.scifstore.com/module/faq/

rcn48, participating in PlantScout is definitely intended to be a marketing tool. People seeking the plants you offer will find you not only through PlantScout, but also through the links in the Plants Database.

Both the PlantScout and Banner ads were tried successfully by us, and I recommend either or both. We don't have any banners currently running, but will get them going again when the new season starts in January.

Another effective way, that won't cost you a dime, is to make the Garden Watchdog Top 20. We went from 20-30 referrals per month to over 400 per month when we made the top 20.

These are all things just on this site. There's numberous other avenues to explore in addition to these.

Chris

If I may interject just one small note of caution here? there are no shortcuts to the Garden Watchdog Top Twenty. (Not that I think anyone here would, but just in case anyone reading this gets the idea that they can creatively "fluff" up their rating a bit, please know we closely monitor ALL posting activity. A totally un-fun role to play, but unfortunately necessary.)