Retail Websites: how many products to start?

[kermey]

Its occured to me that my new website selling christian clothing doesnt have much of a selection to offer the customer. How many product lines do i need to start with to look like a good store with a decent selection?

Any thoughts?

[Adam]

Enough to appeal to all your customers but not so many they get bored looking.

[stephenmurray]

Hi there

I would say that it depends what you are selling and who you are competing with. If you are selling branded goods that are being sold by quiet a lot of other sites then I would say that you need to have a wide as possible range in order to compete on the same level as your competition. If you are selling a unique line of products, which I believe you are, then I don't believe the size of your range would be quiet so important. At the end of the day the fact that you have a unique selling point and the fact that you have a more limited range will not necessarily put people off. It also makes it easier for you to change and update the range on a more frequent basis in order to keep people coming back to the site more often. Anyway, i'll stop going on now! Hope this was of help and good luck with the site.

Stephen

[i-check]

Kermey- have just sent you an email!

[olly]

I'm having the same thoughts at the moment with my start-up, and I think I will be going with as diverse a range as I can find. The difficulty with your site is that you are going to need all the different sizes as well as designs so I would intially stick to a basic range with good availabilty of sizes until you can get a feel for what your customer base is looking for and then re-stock accordingly.

[kermey]

I was thinking of just having medium and large to begin with.

[olly]

are all christians medium & large in size? I hope so otherwise all those small and xtra large are going to feel rather alienated and not feel like visiting back again.
Can you afford to lose potential customers before you have even started?