My first impression of toolup.com is it is an attempt to be like officedepot.com, buy.com, and other dot.coms. The only people that are concerned with whether a business has a physical location are those that have an interest in being touchy-feely. The general population realize that what they want are great prices.
The mention that toolup.com is not a typical dot.com turns me off. That ad copy is negative and condescending about the competition. Sell on what you know and offer better customer relation services. Toolup.com offers to sell products online, why mention they have locations on the front page. People in New York don’t care, they aren’t going to your store in California.
Improve the advertising copy on the front page, if you are going to have any. Otherwise, remove the current advertising copy and replace it with specials, offers, and training materials. Sell your products not your locations.
The use of the sponsored links on the front page is amateurish. Basically, you’re giving the visitor the opportunity of visiting a manufacturer’s site where they can find the products and locations near them with the same tools and equipment. Your products and services are more important than the links to manufacturers. If you are going to use them, use them sparingly.
Your offers are too low on the page. Move them up so they are in the first fold of the page. Shout your specials to your visitors. That’s why they are there in the first place.
Take the copy from the About Us page and move it to the front page. It’s more credible than the other copy and more compelling. The copy on the About Us page makes me want to look further. It’s definitely in the wrong place.
On your clearance page, I want to know the active stock. I shouldn’t have to click the picture to find out what the stock level is. Also, show me the price. It’s too hard to get the information, don’t make me click several times to find the information I’m wanting.
The Hot List page works fine at the top, but the bottom table of products is confusing because the images are too far below the text for the item. Either put the text below the images, or find some way like at the top to capture the image with the name. Don’t make people guess.
Losing the left navigation on subsequent pages is not a good thing. People should not have to click the back button to get to the previous page with the left navigation. Every page should be linked together which will make the usability of the site much better and more user-friendly.
Reorder your navigation on the left so that it makes more sense. The jumbled up mess is confusing. I’m not sure which links are links into the shopping pages and which are links into informational pages.
I would recommend having someone go through your codes and clean up the “street HTML” that’s being used. Standards compliant codes work much better and create more usable web pages. More usable web pages are more search engine friendly.
Take the testimony from the “wife on a mission” and put it on your front page. Highlight it!!!!! People think tools are for men and that only men purchase tools. Obviously, that testimony states the opposite. Wives do shop for tools for their husbands. Announce to the world that your site and service is friendly enough for even the novice to use and wives will appreciate it. Using that statement makes it easy for even the female professional to appreciate your concerns for their needs, which are often different than their male counterparts.
Lee Roberts (a.k.a. The Web Doctor(tm)), President/CEO, of Rose Rock Design, Inc. specializes in developing productive web sites. Our slogan is “Web Sites of Unique Beauty Built for Rock Solid Performance.(tm)” We also offer web site health inspections through The Digital Surgeon.
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