Desperate for Advice
I'm desperate for advice on how to improve visitor experience to my website. It is an e-commerce site and we sell vacuum cleaner and cleaning related products. We have been on-line since 1997, which is probably one of my most saving factors. Business is down considerably. We've lowered prices, raised Google Adwords bids, redesigned the site, cleaned up the old code and tried to make shipping as reasonable as possible.
I have a chat program that I can use to monitor visitor activity and it is driving me crazy sitting for hours and watching potential customers enter the site, spend 2 to 20 minutes and leave without making a purchase.
I would very much appreciate honest critiques on everything including; design of the site, quality of the site, product selection, pricing, shipping costs, ease of checkout and whatever you can think of.
Please ask yourself; Would you buy from this website? Would you feel comfortable giving your credit card to this website? Are you confident that we could provide you with what you ordered? Would you recommend this website to a friend?
Any and all honest criticisms will be considered and appreciated. I've got a thick skin, so let me have it.
Thanks,
Megan posted this at 02:58 — 31st May 2011.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Hi Paul,
Welcome to the forums!
I recently looked for vacuum cleaner bags online, so I kept that in mind when looking at your site. The design does look kind of dated. It's very boxy looking, and the colour scheme isn't very coherent (e.g. main colours are orange, but logo and some navigation buttons are read/blue).
As a consumer I would probably navigate by type of product rather than by brand. here you emphasize the brand names, which throws me off. Even when I found the link to vacuum bags I was presented with a list of brand names. I know I need size L bags - cant' remember for sure what the brand is. I think it's Hoover.
The navigation is mixed up here - the top and most prominent menu includes the least important items.
From the bags page I went to Hoover. Now I'm presented with a long page. I expected to see a grid-type layout more common with eCommerce sites. Since the bags are labelled with letters, it would be good to emphasize that in the design too. I also noticed that the photos are very small and low quality. If people are buying vacuum bags they might want a big picture so they know they're getting the right ones.
Having the product gallery and ordering links on one page is actually quite confusing as it goes against the normal pattern of eCommerce sites.
Finally I found the Hoover size L. You have there bags for $14.99 - I ended up finding some locally and I think they were around $7.99 (Canadian). Just an FYI
The checkout page is rather ugly too but that wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. Same with the payment through PayPal or Google. For other people it might be though. It seems slightly low-budget and unprofessional to be using a third party payment processor.
Overal my suggestions would be:
Megan
Connect with us on Facebook!
vacshop posted this at 11:21 — 31st May 2011.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: May 2011
Megan,
Thank you for giving me exactly what I was asking for. The fact that you did it from a shopper's point of view carries a lot of weight.
To me, one of the most important suggestions you gave was concerning the top navigation bar. When I took another look I wondered why I had wasted valuable space with non-shopping links? That will be changed today.
Other aspects of the design are going to take time, but you are right when you say that red and blue don't fit with the overall theme.
Could you please clarify one statement for me? You say that having product gallery and ordering links on one page is confusing. We have the product described with the prices below and the ordering button below that. Where else would we put the ordering button if not by the product?
Thanks again,
Paul
www.VacuumCleanerShop.com
Paul
The Vacuum Cleaner Shop
Megan posted this at 13:39 — 1st June 2011.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Hi Paul,
Normally on an eCommerce site you get a grid view (boxes in rows and columns) of all the products. Then you click through to a new page for the ordering information. That's the expected pattern for eCommerce sites so it threw mew off when yours was done differently.
See also Amazon, where they have either a grid view or a list of products, then you click through to read the details and find the ordering buttons.
I think with eCommerce, following the interface patterns used on other sites can help to instill confidence in users.
By the way, could you please put your link into your signature rather than putting it in your post? If you go into the My Account link on the right you'll find where to input a signature. Thanks!
Megan
Connect with us on Facebook!
vacshop posted this at 10:52 — 2nd June 2011.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: May 2011
Megan,
Thanks for clearing that up. Isee what you mean. Also, I created a signature as you asked. And also took the link out of the body of my Posts so it wouldn't be in there twice. However, I can't edit it out of my replies, so it looks like I'm spamming.
Paul
The Vacuum Cleaner Shop
DavidIpswich posted this at 15:34 — 24th June 2011.
He has: 117 posts
Joined: Aug 2009
The only thing about your front page I didn't like was the "May I Help You" thing that stays with me when I scroll up or down.
It's a personal preference, but for me it's a bit off putting.
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.