My New Site

Jon@buyagift · 15-09-06

Hi,

I have recently started a new site selling design products (currently mainly based on house and kitchenwares).It is set up using an online shopping cart solution through actinicexpress and so means that there is not as much flexibility as there would be had it been coded but would be interested on any of your comments for possible ways to improve it at all or suggestions of possible products that could be added.

The site has been running for about a month now and has had a couple of sales so far, but obviously i would be interested in other ideas of ways to increase traffic levels. I am running an adwords ppc account for it and it has been indexed in the google listings already, although it does not appear to have been picked up by yahoo or msn yet (although i expect at the moment google will likely bring in higher traffic levels).

The site is www.design2please.co.uk

Regards

esnagel · 15-09-06

Maybe it's just me, but I don't shop for kitchenwares or housewares by brand. As you have it, if I want cookware, I have to go to 2 different categories.

Shopping is nice - nice product images. A custom-written description for the items will help SEO.

Took me a while to find the "Checkout" button - it blends in too much. Maybe after "... has been added to your cart." add "You can continue shopping, view your cart, or checkout" and link view your cart & checkout. Also, somehow make the checkout button on the left stand out more.

It's nice that the account to checkout is optional. I don't like sites that force me to signup for an account, and then checkout.

Another thought would be to post your items to shopping databases, like http://base.google.com/.

Good luck,
Eric

Jon@buyagift · 18-09-06

hi esnagel,

Many thanks for your commetns, will definately look into ways to of trying to make checkout button more visible - not sure can change this due to the site being through an online shopping cart solution but i think i can probably change the colour or font to try and make it stand out more.

Will definaltely look into custom descriptions too, I relaise how importnat unique content is regarding gaining good rankings with the search engines. As it is a new site the first aim was to get the products live on the site with as much info as poss so hopefully will be able to start going through and customising these descriptions more shortly.

Agree could definaltey be worth adding seperate categories regading housewares and kitchenwares so will proboably look at adding those as well as having by brand - probably best to cover both options as sure some will search via brand as opposed

Had thought about adding products to Google Base and is definatley something will be looking at doing when have a little more free time to spare.

Not sure if the shopping cart package we use will allow us to add "continue shopping", "veiw cart" or "go to checkout" but again agree if this can be done it would be worthwile.

Many Thanks

Jon@buyagift · 25-09-06

hi,

Have tried changing the display theme of the site to try and make the checkout more visible so just wanted to get your opinions on whether you think it has helped at all.

Regards

Elaine · 25-09-06

you've got some great stuff on there - only problem is it's not easy to find - if someone doesn't recognise the 'names' (which I didn't) - they might not bother drilling down to find those hidden gems - I'd find some way of indexing the actual products as well as the designers.

Jon@buyagift · 25-09-06

Hi Elaine,

Thanks for your comments, I definately agree with them especially as more gets added. I will be looking to add categories by type (eg kitchenware, housewares etc) as well as having the option of categories by brand. Just trying to find the time to get round to doing this but hopefully it will be soon.

Regards

renegade · 25-09-06

For a site called design2please it really needs to look as slick as the products you're advertising (some very nice stuff in there).
The navigation, as others have mentioned, is poor and needs re-thinking.
Nothing which can't be fixed though, when's the affiliate program launching? ;-)

esnagel · 25-09-06

The graphical navigation helped; doesn't blend in as much as it had before. Does your stats program give you a sales funnel, so you can see where users may be leaving your site (what step of the checkout process)? I don't know if you have that much control over the site, but it would help when designing. For example, if users are shopping until they are presented with payment options, or shipping costs, then that may be an area to work on.

Great start,
Eric

Jon@buyagift · 25-09-06

hi,

Quote:

Nothing which can't be fixed though, when's the affiliate program launching? ;-)

renegade - this will deifnatley be something we will look into, working for buyagift i know how effective affiliate programs can be. I cannot give a timescale on this at the moment as being a new site we will obvioulsy need to get the site up and running well first so that there is the finance behind it. I will certainly keep you posted on progress regarding this.

Quote:

Does your stats program give you a sales funnel, so you can see where users may be leaving your site (what step of the checkout process)?

I need to double check what stats we have available to us at the moment (i believe actinic are looking to add functionality for adding google conversion tracking and analytics in the near future).

Managing ppc acounts for buaygfit i know how important it is to be able to use the details to be able to run an effective site and so definately one of the top priorities.

As long as the site performs well then we will most likely be looking to upgrade the shopping cart package we currnetly use so that we have more flexibility with site design etc but again this will need to be financially feasable.

thanks again for all your comments

Jon@buyagift · 26-09-06

Hi just wanted to make it clear that this site is a personal site and not in connection with Buyagift.

As Graham suggested to me today I probably should have set up a new username for posts regarding this site so as to avoid any confusion.

Appologies if this was not clear before.

Design2Please · 27-09-06

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that I have now created this user name to use regarding posts for my personal site - hopefully this should prevent any confusion.

http://www.design2please.co.uk

If i am posting with regards to Buyagift I will use my other username "jon@buyagift".

Just a quick update to let you know that I have started going through the site editing some of the product descriptions trying to make them more unique and also to help with the search functionality of the site.

Once I have completed this we will be looking into creating a new site map so as to be able to improve on the navigation of the site which as mentioned by other users does need some work - this will include adding categories by product types as well as the current categories by brand.

Regards