Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Okay I did not follow Hdean’s advise on the Topic Subject to make it sound more interesting (it was good advise), I changed it, so forgive me if you have already looked at this under my original post. Anyway,

I would like to 1^st thank anyone that takes the time to review my soon to be live website.

I hired a web design firm to develop this site and I am just not sure that it meets my expectations.

Long story short, I manufacture luxury bed linens in Italy for the Hospitality industry, principally luxury hotels. I have no retail distribution network however via the web I am able to offer a small selection of some of the finest bed linens of their type at rough 60% of the cost of like product found at a luxury linen boutique or a luxury department store such as Nieman Marcus. Recognized luxury linen manufactures are 100% dependent on independent retailers and cannot sell direct under the MSRP that these independent retailers sell at, if they did the retails would drop the line, they would be out of business.

The concept is very sound, the problem as with many startup web companies is getting a creditable message and of course product recognized in a sea of sheets.

The internet is flooded with thousands of company selling bed linens with price points ranging from very low (made in Asia product) to the true premium European luxury linens. There are also thousands of claims on the web regarding the various qualities of a product which the consumer often has a hard time determining the validity of. The reality is there are many variables that go into bed linens which I attempt to explain in the site.

The luxury linen market is relatively small and I am trying to establish a brand that will compete with some of the finest recognized linens in the world and as I launch I have no name recognition with consumers.

I have also attempted to introduce a little sexiness into the site, as sex does sell, a bed is where sex often happens and no one seems to put a sexy spin on sheets.

Please give me your thoughts and suggestions on the functionality of the site as well if it projects as a credible product and approach.

The site is www.verolinens.com

 

Thanks – Steve  steve@verolinens.com

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First question ... Why does your contact phone number not work? Why is the phone a Florida exchange ... when the website shows Returns going to 1615 Kirts Blvd, Troy MI?

In light of that ... here is your critique ...

The site has the look of "elegance" that it needs for your products. The colors are great, IMHO, however the text and border lines for the template, ie Contact page ... are not bold enough, IMHO. The softness of the color makes it difficult to read, especially in a bright light environment.

The landing page requires me to load a video file, that I then must wait for it to load ... if I have a slow connection I surely won't wait for the video and will move on.

There is no call to action on the front page, no info as to what exactly you do, sell .. or what you are. A re-design of the front page is warranted ... besides when I looked at the source code for the front page ... there is really nothing there for the search engines to index ... in otherwords, the front page is not very search engine friendly.

Once inside the store the images, descriptions  and layout are all done well. IMHO, make the large image pop-up a tad smaller.... it overwhelms the page. And the fact that it floats ... its kinda like a "girlfriend" that is stalking you ... she just won't go away.

When I mouse over the additional images, ie sheets, the mouse does not change from a pointer to a hand ... so I have no idea that I can click on them to show additional images in the larger view.

The "Compare Us..." function, in a marketing sense, does not make sense. I understand that you are selling very upscale sheets and bedding. I can understand that you want your customer to be fully satisfied, comfortable, and confident that your sheets are the best on the market. However, providing links to your competitors' websites is like Walmart saying .... "go to Target and K-Mart before you come back to us to spend your hard-earned money here at Walmart." What if your customer had no idea who your competition is ... you just opened up a Pandora's box ... and possibly lost the sale.

Close the sale !!! Because if you don't ...someone else will !!!

The "footer" on your pages shows your email address ... unless you want to get tons of spam ... change it to a link to your "Contact Us" page. Your "Contact Us" page also shows that email addie ... delete it.

Your Site Map is fine ... but there is no /sitemap.xml file. Remember, search engines do not like .php files, especially for site maps. The standard for site maps is an .xml format.

The are no Error 400, 401, 403, 404 or 500 re-direct pages ... so that if a visitor typed in a wrong url, or a search engine has an old link, or discontinued product or page ... it simply states it ... but does not re-direct you back to the site.

I hope these suggestions have helped.

I agree with the above post. Here are some additional thoughts..........

Home page - As noted above your home page is one big flash moive whic takes too long to load..and the movie is also too long. I think the same marketing message can be achieved with a shorter movie.

Your home page presents two hurdles to potential buyers. (1) the time it takes to laod the video and (2) the time it takes to play te video.

However, the bigger problem is that's all there is to your home page. Take a look at almost any other ecommerce website and you'll see that the product they are selling is shown and clickable on he home page. In your case even after they view the video they still need to click some placeelse to get to your product.

