When one thinks about karate, he thinks of action, suspense, precision and that “oriental flavor” that is only evident in this art form. However, when I visited the website Damashi: Traditional Karate Videos and Books (www.damashi.com) I don’t get that action or “oriental flavor” that may draw me to the site to purchase videos about karate.
The site has great information in regards to order guidelines and its privacy policy. As far as content, this site has more than enough content in writing. The site uses a good e-commerce company (Mal’s ecommerce) to process the orders. The domain name is short and should be accessible in search engines. I like the usage of the links. Navigation, as it stand now, is easy, simple and universal to all browsers. So, it is sound in these regards.
However, the site does little to attract the customer. Maybe it is working on the name and black belt expertise of its owner in hopes that this recognition alone will attract the potential buyer. There are little graphics used on the site. While this allows the site to load faster, this does not lend to any aesthetic appearance on the site. Since website design has become more artistic, the webmaster should explore more creative option to make the site alluring.
What will help with the “ecommerce-ability” of the site is to have some video bites. Yes, there is one on the master’s referred site (http://www.americanjka.com/), but just in case someone misses this, it would be great to have some on this site.
In conclusion, while the usability of the site is good, the attraction to the site is needs some enhancements in order to make this site as alluring as it is informative.
Gwendolyn Brown
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