Helping small tour operators and niche agents with travel ecommerce
First post deleted rather than updated - and this from a techie
As my page states I am relatively new to this.
Our site for 2010 has only been live for the last month. Our SEO position is good and our blogging helps to increase both our relevance and rating there.
We have been spending far too much time on Google Adwords and that does seem to offer the opportunity to spend endless amounts of money.
Within the last two weeks I also moved us from a pay upfront to a deposit/balance model. We thought that might be holding up bookings.
From the Google Analytics that I have embedded in the site, I can see that people are spending lots of time on our site, with repeat visits and they are really digesting everything, but we are not getting enough bookings/conversions (I integrated Paypal to handle these).
What I realise I don't know is the cycle for products like ours. Do people take their time to buy products like ours, do they wait until the last minute or am I getting something wrong.
In my last business this was mostly a matter of getting enough people through the storefront. I am sure there is often an element of truth to that but with a niche product it's also a question of getting the right people through it.
Any observations that you can offer would be a great help, even if just to say 'its early days, hang in there'.
Our site for 2010 has only been live for the last month. Our SEO position is good and our blogging helps to increase both our relevance and rating there.
We have been spending far too much time on Google Adwords and that does seem to offer the opportunity to spend endless amounts of money.
Within the last two weeks I also moved us from a pay upfront to a deposit/balance model. We thought that might be holding up bookings.
From the Google Analytics that I have embedded in the site, I can see that people are spending lots of time on our site, with repeat visits and they are really digesting everything, but we are not getting enough bookings/conversions (I integrated Paypal to handle these).
What I realise I don't know is the cycle for products like ours. Do people take their time to buy products like ours, do they wait until the last minute or am I getting something wrong.
In my last business this was mostly a matter of getting enough people through the storefront. I am sure there is often an element of truth to that but with a niche product it's also a question of getting the right people through it.
Any observations that you can offer would be a great help, even if just to say 'its early days, hang in there'.
Aaron
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dee Edwards on -
Aaron, well it is early days, hang in there.
Google adwords is a tricky balance between getting the right people and getting enough volume. We find the very niche terms have a much higher conversion rate to actual sales but just bidding on these doesn't get enough volume. So it's a trick to walking the right line without burning too much cash.
In terms of conversions, we keep and update an analysis on the time period between first enquiring and booking. A fair percentage books within 2 months but there's also a significant percentage that books a year after first enquiring. Adding into the equation that people may have found and kept your site before they first enquire (we find this out through conversation rather than technical tracking, and like you I have an ecommerce background, in my case an extreme one, it is quite funny to realise) & when they do book, the lead-in time between booking and taking the trip can be 9 months or more, it takes a lot of time.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Gillam on -
"We find the very niche terms have a much higher conversion rate to actual sales but just bidding on these doesn't get enough volume."
Yeah but's what the point of volume that doesn't convert ... that's just cruft in your logs isn't it?
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Permalink Reply by Dee Edwards on
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I said higher therefore indicating that the more mainstream bidding did have some sort of conversion, it's just lower. So one just has to model it in different scenarios. Some terms may give some amazing conversion rate but there are only 10 people actually looking for that term. There may be a 1000 other people looking for a more mainstream term which is going to cost a lot more to bid on and a lower percentage will convert but that number will still be a higher number than on the niche term.
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Permalink Reply by actisup on -
Thanks, very useful info. And in response to Matt, yes that's my concern, wasted clicks.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Gillam on
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Aaron, with the caveat that I'm a techie not a tour operator: I think I looked at your site (writing.painting etc in the Loire IIRC).
This is a specialist product, not a commodity, and I think most customers will need a dialogue before they purchase. That means you probably don't really need online booking and 'Paypal integration', what you do need is a huge great 'ENQUIRE NOW' button with a simple fill in form behind it, to help turn an anonymous website visitor into a potential customer you can converse with. Do you have that?
