Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

For the past year I have been working on the concept of having an affordable multi-carrier software product for online merchants users like Google Checkout.  This was a big problem because all the online merchants, ecommerce and shopping cart systems all seemed to do things differently.  In using our past experience in this industry and applying it to this new market presented us with many challenges.  But, we now have a product that will be released within the next few days that we feel will get the job done like no other.

In creating this new product we had decided a few months ago that our traditional web site, www.harveysoft.com did not properly focus on simplicity of our new product for the online merchant.  So we were lucky enough to be able to reserve the name of the new product (Cut’N Ship) as a URL and we spent many hours designing a specific web site to market our soon to be released product.

Even though this web site has now been reviewed by a number of shipping industry and internet marketing people, I wanted it to be pre-released for review by real product users to get the advice of the ultimate experts.  I find this to be one of the more important parts of our market plan.  SUN was the first place I thought of and I welcome the opportunity to receive your critical review.

The main goals of this web site are to demonstrate the simplicity and usefulness of our new shipping product for online merchants, and get people to try it.  Even though this product will be pre-configured for other online merchant and shopping cart systems in the future, and can be easily set up by the end user out-of-the-box right now, we decided to start by focusing on Google Checkout users.  This allowed us to focus on a single group for the Beta release to keep our support response and marketing expenses in line with our limited budgets.

Please be aware the product will not be ready for distribution for a few days, so even though Buy Now buttons are active, we are not selling this product as of yet.  There is a warning concerning this on the order page that will be removed when we start shipping the Beta release.  The Questions page is active if you want to reach us about anything while you are reviewing the site.  I am seeking advice on web copy, content strategy or any other thing you see that distracts us from our goals of this site.

The web site to be critiqued is located at www.cutnship.com.

Your advice will be welcomed and I truly appreciate any time spent looking at this site.

Thanking you in advance,

Bert

Please note that the following is stated with the intention of helping you and not to bash you or your webmaster in anyway...

First impression: Typical FrontPage website.

The fonts/styles, images and the gradient background are clashing.

Don`t get me wrong... I`ve got nothing against FrontPage as I have built several websites with FrontPage and I honestly love FrontPage. IMO: Your website needs a more professional look and unless you know CSS inside and out or can hire someone to re-do the website I recommend buying a nice templated website and fill in the blanks.

Keep in mind that what looks good on your screen may not look good on another persons screen.

As for web copy... not knowing anything about Harvey Software nor CPS I was confused as to what Cut N Ship actually does.

If CNS is targeted to current HS and CPS users then the current web copy might suffice. If you are after new customers you need to rethink what it is you are trying to get across to your potential customers.

Ron,

Thank you for your input!!!  This is exactly what I am looking for.  I only wish some of the others that viewed the site would join in like you did.  I could really use the feed back.

As for your comments, I have a couple of questions and would really like to get some additional feedback.

First, are the technical problems you pointed out concerning the fact that the fonts, images and background are keeping you from seeing text or images?

The first issue you had I consider only an SMOP (small matter of programming) but your web copy comment really showed we need to do some work fast.  In visiting your web site I immediately realized you would be a potential customer for our product and you did not understand what we were selling.  OUCH!  This I see as the biggest problem.

This product is not targeted at current CPS users even though they may use it.  CPS with Cut’N Ship is a standalone product that gives Google Checkout users an automated way to collect data from their online merchant, correct addresses, price shop for the best rates between the three major carriers, print user compliant labels, upload all the data to the carriers without batch loading to their carrier software or websites, give them numerous ways to track the parcels and much more for a price any business can afford.  The fact that you did not understand this means we have some more work to do.  Can you tell me where we fell short on this message?

I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to look at this and would greatly appreciate additional input.

Bert

Craig,

Thank you for taking the time to review the site.  We are going back and making some adjustments.  I do have one question.  You say Google Checkout is already easy and saving you money, so how do you ship the orders you receive?  The answer to this may help me rebuild the home page.

I should also add with site will be accessed either directly or from our main web site that is built in the more traditional manner.  Maybe trying to have this site have dual slide show type function makes it confusing when being accessed directly.  This means we need to do a better job on the home page of this site to better meet its dual purpose.

Once again thank you!

Bert

Once again Craig, great comments!  Our customers constantly tell us we have a great product that saves them a bunch and we need to figure out how to get the word out better.  Many great products die because the company has a problem communicating to the benefits to their market place.  I don`t know if you have noticed it but we have already started addressing the comments made by you and Ron.  We are not done yet but your comments are greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Bert

Hi, Bret. I really cannot add any more than what 4Wheeling and Crag have added.

I can`t figure out if this product is good for a big company with a slew of products or would work just as well for an individual Ebay seller.

JDawg,

That is our biggest problem.  Over the years we have built a product that is extremely flexible and it works easily with many other products.  Right now many companies, from start ups to the biggest shippers in the US, use our products have done their own integration.  They all have something in common; they just use it for what it can do for their company and ignore everything else.

The flexibility of our products has ended up causing some people to say they were afraid to purchase our product because it did too much!  This was true even though it was very easy to set up and use.  Our plan with this web site was to take one online merchant at a time, advertise only those things important to online merchant users and promote it even though out to the box we know it would work with most of them in one way or another.  In other words, we wanted our message to be simple and show it could meet the needs of the online merchant that used Google Checkout just for starters.

As for our product, it is a standalone product that does everything.  It does not need any other products to work with it on the carrier side.  The only exception is if you want to use USPS, and in this version of our product one only needs to add Endicia for the postage.  Even when one adds Endicia, it still does everything as the user never leaves our interface.  We only use Endicia in the background.  This is very different from other products they need other carrier tools and software to make them work.  Other products also make you move in and out of other interfaces to get the same job done.  Some even requrie batch uploading as the only option.  I should also tell you that if the shipper does not want to use USPS there is nothing else to add as it does UPS and FedEx out of the box with nothing else to install.  We assume this was understood but it looks like we have more work.

This is why I wanted to get SUN’s community members to critique of this site.  I want to make sure we are giving the right message without looking too flexible and scaring people off saying "I don’t need all that" without even trying it.  I am finding less is much harder to achieve successfully than more.

Sorry to be so long winded but I felt I need to clarify the message we are trying to give.   I am definitely going to try to work on the issues you and the others have addressed.   This has been great and there are great people at SUN.  To answer your point, we have yet to test it with EBay and Yahoo! but we do have customers that have done it own their own.  We just want to make sure we can fully support what we sell. 

This is why I really appreciate all this feed back.

Thank you!

Bert.

Needs more clarity in the copywriting. Not easily apparent exactly what you offer. At least not 4-second apparent and you probably want to be well below ten seconds in terms of the length of time it takes the visitor to understand. Tune the message.