In the article written by Jackie, a call for a review was made. I make the below comments in the interests of helping out, and I am purposely critical. Not in the hopes that it will anger or frustrate you, but in the hopes that the criticism will help you to better your companies website.
Hello – my name is Kevin Hill, and I am an IT professional who manages http://www.toolup.com, a website e-commerce store that does in excess of 1.5 million in sales per year, and has been growing every year. As the sole developer for www.toolup.com, I have spent countless hours analyzing what works and what does not work on an e-commerce site. I KNOW how to bring customers in from the cold, and get them to trust our company and to purchase the items that they are looking for.
You can see my resume at http://www.loneregister.com
www.crawfordhousecollectibles.com is a great example of a company making its first venture into the e-commerce/internet arena. Whether they have contracted outside, or, as I suspect, contracted a close relative or friend, it’s obvious that this website needs some work. The good news is that there is so much to improve; it’s going to be easy and quick to really turn this website around in a short amount of time.
This website screams of disorganization.
Some ideas to utilize when designing –
1) Decide on a theme. Decide on a navigation technique. Stick to it.
2) In keeping to a theme – use the same menu system throughout the website. Perhaps adding and changing choices, but use the same theme.
3) Give the user what you tell them you are going to give them. Don’t be cute and mislead them.
4) Show products with pictures and descriptions. Give them a search that makes sense and is easy to use. (P.S. on the search page, mugs fails – so make sure you use an example word that actually returns results)
5) Either provide a search feature that works well – or use categories. Don’t give a search engine that fails more often than not. If your search engine returns “No Results” more than 10% of the time – you need to purchase a professional package.
Let’s talk about some specifics:
The first thing that e-commerce sites need to decide is – are we here to show off technology, or are we here to sell product. Most companies will probably vote to sell product and make some kind of profit. So let’s assume that the folks at Crawford House want to sell their products. Look at www.yogitea.com to get an idea of a website that is organized nicely, and tells a story with pictures, and then gives details with words. Notice that they DO use a background – but it works and fits the design and helps promote the branding and feeling of the website.
From the existing entry page – after reading the information I still have absolutely no clue what this company is selling. Let’s throw up some high quality pictures onto the main page that give the viewer a one shot view at what this website is all about. Then below that, in Arial or MS Sans Serif size 2 or 1, start talking about what we sell, and perhaps lay out some spider food for the search engines. In keeping with themes – this “detail” text should be the same throughout for detail situations like this.
Go to a white background. You’re either professional or you’re not. A white background is clean, professional, and easy on the eyes. http://www.dewalt.com pulls off the non-white professional image very well – but their company colors are yellow and black – so it fits their theme well.
Remember, the entry page is here to capture people into wanting to learn more – not about closing the sale right away. That can happen later on the product information page perhaps. The entry page MUST let the customer know what you are all about and pictures ARE worth a thousand words.
Update this entry page so that within 2 seconds of it loading – I have a solid idea of what I can expect to find inside this web store.
When I enter the store using the menu, I get a poorly worded text description asking me to spent $10 on a catalog that I know nothing about. I would imagine that this website has sold exactly zero of these catalogs over the Internet. Don’t ask them to purchase this catalog. Show it to them, and then let them have the choice of purchasing it. Though why they would purchase a catalog when the website IS the catalog is not quite clear to me. Perhaps the detail text about the catalog can solve this marketing question?
Let’s jazz this page up a bit. We’ve removed the background (on the whole website) in favor of a white background. Let’s keep the 1st menu system – and not confuse our viewers by changing navigation styles midstride. This page would be the ideal place to introduce your category system for the products you sell on the website. Perhaps a picture of the catalog, and why they should purchase it would be here, though I would rather see your premier products on this page for sale – making it easy for people to locate your most popular items quickly and easily for purchase.
Amazingly – the products listing page exhibits a problem that I see all the time. Link colors that blend invisibly into the background. I am constantly puzzled as to why this happens – oversight? Old design software? I don’t know. But I see this issue so many times. It’s important that links be visible, and easy to read. Be careful not to go the other route – links that are so contrasty as to be impossible for the eye to see. Like Bright blue on black, or Yellow on Red.
I could go on to more detail, and more comments and suggestions. These are just the more basic issues that must be addressed on the Crawford house website. Designing e-commerce is easy. Designing e-commerce that WORKS, is a whole different story. Don’t worry – you’ve made your first steps into the e-commerce arena – and you’ve made a big step in asking for help. Now comes the moment where you decide if you can implement it or not.
If you’d like further help designing your website, I do consult and can help you turn your website around today.
Kevin Hill
Toolup.com
Peer reviewers volunteer their time and effort to help other site owners with their websites. Please take time to visit this reviewer’s site and say that you think what they’re doing is valuable to the web business community. If you’d like your site reviewed, send an email to editors@https://www.murdok.org.
