A better climbing store

Hey guys,

I really want to open an online climbing store that has really good prices and can give people the gear they want. I think it could be really useful for people getting into the sport or who don't have a ton of money to spend. So far I have opened climbpumped.com but I'm struggling to get it out to more people. I currently have an Instagram @climbpumped but it's growing slowly. Do you guys have any advice or suggestions?

Really nice in house photos of your products. I found https://www.dicksclimbing.com/ somewhat recently and was blown away by the quality of their product pictures. I think that might help set you aside from much larger stores. Also no offense but a more attractive page in general would go a long way I think. Half the reason people buy climbing gear nowadays is aesthetics anyways. 

K Lwrote:

Really nice in house photos of your products. I found https://www.dicksclimbing.com/ somewhat recently and was blown away by the quality of their product pictures. I think that might help set you aside from much larger stores. Also no offense but a more attractive page in general would go a long way I think. Half the reason people buy climbing gear nowadays is aesthetics anyways. 

Thanks for the advice! I agree that a good looking home page is important. Any suggestions on what I should change?

If you are going to compete for the climbing bargain hunter market, your prices will need to be competitive with the folks at Trekkinn, Telemark Pyranees, and Oliunid.  

I think your website is good. Thanks for letting me know about it.

FrankPSwrote:

I think your website is good. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Thank you! I appreciate your feedback

This may be picky but most sites list things in the plural. Ex. Ropes, harnesses, etc. Its a bit odd that yours is not.

Given that folks are wary of scam sites you may want to pay a few bucks and get an email with @climbpumped as your address and ditch the gmail account.

Post here when you have deals to help get the word out. A lot of us like to support climber and MP member owned businesses. Many of us buy our totems from Marc. 

Alexander Rollerwrote:

Hey guys,

I really want to open an online climbing store that has really good prices and can give people the gear they want.

Get more inventory and charge less. I like totem cams, guidebooks, and short walks to the crag.

Climb Onwrote:

…Given that folks are wary of scam sites you may want to pay a few bucks and get an email with @climbpumped as your address and ditch the gmail account.

I agree with getting an email address that matches your domain name. You can do this through Gmail even.

I’d like to see a little more information in “About us“. Maybe a physical address or something more that convinces me yours is not a scam site.     There are so many fake sites these days that I’m very careful to buy only from websites I’m certain are legit.

Edit - not sure if you want to deal with this, but a phone number, where one can talk with a real person or leave a msg for a callback would also be good.

Looks funky on iOS chrome

It sounds like a good idea, but from a jaded consumer's POV:

I don't know many people who go to a specific website when they are looking to buy a product online that is available from many different retailers. Maybe I'm in the minority, and completely off-base but the way I think most people do this, they search for an item, either very specific terms ("La Sportiva Testarossa size 36") or a more general search ("climbing rope 60m") and compare results in terms of price, deciding to order from a place that offers good price, unless it is something totally unknown/scammy-sounding, and giving preference to familiar websites, if the price is the same. Prety much the only time people would go to a specific site is if they have something that they think would give them a better deal at this site right now (their mom gave them an Backcountry gift card, they accumulated some reward $$ from Moosejaw, they clicked on the REI e-mail link bc that rope sale sounded really good, etc)

Obviously big stores spend a lot of effort to be in the top visible search results. How do you compete against that with your limited inventory, and unremarkable high-to-middle of the line prices? If the rope is offered for the same price, why would a hypothetical customer order from you, instead of REI?

You either need something niche that the big stores don't offer, or you need to get people to want to buy from you specifically, despite there being the same product offered for $20 less elsewhere, because reasons. What are those reasons? If you have them, you need to spend your ad budget getting the word out about those...

Lena chita and Cherokee Nunes are right. There's no reason anybody would know about you or want to buy from you. The only reason I (and probably most people) buy from places with higher prices is because they want to support that business specifically. And if they already have a business they want to support, they're not going to switch to yours. 

Doomed from the start, you are.

Do you have permission to use the photos on your site? Some of them look to be stock photos but others are taken from a climbing gym's website and other locations. I don't see attributions on anything either.

Reposting as you have two threads going.  :/   I would look at it in two parts, a) How Can I drive Traffic to my website, and b) Why would a customer choose to buy from me?

• How can I drive traffic to my website?

Google SEM, Facebook and Instagram Ads.

