How to get success in Sweden?
 

Hi,

I have a webshop selling pashmina scarves and other accessories. I startet with a Danish shop last year, and it have been progressing steadily.

Then I translated it to Swedish and put it on a swedish domain www.pashminawear.se, but nothing happens. Not a single sale yet. What am I doing wrong? Is it not translated good enough? Is it mandatory to have Klarna as an aquirer to sell in Sweden?

Any ideas and feedback would be appreciated.

/Nicolai

From my Point of view:

- don't want to shop from a Danish company located in Denmark with Danish phone number and address.

- don't want to send my returns to Denmark (expensive).

- no one-page-checkout-page, so I have to fill in a lot of information to see the payment options.

Your products are not "cheap", so based on that, the three points above a killer for a person like me. As a Swedish buyer I would look further for a Swedish seller of similar products.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

The Danish location and phone number is also something I have thought about. Currently I am looking for a virtual office in Sweden to tackle this problem. If anyone can recommend a company providing this service I would like to hear about it.

My checkout flow doesn't seem to be a problem in Denmark, I have only few abandoned carts. Of course it can be different in Sweden.

Thanks again for your feedback.

/Nicolai

Your cookie message is not translated "Websitet anvender cookies til at huske dine indstillinger og statistik. Denne information deles med tredjepart. Læs mere >>"

This text does take a lot of place in a mobile. And right there I start thinking of going somewere else.

2. Your webpage does not work so good in a mobile. (Android)
3. There are some problems with you spelling. Try to copy and paste the texts into MS Word with a Swedish lexikon or hire someone to fix it.

4. Prices, I would never pay 1000 for something like that. But other may, competitors sell from 200 SEK. https://www.zalando.se/katalog/?q=Sjalar http://www.ellos.se/search?N=1z141n2&Ntk=All&Ntt=sjal

5. Your website does not use SSL

6. get an 020 or 0771 telefon number and forward calls to your danish number or configure a IP-phone. ( http://www.cellip.com/ ) and others..

7. In the upper right of the webpages you have a bluse warning sign. This tells me Danger!!. You should remove the picture!!
You sould

NO, It's not mandatory.. Credit card sould be fine.

Thanks for your pointers. The blue warning sign is well known in Denmark, but now I have removed it on the Swedish. Text is translated as well.

I will set up a virtual office in Sweden with a phone service to address some of the problems.

About prices, the products you are linking to are incomparable to ours, which are hand handmade of pure cashmere.

Thanks again.

ok

in http://www.pashminawear.se/content/3-kopevillkor

change the Levering to Leveransvillkor

You forgot that his products is in kashmir:
Correct prices on Zalando:

https://www.zalando.se/kvinna/?upper...Sjalar&r=false

I am sorry for the harsh and very direct feedback here but you are selling premium products in the upper price range from a site that feels both cheap and unreliable. The site is also full with linguistic errors which adds to the non-serious impression.

I think that you really need to work on how you present your company and your products.

In Denmark it is probably a little easier to get away with a simple site since the country is a bit behind Sweden internet-wise. Since you're selling semi-luxury products I think it would be wise to spice up the website to make it more in line with the product quality.

If you want to build a brand then skip the keyword based domains and do some sort of story-telling, telling the story about the people who actually make the product.

I agree with most of the comments above. I would suggest that you use Klarna since you can offer invoice to your customers. SSL is a must for a shop in Sweden and i personally would not feel comfortable shopping online without it.

When you reach the "beställning" part you give contradicting information. On the top of the page it says 28 days to send the product back but in the but in the form you give the information that its 14 days. The site window has a danish name instead of Swedish.
In the "leverans" part you have "Brug en anden faktureringsadresse" which is Danish and not Swedish.

So to give my conclusion:
Translate everything properly.
Use SSL and as someone said above shorten down the way to actually pay for the stuff.
At least put step 1 and 2 on the same page.
Get a Swedish nr for customer service.
Get Klarna or another payment provider since that would increase the trust in the site.

You are absolutely right. I have made an article about our products on the Danish site: http://www.pashminawear.dk/blog/9_pa...cessories.html

I am getting it translated to Swedish at the moment.

The ones you are linking to are machinewoven in kashmir/woolmix. Mine are pure cashmere and handwoven.

Thanks for your feedback. Thats why I am reaching out here.

Maybe I missed it but are you doing any marketing for the Swedish site? No matter how good or bad the site is, it will never sell anything without marketing =)

I am doing a little AdWords but I will increase it during the fall and christmas season.