Menu/Navigation - A small point, but the link to your online store is more important than your "about" page. I think the "about" link should be after the link to your online store.

Our Collection - Similar to your home page, your "our collection" page is just one image, with links to product categories. This requires the viewer to click at least one more time just to get to see what products you are selling.

Product pages -

Sheets & Pillowcases. A lot of text. If you needthat much text, you should use paragraph headings like Diamonte (in bold) to make it easier for the viewer to find the information they want.  You use paragraph headings on your "pillows" product page.

I do not see "threadcount" mentioned... I do not know if that is relevant to your products, but the consumer has been trained to think the higher the threadcount the better the product.

Product image - the "click to enlarge" link did not show any image...just a frame with no content. I was viewing with IE 8... I did not try it with another browser.

Do NOT provide comparison links. You're just sending your customers away. If you want to make a point about price comparision you can do so in writing or with a cart on your web site.

Shipping and terms of service... This is important information for people buying online. The links to this information is sort of hidden..because the links are small and at the bottom of the page. If you provide free shipping - that should be promenently displayed. Shipping charges should never be a mistery or surprize to customers.

Search engine optimization (SEO) - Every one of your pages has the same title...
Vero Linens". This is a waste of a title tag because your domain name is vero linens. Your title tage should contain words that people would search on to find your products. Typically, for an ecommerce site the title for each product page is generated from the name of the category or product.. like "sheets and pillowcases".

This is important to correct in order for your site and products to be found through a search.

SSL problem - There is a coding problem.. in that when a viewer clicks on my account or shopping cart the site goes behind an SSL (https:)..which is good. But if the viewer then clicks back to a product page they will get a pop-up security warning. To correct this the link back to the product pages should be specified as an http: link.

Recomendations -

Make your home page = your collection page... but show a main image (which could be your shortened movie) and smaller images of each of your product categories that link to those category pages.

Use paragraph headings where there is a lot of text to make it easier for viewers to scan your content.

Is "threadcount" important? You might address it since consumers have been trained to think it is.

SEO - make sure your title tags are relevant to your categories and products. Using Vero Linens as a title tag is redundant and has no vale for SEO purposes.

Shipping, etc - make the links to your shipping terms easier to see. If you povide free shipping, say so and make that very apparent to the buyer (your competition does http://www.anichini.com/shop .

Technical - SSL: fix the https / http problem. Fix the enlarge image link (problem with IE8).

~Roland

 

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

GTS2010 - 1st thank you very much I appreciate you taking the time to give me your opinion.

The site is not up and running yet – so the phone has not gone live yet – good observation. Yes the phone is a Miami phone and the return address is Troy, MI. The call center is located there and the returns and shipment are made from Troy. Another good observation – do you think it looks unusual?

I agree with the bolding. The centering of items in the description columns are not correct – they should be centered and at minimum bold font. I am fighting with my web designer on this – as I learn they used a free OSCommerce template that doesn’t have a lot of custom capability – I am more than upset on this.

The video load and the call to actions are also good points.

The size on the enlarged shot is something I need to think over – thanks for the input.

The mouse over – good point.

The comparison is there because my approach is selling a very comparable product at 60% to 70% below recognized luxury brands – that is because I am not using retails distribution. I liked the idea as I want the customer to compare as well I have no recognized consumer awareness, however I have received a number of like comments – so I need to think this over as well.

However knowing this do you have a different opinion????

Email at footer – thanks again.

Not sure what you mean with no sitemap.xml file or error codes – but will review with designers in an attempt to understand what this means.

The critique helps a lot and gives me ammo with the designer.

Steve

 

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Roland:

Thank a lot – please see my reply comments made to GTST 2010 as they address a lot of what he said.

Relative to your comments, now that you pointed this out – I agree it is a little long, but I had read that people are acclimated to around 60 seconds or so and we tried to have a little tease. However I will look to see if I can compress. As well another criticism I received is the opening which is a hand shot – I think people will be more inclined to view if it started with more of the model being shown vs. a hand.

Homepage – excellent point.

Menu/navigation – the creative guy in the design team expanded to me that he wanted to create a funnel and the idea was to peak the interest with the video then explain who we are then move the customer to the shopping cart. Your idea is well noted however and I have lost a lot of faith in my web designer as of late.

Our collection – point well noted.

 Thread count – I painfully understand this – the customer is fixated on this – I consciously tried to stay away from this as there is so much more to the story. A 1000 t/c sheet at Bed Bath & Beyond is under $200 while a good 1000 t/c sheet from Italy can be over $2000. I struggle with this – many of the European manufactures try not to go there because if this is the only criteria that one is looking for then likely they may not be my customer to begin with. I really struggle with this – mine happen to be 600 t/c but the cotton is simply the best in the world. Anyway a point well noted and thought out by me.

