Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi,

I am interning at Maggie’s Organics, a company that makes and sells organic and fair trade apparel, such as socks, scarves, shirts, loungewear, and baby clothes.  Our main goal is to get people to buy our products and to get them to sign up for our e-newsletter.  This way we can establish strong direct relationships with our customers, which will help us create the products they want, the way they want them.  Alongside increasing our online consumer orders we want to educate consumers on the benefit of organic cotton and ethically made clothing.  We would appreciate some input as to how to accomplish our goals simultaneously.  In fact, we are so interested in your feedback that we will award a randomly selected reviewer with a $50 Maggie’s gift certificate!  In order to be entered please respond thoughtfully and give realistic suggestions by August 1, 2008.

Thanks in advance for your feedback,

You say that the message you want to get across is about organic products .... it would make sense that you promote that idea right away, but you don`t .... the word "organic" only appears a couple of times on the main page, and it`s so small that it`s easily overlooked .... you really aren`t saying anything at all about organics, or providing a message up front to promote what you want to say ..... so the site just looks like another clothing shop online, nothing to differentiate it or speak to your target market other than a couple of "organics" here and there. If you want to educate people on this, create something on the front page to get their attention, then lead them to another page where the major information is.

The other part of your message is about business partners and sweatshops ( more or less ), but this info is buried on another page .... again, if you want this idea to be part of your sales message, get it up front, don`t bury it.

The image at the top left has the url of www.organicclothes.com ..... but clicking it leads back to your page .... creates some confusion. Also, in the nav area at the top, "Home" and "Shop" go to the same page .... again, confusing at first, and unnecessary.

You should get the site validated and add a doctype, as well as meta descriptions. You also need unique titles for each page. You also don`t seem to have any image alt tags, h1/h2 tags, and basic seo aspects in the page.

Your images should be optimized; they are rather large as far as file size and make up a big part of your total page size. Smaller file sizes will make your site load faster and use less bandwidth.

Your newsletter signup is at the bottom of the page, and doesn`t stand out at all. Easy to overlook, so you may not get many people doing it. Again, whatever you want to be prominent on your site, then make it prominent. And don`t just let it sit there; you want it to have a purpose, so tell people why they should sign up.

In short, get your SEO in place, and your overall message up front.





-------------------------

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

It`s very idealistic to hope-wish-dream that people will make purchasing decisions based on socially conscious topics and issues. If you believe this is the way people buy things, more power to you.

From a historic and human nature perspective, nobody but very, very rich people with nothing but time on their hands would likely care.

Unless your product is something people want to wear, looks good, and costs about the same as any other non-socially-conscious product, you`ll likely have a problem.

My advice, free as it is, would be to quit trying to sell organic clothes. The message comes across as selling sweaters made of beansprouts. Instead, start focusing on selling the clothing itself. Highlight your designs, their application to real-world life, and their value.

You can use an About page to discuss the underlying political agenda for the company, but basically, nobody is going to decide to buy your clothing because it`s a moral decision.

It`s true that people might decide NOT to buy a product that they find out is being made by 10-yearold slave workers in some foreign country, but that isn`t at all the same thing as actively choosing to buy products that aren`t made that way.

I don`t know if Craig and Webline saw the same website that I did.  While I agree with both of them, I don`t see the emphasis on organic that they saw.

On the site:  I would have rather seen prices as: "From $15" instead of "30% Off".  It`s OK in a store where someone can do comparison shopping, but I don`t like sites that make me hunt for the prices.

I didn`t see anything about shipping and return policies, but then I only looked it for a few minutes.

I did look at the source code and there are no meta tags to help the search engines.  Your site designer may have said they aren`t all that important.  Which may be true, but they certainly don`t hurt.

Hope this helps.


-------------------------

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

VG ..... that was one of my points .... the message they want to convey is about organic products, which is not very obvious .... to me anyway.


-------------------------

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Steve, you`re right...I didn`t focus on the site itself. I`m just ranting about all this green crap I hear everywhere, based on the morality of it. Sustainable this, replaceable that, and conservation of resources has been around a very long time, and most people with a brain understand how to manage the whole concept. When it turns into a moral position, it just bends my nerves. :-)

The site itself is fine...standard, typical, forgettable.

I try to not get into the business plan itself, unless it relates to the functionality of the site.  I did not see such emphasis on green here, and I agree that being green is becoming ad-nauseum and eventually won`t sell on its` own merits due to the  saturation.  It`s no longer a USP.

"Forgettable" unfortunately describes 99% of all sites.  Including our own.  So when the site sells a product that you can find on any of dozens of other sites, you need to get the sale on the first visit.

So, Mary - what is unique about your product?  You can`t say `organic` or `green` because, as Craig said, it`s no longer unique.  When you determine that, you are on your way to defining your strategy.



-------------------------

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

Hi,