As someone mentioned earlier; you need someone to go over the content and improve on the Swedish. There are several typo's and just bad translation. When there are spelling mistakes and bad Swedish, it makes you question if the site is to be trusted or not.

People are quite cautious giving out credit card details if they have the slightest doubt. Therefore Klarna, with invoice option, may also be a good alternative payment method to evaluate.

Yes, I am aware of the problem. I have ordered a company to do some proof reading. I have also gotten a Swedish number, and working on getting an address as well.
I am considering Klarna. Does anyone know how much it cost?

I got my first Swedish order tonight. Really happy about it. Thanks for all your help.

Have you tried selling the same product in english or a language you actually speak?

I wouldn't recommend selling to Sweden in swedish without actually knowing 100% if the product and site sells well in bigger markets such as english.

You need targetted visitors to make any kind of sales, you need people actively looking for your product "pashmina"?

Sweden is a much smaller market than the US, I'm not even sure if people are looking for "pashmina" online in Sweden.

Ok just went ahead and did a google keyword tool search for you:

http://oi67.tinypic.com/mbhhl2.jpg

Looks like it's a tiny market in Sweden, you'd have a difficult time getting targetted visitors interested in your offer.

You're free to do as you wish but I suggest you promote the same product in english or pick a product that a lot of people actually search for in Sweden.

I know many online will suggest you to sell a product you love/believe in, but truth is if no one is actively searching for it online the chance of you making some good money is pretty low.

Hi, thanks for your input.

I have been selling in Denmark for about a year, and sales are progressing. Sweden is approximately twice as big as Denmark so if I could double the numbers it is starting to look good.

Pashmina and kashmir is the same thing, so I will also be found on e.g. "kashmir sjalar" (currently on page 2 in Sweden on that keyword). Kashmir has more than 4000 monthly searches in Sweden according to Google.

Furthermore, I am not only selling pashmina. Also wool scarves, hats and gloves. Yesterday I received a new collection of cashmere ponchos, and it is my plan to increase the selection slowly.

English is of course interesting but it is a much harder competition. Logistics will also be an issue since it is quite expensive to ship out of Denmark. Shipping from Denmark to Sweden with PostNord is affordable.

Ok, didn't know that.

If it's doing well in Denmark then you'll double your sales in Sweden easily.

Focus on building a few blogs for each of your main products/keywords, have 5-10 articles on each blog focused on one specific product/keyword.

You'll rank high in google Sweden without much effort, it's too easy as there isn't much competition.

In other words create a whole set of blogs to promote your store.

For instance if you want one of the blogs to rank in google for "kashmir" get a domain name like KashmirSjalGuiden.se (guiden = guide) so at least 1 main keyword, many say this doesn't work, but on a local level it still works I have many rankings in local markets such as Sweden, so make sure you got your main ketword in the domains.

Then post 5-10 articles on the blog, not all at once but one every 2-3 days so it looks natural. Also try to build a few backlinks to each blog so google finds them naturally.

Use wordpress with different themes for your blogs and host the sites in Sweden which will help with rankings. Try both .se and .com domains see which one does best.

A lot of work ahead of you, but if you plan it well from the start and get some good writers to write the articles for you it shouldn't be that difficult.

Good luck and congrats on finding a small but profitable market, but do make those blogs as to gain an advantage over your competitors, I'm sure other kashmir sites will pop-up soon after seeing your posts here. :rolleyes:

Oh yeah almost forgot, marketing wise try these as well:

- Youtube videos, they rank high pretty fast in google especially in Sweden do to lack of competition for your keywords. I searched for "kashmir shal" in youtube just now and not a single swedish result, so should be super easy if you make videos focused on your main key phrases.

- Facebook groups and pages, post on some swedish fashion pages or groups without spamming, a good tactic would be to comment in a non spammy way on related posts in these groups/pages. You should also set up one or more facebook pages yourself where you keep posting articles and images, after a while they should start ranking on google on their own.

Other than these two fast methods try to figure out where kashmir lovers hang out online, if you want the honey you've got to enter the bee hive.

Just googled; "kashmir sjal forum" and I see A LOT of results from various forums where people are looking to buy these things, post a friendly recommendation as reply on ALL of these threads. Keep in mind that these forums tend to rank very high for all kinds of long tail key phrases, so having your website mentioned on these will get you a lot of customers over time.
Do search inside these forums as well using the forums search function to find all threads related to your keywords.

This is too easy :D


http://oi67.tinypic.com/14vmv6o.jpg


But since your in a small market, I think the real key to your success would be relationship building with existing customers, send out a newsletter with helpful tips and new products every now and then to get repeat orders from your existing customers.

Good luck! ;)