In this review we will address the utility of the site for e-commerce and not the design itself; recognizing however, that the two are not easily separated in practice. We will also focus principally on the opening page and the overall site concept.
The business, from a niche market point of view, is excellent and just the sort of on-line store that can make money for the owners while having a lot of fun with it. In this respect, we would make the site more of a magnet for Karate enthusiasts by incorporating news, images of events, and/or any other information that is current and of interest to Karate people. The idea is to keep people comming back even if they don’t find what they’re looking for the first time. Juicier Karate information will also help with the search engines.
The opening page needs to focus more on the wants and desires of the visitor rather than their immediate need for a particular book. The logo, a glamor shot, and the Damashi company business description should be the center of attention. The glamor shot can be a good image of some people participating in Karate. This will let visitors know they’ve come to the right place.
The top of the page links are distracting and since they are general information links they are probably best consigned to the bottom of the page in small print.
On the other hand, what’s really missing is a good set of shopping utilities. Since the number of product categories is only two and the number of specific items is limited, we would recommend creating a table of links that can be used throughout the site.
For instance, the table should list the two categories, Videos and Books. The list of videos is short so, we would list each of them with a link to each detail page. The books category has more items so, we would list and link only to the general pages: By Title, By Author, and Special Discount Sets.
Included in this table of links should be the ‘check cart’, ‘check out’ (optional), and ‘search for items’ buttons. If ‘search for items’ isn’t built into the shopping cart, a separate page of menus can be created instead.
The set of shopping utilities should be on every page in the website. It relates the the main purpose of the business.
Only after focus is established should a featured product be added to the page. We would suggest though that any featured product be accompanied by an explanation for being there: IE: ‘On Sale’, ‘New’, Special This Month”, etc.
Two other notes: We would recommend the liberal use of the ‘add to cart’ button. For instance on the http://www.damashi.com/video/instruct/main.html page listing the videos we would give the potential customer two choices: ‘add to cart’ positioned next to the image and ‘more information’ right along with it. We would eliminate the long title link in favor of a short promotional message.
We would also recommend, if possible with the storefront software in use, incorporating a link to a product description page, from the description entry in the shopping cart. Frequently a shopper will fill the cart with possible purchases with the intent to edit at check out. This editing often depends on total cost, so the shopper needs a quick reminder of why they added a particular item to the cart. A good way to do this is to open a separate window with the information by adding target=”new” to the link or by popping up a window with a JavaScript link. This way the cart remains in place.
In conclusion: It is obvious that the site is well intentioned; it just needs a little more sex appeal and a set of shopping utilities to help navigation and facilitate product selection.
Mel Davey
ImagineNation.com
Team….ImagineNation
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