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Permalink Reply by actisup on
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Interesting thought and agree. We have this but it certainly isn't the obvious call to action.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on -
Hi Matt
I disagree (slightly). In my experience people will book online for specialist products. However that booking can be subsequent to an email conversation - so the "conversion" process has already occurred, the booking engine is there for efficiency purposes (i.e. the call the action at the end of a conversation is - now go to this web page and book)
Your comments are right though, I am just pointing out that dialogue and having online booking are not mutually exclusive.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Gillam on
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Alex, fair point. - M
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Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on
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I heard some statistics from Isango / Viator the other day - they sell around the 10 days prior to travel point. But these are commodity tours/activities (like city tours etc) rather than the more specialist ones like you promote.
To me getting sales is all about partnerships. You need to find websites / companies that are in related fields - and offer them some kind of deal (could be affiliate style) - to get your products in front of their people. Then you need some kind of tracking so that you can build these partnerships and partners know you are going to remunerate them appropriately.
I would also reinforce a call to action to get people onto your email list. It seems quite hidden. Then at least if people are not buying (yet) you can keep them reminded that you exist.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Zito on -
Aaron, hi, I visited your web site. First, my comments are based on selling over $3,000,000 worth of niche travel online in the ski travel business in the U.S. I am now working with online travel businesses to help them build and grow their businesses. My comments below are not in-depth as I only reviewed your website for about 20- minutes. I do believe they will help you.
I believe you have travel products that will sell, creative writing, painting and cooking holidays. I am seeing these culture oriented trips starting to sell here in the USA.I don't believe you need to sell all three categories. Even though there are only three you could still niche down to one category and then become the leader of that category in France. Ask yourself, if I only sold 1-category could I dominate the French market in this category? Is the market big enough to sell only 1-category? If the answer is YES, I believe you should niche down even further. After a few months see what is selling. If one category is dominating get rid of the non-sellers and focus on selling "what sells." I do agree with the other comments that it's still early 1-month launch.
Regarding your website, I found the site to be somewhat cluttered. Your travel products take three clicks to get access to. The structure of your website and how it is laid out is hampering sales.
On this page the the Details/Pricing text link does not work.
http://www.circleofmisse.com/writing.html
The right column with the books takes me away from your travel products. I understand you are placing the books on the right side to use as credibility for the teachers of the courses/classes but you could do this on the product details page and on the actual product listing page.
Take a look at the bigger websites that sell travel. You will find consistency's regarding how they display their products and how they invite the user to use search functions, trip quotes and trip planners. I believe you need to change the structure of your website to enable a better flow for the user. In the end it’s about selling travel.
What you can do now to improve your site.
1. Remove the three images and text below the images on the home page. Add in three product blocks, three of your best selling courses. Maybe one Cooking, Writing, Painting. Direct link to the product details page. This way user to your home page sees three travel products that you are selling. User can 1-click and get right to the product.
2. You need to package the lodging with the course. As a buyer of the course I need to know where I am lodging. I understand you are representing multiple lodgings but you need to assign lodging to the course and or enable the buyer at checkout to select their choice of lodging amongst your lodging partners. I can help you here with contracting lodging and how to integrate it into your website.
Question: What online booking travel software are you using?
I am releasing a report in the next 2-weeks that will help you build your online travel business. Go here and add your email address. www.mattzito.com
I like your travel products.
Best,
Matt Zito
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Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on
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HI Matt
"Take a look at the bigger websites that sell travel. You will find consistency's regarding how they display their products and how they invite the user to use search functions, trip quotes and trip planners"
I disagree with that actually. The great thing about niche tours is you can afford to give each product its own unique presentation on a website. Its not like a website with 20,000 hotels where each hotel is given a generic presentation because you have to at that scale.
Also I am not that bothered about giving a specific accommodation name as part of the initial booking. I know a number of tour operators (using TourCMS as their booking software) who give a selection of likely accommodations rather than named accommodations. However they do suggest that if you want to specify an accommodation at time of booking you can, however that isn't a mandatory part of the booking experience.
I do agree that if the accommodation is selected by the tour operator rather than the consumer then this page could be a little clearer http://www.circleofmisse.com/accommodation.html including mentioning that you can indicate a specific property if you want, based on what is available. Being more specific on likely accommodations would be helpful, even if you can't, for operational reasons, give a named accommodation at point of booking.
But the general issue facing this website isn't the accommodation pages - nor the busy right column - but getting the knowledge that it exists out there into the marketplace. Google advertising helps, but that can be a little expensive before you have worked out what works and what doesn't.
Good debate :)
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