IE 8 – the site is still being finessed – the enlarge does work yet in IE but does in other browsers. I recognize you might say – get it ready before you ask people to critique, I understand, but I am not real happy with a number of things and fixating on the little ones when the site may need major surgery first was the reason.

Comparison shopping – everyone dislikes this – I was my idea and I thought it was brilliant as I want the folks to see that equal product with my competitors will cost you 2 to 3 times more. As noted in reply to GTS 2010 – I have no consumer recognition and legitimately want to sell the finest linens at a better cost – their direct so no retail mark up which is generally 2.5 to 3 times. Considering no one to date thinks this is good, I need to check the ego and possibly reconsider this. However knowing this – does this change your mind at all – if so, maybe I need to reinforce the concept if you think differently now – please let me know.

Free shipping – great point.

SEO – great advise.

SSL – not sure I know what you mean – but I will review with designers.

As you might have noticed- I know little about web design but learning – I am also learning about web designers the expensive way.

 

Thanks of all the advise – greatly appreciate it.

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Every one of your pages has the same title...
Vero Linens". This is a waste of a title tag because your domain name is vero linens. Your title tage should contain words that people would search on to find your products. Typically, for an ecommerce site the title for each product page is generated from the name of the category or product.. like "sheets and pillowcases".

This is important to correct in order for your site and products to be found through a search.

John - thanks, I have received a number of comments on this. I would not have realized this on my own.

Thank you for the assitance and time to take a look at the site.

 

Steve

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Hello Steve, I was hoping that the web site everyone is talking about would still be up just to see what you have. Ok Steve, here is the problem, I am reading everyones comments and I'm going to be a little bias here....

Ok, now that I know you're selling very expensive linens, well Os Commerce can handle that... Lets see what would you need? Manufacturer (assuming its you), Catalog or Product ID, Price, Small description, Full description, Price, and Add to cart or Check out.

There is no point in you worrying about SEO at this stage, since you're in the process of barely starting the site, the least you need is for search engines to start picking up on your keywords or keyterms and start sending traffic to an unfinished web site, which at times can be more harmful that a cart thats functional but the aesthetics are not to par.

I'm not telling you to totally disregard SEO. Your web site will needed, but not at this stage of development. The web designer should keep that in mind.... Not you... Secondly Steve, make sure that your web developer fully understands how to use CSS and how to semantically code your web site according to w3c.org standards, this will allow your web site to be cross-browser compatible. from the looks, people are already having problems viewing your web site in IE8... So here are a few pointers for you... As for the SSL issue? Don't even worry about it, until you're ready to launch... An SSL is a secure socket Layer certificate... it is not needed at this point. you're still under development. Worry about that 2 hours before you go live... it's like owning a car with no windows, yet you want to install an alarm... Go figure why the fellas brought that up... Perhaps is their Pitching line...

Finally, Steve... if you want to insert video on your web site, make sure it's not Quick Time or Windows Player MPEG... make sure you're running FLV, if possible upload to Youtube, and embed on your site... make sure the video is of High Defenition (1080P) quality... And you are right... Sex sells... don't listen to the people that have a slow connection... Obviously, if they can't afford to pay for a faster internet connection, they can't afford your sheets...

If you're thinking of catering to a higher audience with bottomless pockets, then do so now... don't down size your web site, just make sure your web designer understands what he's doing... many web designer say they know what they are doing (just to get the job) but when it comes to delivering? They don't even know what to do... I;m pretty sure, you know of this off hand... (im not stepping on anyones toes here, I apologize to all the fellas) it's just that, there are certain aspects that you shouldn't even worry about in the development stages...

SEO, SSL, Pay Pal, and merchant account set up is the last stage... First tell your web designer to concentrate on the design (make your site look "BLING BLING), then the layout and architecture, Product Showcase (Make sure they show your products in a professional manner, not the typical OS Commerce default...), Embed FLV videos, tweak the videos to load faster, use more PNG's and CSS instead of JPEGS... Except for the products... Finally Integrate Payment gateway, SSL and finally SEO... In that order... of course after you've done a few SANDBOX tests to assure they payments are going to the right gateway and account...

Hope this helps Steve.... Don't be short changed again... Pick your web designer wisely... and when in doubt, you have lots of members here on SUN that can help you out...

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net