My immediate reaction was that there are way too many animated graphics and the site is MUCH too cutsie. – not at all professional looking. If I hadn’t been reviewing the site, I’d have left right then.
I went to http://sandists.ecorp.net/animalsie.htm and clicked on a thumbnail to see a larger picture. Here’s what happened on my Mac:
–SAFARI 1.0 – A new window popped up and immediately closed.
–IE 5.2 – New windows popped up and immediately closed – repeatedly.
I had to quit the application to stop it.
–NETSCAPE 7.01 This one actually worked.
I slid over to my Win2K machine and marginally better luck with IE. I was able to pull up a new window but only the first popup from each parent page had anything in it. The rest were blank. A spot check of other pages indicates they’re all the same.
Then I saw the “OTHER” browser link in small letters at the upper right. Somehow my eye caught it through the distraction of the animated graphics. I tried that and was able to view the larger product pictures on both machines.
The site has no shopping cart! If I have to download and print out an order form, fill it out and mail or fax it, then I’m not dealing with an eCommerce site. Buyers want to be able to find a product they like and buy it within three or four clicks.
The site claims to accept payment via PayPal but I could not find a link to her PayPal payment page anywhere!
I looked at the contact page and viewed the code for the form. It seems that this site is hosted one place, and the from handler is at another and the email is at yet another. To make matters worse, the form results go to the site owner at a hotmail account. This is just so unprofessional. Buy a domain and pay $100 a year to host the site.
In summary:
* The site needs LOTS of cross platform and cross browser work. It’s almost useless with any browser on any machine.
* Get rid of the animations – they’re a major distraction.
* Get rid of the cute – it doesn’t belong on an eCommerce site.
* Get a shopping cart – You can’t expect to do on-line business off line.
* And last but not least – get your own domain.
—
Tom Mahoney, Founder/Director
MERCHANT 911
Merchants uniting to protect themselves.
http://www.merchant911.org
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