So the site's been up for a full month...

...and I've got some interesting numbers to analyze. I had about 8300 unique visitors during July, at least 8000 of which have come from my Google Adwords account, which lists my website among search results for phrases like "anti-Bush t-shirts" and Google advertisements on webpages with content that somehow relates to "anti-Bush t-shirts." The handful of remaining visitors were mainly from my friends and family who I told about the site or who got wind of the site from others.

As an Adwords customer, I get nearly real-time data on how my phrases are doing: how many people are searching on them or looking at websites with content related to them; how many of these people then click on my website; and how many of these clicks resulted in sales for the website. The last number is the key one, of course. Getting 1 billion unique visitors wouldn't be worth a dime if none of their visits converted into sales.

My conversion number for the month was less than 1%. In other words, fewer than 1 in 100 visitors bought a shirt. But that number is significantly understated: it doesn't include the 60 shirts I sold to the cafe in Hollywood because I had arranged that deal over the phone.

Still, I'm disappointed to see that so many people are coming to the site and then leaving without buying anything. Before going into business, I had thought about what my conversion figure would be, and the number I kind of anchored on was 10%. That now seems naively optimistic!

At the same time, I'm encouraged to note that my conversion at the OB Farmers Market was somewhere in the 5% to 10% range. (To get that number, I'm dividing the number of sales by the approximate number of people who stopped to check out my shirts. Basically, I'm saying that - for the purposes of comparing direct conversion with Internet conversion - a farmers' market customer who stops to check out the merchandise is equal to an internet customer who makes their way to the site.) This tells me that people are more likely to buy when they can actually touch and feel the shirt, which makes sense. It means I'm going to have to do more than just run the website - I'm going to have to work more touchy-feely sales into my game.

First day at the OB Farmer's Market...

...which goes from 4pm to 8pm every Wednesday on Newport Avenue, Ocean Beach's main street. At right is a picture of the arts & crafts section of the market getting started on a recent Wednesday afternoon.

It went pretty well. I set up a beach canopy I had in my garage, hung a bunch of shirts from it, and vended my wares, selling 6 shirts in four hours. Revenue from the sales totaled about $100, and the fee for the space was $25, so I took in about $75 in cash flow.

More importantly, I learned two big new things about the business. One was that several people reacted very positively to the shirts, and some of these people were willing to buy them. I hadn't had the shirts on display in front of potential buyers before, and I the response I got was encouraging. Hell, I could have been shutout, without a single buyer...that would have been a bad sign, but it didn't come to pass.

The other new thing I learned involved the equipment and supplies I need to do this kind of selling in the future. My buddy Marcus was kind enough to go with me, so I had help solving a couple problems, like not bringing enough hangers. But after I pick up a few new pieces of equipment (such as a new canopy - my current one is hard to set up and also looks shabby), it will be quite possible to setup and run the booth on my own, which I expect to do at the OB Farmers' Market and other settings over the next few months.

Tomas hooked me up again...

...with some super sharp photos, this time of the WackWear shirts. I worked these into the website, so now viewers can see not just a close-up of each WackWear design, but also a photo of the actual shirt on a model. The new photos include shots of the back of the shirt, which features a small Wavelength Clothing logo...I want to be sure people know that logo is coming when they buy the shirt...I've bought a fair amount of shirts on the Internet myself, and it can be a bum-out to get stuck with an unexpected logo on the back or on a sleeve.

BTW, if you need a talented photographer in the San Diego area, I highly recommend emailing Tomas (tomas at boardsnap.com)...he's great behind the camera and he's a great guy too!

Got a very interesting email last week...

...here it is:

>Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 6:18 PM
>To: help@wavelengthclothing.com
>Subject: wholesale

>Dear wavelength
>I own a caffe in hollywood where I think your shirts would kill. My
>caffe is located in the hottest new area in hollywood. Is it possible
>for me to carry your line in my caffe. It's *snip* in Hollywood.
>Check us out. Maybe we can get something going for you.

So I called the guy...he seems legit, and he's very enthusiastic about the shirts, so I'm going to cruise up to Hollywood and drop off a dozen shirts in each of the Lies, So Money, Wanker, WMD Fool, and W is for Wack designs.

I'm eager to have my shirts on sale in Hollywood (seems like the perfect hip hotspot and all that) so I suggested we do a consignment deal, where I drop the shirts off and come back in a month or so, collecting money for all that have sold. I get a good vibe from the guy - and I know both his business and home address - so I'm comfortable with the deal. Overall, he's taking five dozen shirts at a substantially discounted price, and he plans on selling the shirts for $21 each.

It'll certainly be interesting to see how this goes.

Sold shirt #1 yesterday...

...to a woman in Connecticut...she bought one Lies shirt in size large. I believe she found the site via a Google search, so she's a living breathing example of the customer I have imagined in my mind: someone is frustrated with Bush, wants a shirt that says so, uses Google to look for it, and finds what she wants on my website. I'm hoping there are a lot more of these folks out there!

The WackWear shirts were ready yesterday...

...so I picked them up and began folding and storing all 600 of them (120 shirts in each of 5 designs). Once I figured out a good system, I was able to process the shirts at a rate of about 100 an hour. As you might imagine, the process - folding, folding, folding, stacking, breaking down boxes, and back to folding again - was a bit tedious, but at the same time, manual labor can be therapeutic in small doses.

What am I doing with all these shirts? I've stored them all in my garage, in 68-liter storage bins, which are each about the size of the freezer on a standard fridge. The garage was too narrow to store a car in, so the space was available. Here's a shot that shows the bins as well as my more typical garage gear: