I can only sell my product in Canada.

davidle

davidle

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Aug 30, 2010
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I can only sell my product in Canada. I am wondering how I should handle this from a website design perspective. We'd like to eventually expand to other markets.

Would it be better to make this totally clear on the main landing page with a Canadian flag or something? (Would take away from things from a design POV.)

Or should we somehow collect the email of the American or Scot when they go to buy and tell them "Oooops...We're not available yet in your country. Can we email you when we are?"
 


First of all, collect as many emails as you can, doesn't matter from which country, you never know when or where you might expand.

Using the Canadian flag is not a good idea, one way or the other the customer will realize that his country is not in the shipping list, better after he entered his email :)

Cheers!
 
Definitely put up a Canadian Flag. Canadians like to know the offer is available to Canada because many of the offers on the internet are not.. And - I've always been able to increase my conversion rate when using a Canadian flag.

..You can always change it later.
 
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LOL.

Why are you stuck to Canada only? Is it the type of product/legal issues? Shipping etc? What's up - it's rare to hear that you can't sell outside CA so I'm curious.

As to the design, never be afraid to sacrifice a bit of design to facilitate whatever you must in order to convert better. Will putting a 'proudly Canadian' flag make me want to buy it that much more as a Canadian? Meh, it's 'cool' but not a deal breaker. As for anyone outside Canada, perhaps give them a comparable offer through an aff link, and yeah always try to get emails with or without restrictions.
 
It would be worth getting a .ca domain and canadian hosting if you will only ever want to promote to Canada, if you want to expand you might want different pages/sub-domains for each country to seperate them?
 
Definitely put up a flag and/or message for Canadian visitors... hide it for non-Canadian visitors. Definitely try to collect emails from anyone regardless of country (and log their country when you do).
 
Are you guys saying Canadians like flags more since some products are not usually exclusively marketed to Canadians? What if I'm selling in America only, would you keep the flag? Americans assume they're going to be able to buy the product. Is it going to be illegal to capture their email before saying they really can't buy the product?

Also, how would I arrange that in the checkout process? Would I just have a separate page at first to enter name/email/address before they enter credit card information? And instead of going to the second credit card page, they'd be taken to an "Ooops...we can't sell to you because our product is not available in your country"....or when do we tell them? I guess if we put the flag we'll still have to do both since some people might not see it.
 
Victoria-Rx said:
First of all, collect as many emails as you can, doesn't matter from which country, you never know when or where you might expand.

Using the Canadian flag is not a good idea, one way or the other the customer will realize that his country is not in the shipping list, better after he entered his email :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

solid advice
 
premiumh said:
Definitely put up a Canadian Flag. Canadians like to know the offer is available to Canada because many of the offers on the internet are not.. And - I've always been able to increase my conversion rate when using a Canadian flag.

..You can always change it later.
Click to expand...

use geotargetting and put a canadian flag for a canadian visitor. put no flag for every other visitor
 
McDonald's in Canada has incorporated a little maple leaf into their M. Canadians see so much crap targetted at Americans that I would believe it if someone tested and said having a flag helped conversions.

Keep in mind most Quebecers don't identify with Canada much. The only Canadian flags you will see in Quebec are at federal buildings. Otherwise you only see blue Quebec fleur-dis-lis flag. You'll need a french version to pull that off though.
 
The smart thing to do is to stop taking everyone's advice about whether it will increase or decrease your conversions and leads and monies and put it in the hand of Google Website Optimizer or whatever split testing/multivariate tool you use.

Then you'll actually know the answer, which might surpirse the shit outta you. Like maybe a French flag makes you more money... regardless, test that shit.
 
You could always get a MIDI of the Canadian anthem on auto play.
That'll immediately drive away ALL traffic except Canucks.
 
If you are selling only to Canada, having the flag may work a little better.

If you don't want any other traffic, just get the .ca domain as advised earlier. In addition to that, choose Canada as your target country inside Google webmaster tools.

As for your question, capturing emails like you said is in no way illegal. Do it like choppertattoo does. Or you can also implement a geoIP script that shows the order now button in case of Canadian visitors and the email form / affiliate links for all others.
 
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