Website not converting – any ideas?

I've read occasional copies of Cooks Illustrated and know only enough about balsamic vinegar to realize that I've probably never tasted the real thing.

I might be part of your target market!

Unfortunately, what I, clueless aspiring foodie, have read about balsamic vinegar is that the real thing costs $50 or $100 a bottle and up, so if I see a bottle with the word "balsamic" on it, but it doesn't cost as much as that, and it doesn't look like the ones I see on websites like this one that I just googled up:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/balsamic.htm

... I am seized with the deep and unreasoning fear that I'm being ripped off.

Yeah, I know it's not the same product. But that does not make me feel better!

And, you know, if I want to buy something that looks like balsamic and that has a nifty label that uses words like "tradizionale", I don't need to click a button, I can just walk over to my cupboard and take out one of the three bottles I already own. (Two of them were gifts.) They taste... pretty good? I guess? I wouldn't know! In my more cynical moments I suspect that at least one of them was lovingly designed in the traditional chem labs of Northern New Jersey.

If I ever bother to fix this situation, my plan is to find someplace where I can actually taste a range of vinegars and decide if I believe that the difference matters.

Or maybe I can get to culinary heaven faster with the help of the right website. What might help me to click your buy button? Consider this phrase on the site I just linked to:

"If a company produces a "traditional" balsamic vinegar, they will also produce a less expensive, but high quality vinegar as well. This is the same vinegar with the same heritage but not aged as long. You can have confidence in purchasing these balsamic vinegars."

Clever. By a staggering coincidence, the page this quote appears on has some links to Amazon where you can buy $100 bottles of vinegar (sales rank: 238543 in their category)... next to some links to Amazon where you can buy some $13 bottles of vinegar (sales rank: 5842).

Do what these folks did. Add some super-premium balsamic to the product line. Put it in some kind of classic bulb-shaped bottle with an "authentically wooden" cork and wax. Get the one that bears the official seal of the guild and that has been blessed by the Vatican and what have you. Whatever makes it look more real to somebody like me who knows nothing. Put it on your website wrapped in golden paper with a nicely printed Guide To Your New Vinegar and a gaudy price like $150 for 3 ounces.

Then write some copy that goes like this: "We welcome you to try our super-product, the greatest balsamic vinegar ever made, an elixir that reduced Mario Batali to tears... though, lest you become overwhelmed by the force of its flavor, we encourage you to taste it only one drop at a time via an authentic Venetian glass eyedropper that we also sell on this website. But... let's get real. The farmers who make this stuff do not eat it every day. They prefer to sell it to hedge fund managers. Moreover, they are wise, and they have been doing this for hundreds of years, so they know how to make a blend of less-expensive vinegars from the same growers that provides almost as great a taste, but inexpensively enough that they can enjoy it every day. And now you too can enjoy it every day in glaze form for only $20 a bottle."

I believe they call this "anchoring". ;)

(Incidentally, I do have fun writing anecdotes, but need I point out that I'm only one person, I've never visited your website until today, and I don't buy vinegar over the internet? Test with your actual audience.)

Women who are older than PTA age. The percent of old people in the population is increasing, and older women tend to have more money, more time, and fewer kids in the house. Most PTA moms in the U.S. do not feel they have the time or money for premium groceries one might linger over. They do care about healthy, but they're not feeding their kids premium balsamic.

I think your website isn't converting because you sell a product that requires a buyer who is going out of their way to find balsamic --- something US customers buy in aisle 3 of Whole Foods --- and your packaging has none of the signals that people who go out of their way for that use to gauge quality.

* Stop calling it "sauce". Cheese can be a high-quality premium product. "Cheese sauce" not so much.

* Stop calling it a "glaze" if it is in fact something you could call "vinegar". Nobody is shopping for "balsamic glaze". I'm left wondering if I know what the product actually is, which is death to an attempt to get me to buy it off a website.

* The plastic bottle is killing me. Safeway Supermarket balsamic looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/kxyfumo --- the "real" thing looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/layjtkc

If you want to see the acknowledged uncontested masters of premium food product copywriting at work, you're in luck, because they too sell balsamic vinegar over the Internet. Ladies & Gentlemen I give you the Versace of $40 bottles of black peppercorns, the Zegna of $30 jars of mustard: Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor:

http://www.zingermans.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=V-MOD-1

Their balsamic comes with a book. (Juniper, "the most expensive wood". Sheesh. Juniper is a weed.)

I'm guessing from the typos and grammar errors on your site that you're in Italy. Good. Play that card for all its worth; use italian words to describe your product. What's Italian for "glaze", "blend", "aged", "condiment", "sweet", "syrup", and "grape"? Start branding.

I agree with you on this.

I looked at the site for about 10 seconds and I didn't realise it was a store until I flipped tabs and read the first comment.

My initial impression was that it was some kind of recipe site.

That's not at all that the PC parent meant by this.

And I don't think it's true either -- that older people are the major buyers of premium groceries. I don't see that many older people when I go into premium grocery stores -- except if by that you mean 35-50.