There are of course more channels out there (e.g. Display Advertising, Podcast sponsor, Affiliate Marketing), but the above are your core channels.  

You only have 5 approach shoes and 5 climbing shoes, so you might as well try to sell the shoes you have.  Even if it's at a loss, try to win some of those Google placements and sell that exact shoe - in order to determine if that's scalable ... as the buyer has already decided they want that shoe before they hit your site.

• Why would people buy from my store vs. the next best alternative? 

It sounds like you are currently differentiating based on price.  But this is tricky as it is very difficult to compete with larger enterprises that can buy their product for less due to scale, and have more operations resource to run constant price adjustments to compete on Google shopping results sorted from LOW -> HIGH for price-shopping buyers who know which product they want.  E.g. "Looking for Evolv Shaman's, in Size 6, at the cheapest price."  

You might get someone to the point where they have it added to their cart ... and then you may face an issue of trust.  For example, I was price shopping TC Pro's a year ago and came across a great price from Next Adventure in SoCal.  I had never heard of them, but their website was decent looking, and they had 100's of Yelp Reviews for their brick and mortar.  

However, your site is very basic looking, in some cases incomplete "[INSERT TEXT HERE"], has no reviews, and is not attached to a brick and mortar.  So it's a huge leap of faith to enter your credit card, even if the stars align.  
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Clear feedback: Even if you found a way to, for example undercut Moosjaw or Backcountry by $5 for every relevant rope or pair of shoes, I would rather pay the $5 for peace of mind shopping from a known retailer.

Alternative business approaches:  Tackle a more specific niche ... e.g. Gym climbing.  This would be easier to market, stock, and would be more differentiated.  For example, rather than just having lists of gear, you could sell bundles with in depth guides on belay devices for TR.  Or for someone beginning to lead, you could sell a 40M rope with a scaled down rope bag ---- these are surprisingly hard to find, even for experienced climbers/shoppers.  

Kai Larsonwrote:

If you are going to compete for the climbing bargain hunter market….

…have someone hold your place in the soup line 

(to more accurately complete the thought)

To add my two cents as a consumer with many friends who I’m introducing to the sport it may be beneficial to add packages for new climbers. Such as a introduction to sport climbing package, gym package, etc. Maybe have these packages at a discounted price point due to it being a somewhat “bulk” purchase. Something that’d I’d be able to easily send a single link and have it all there in one simple purchase. 

Tim Wheatleywrote:

To add my two cents as a consumer with many friends who I’m introducing to the sport it may be beneficial to add packages for new climbers. Such as a introduction to sport climbing package, gym package, etc. Maybe have these packages at a discounted price point due to it being a somewhat “bulk” purchase. Something that’d I’d be able to easily send a single link and have it all there in one simple purchase. 

Don't BD and Camp already offer those?

Climb Onwrote:

Don't BD and Camp already offer those?

Probably but a lot of them are overkill and having a different package with different contents, different than that of BD and camp would be beneficial. Maybe even having a way to select your waist size, shoe size, and application of use and having it generate a package perfect for your needs would be cool.

You've gotten some tips already on creating traffic to your site. When you have visitors on your site you need to make sure:

• That they know what your proposition is (what do you sell, and why should I buy it from you?) Currently your homepage has a large text that reads "GET OUTSIDE". And then a long sentence about your goal. Visitors skim pages. Make sure your proposition is clear in the first words and also scannable
• That visitors trust you. You have an about us page that seems only to be linked to on the homepage. I'd suggest an "About us" link in the main navigation. This is usely a heavily visited page, as a part of your visitors want to know who they are dealing with. Also: I see no name who you are, an image that is very grainy, no phone number and no address. All elements that could contribute to one of THE most valuable factors on the internet: trust
• Your contact option is a basic form. No reassurance, no photo of somebody from customer service (please don't use stockphotos by the way!), no other contact options.
• Your photo on the homepage (climber, viewed on his back) doesn't improve trust either. There are some psychological principles to be applied online, one of them is social proof. If you had a photo with a lot of climbers that might help convey trust that they trust you. You might want to read more on this on https://www.influenceatwork.com/7-principles-of-persuasion/ 

That said: I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

OP - hook me up with some free SWAG and I'll let all my followers know about you.

Mike (men's Medium, size 9, trad and ice)

A very odd blurb on the Refund Policy page. Not exactly instilling trust. So if I order flowers and beauty products from them I can't return them? Darn!