Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Need some website critiques on our site http://www.FactoryDirectMirrors.com

We want the site to be user friendly and generate more sales.  Any and all suggestions and critiques are appreciated.

Thanks

Research shows that you have 10 seconds to grab the attention of your site visitors or else they leave.  One tactic that Amazon has successfully employed is showing "featured" items on their homepage, which has often been marked down from retail price.

I dug around your site and noticed that you do have a few items that have been marked down.  Consider prominently displaying those on the homepage in order to make it clear that your company offers value.  Chances are, your visitor won`t be interested in those exact items, but the marked down prices will effectively function as loss leaders, enticing your visitors to dig deeper into your site for what they do want.



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Fundamentals for Founders:
The Practical Guide to Kick-Starting Your Business

I have been to your site a few times, trying to figure out what suggestions I would offer. Perhaps my problem is partially that I have no interest in buying mirrors, LOL!

That said, I find the site just plain boring. There is nothing on your home page that makes me excited about mirrors. The colors are all very pale and soothing, which I am not sure is the effect you are looking for... soothed does not make me buy - excited and hyped does.

Then, I had to ask myself... what could be exciting about a website that sells mirrors? I racked my brain for a few minutes and came up with these things:

Offers mirrors in hard-to-find shapes and sizes.
Offers custom-sized replacement mirrors for family heirlooms.
Offers mirror facts (make a room look larger).
Offers mirror decorating tips.
Shows me savings (THIS mirror could cost you $XX, we sell it for $GG and ship it safely to your door).

I did a search for "mirrors" on google and found some sites that have more punch in my opinion:

http://www.shop-mirrors.com/
http://www.csnmirrors.com/
http://www.moremirrors.com/

None of these are perfect, and they tend to look alike, which sends me back to my list on setting yourself apart.

Good luck!

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

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Thanks everyone for the comments. We are presently trying to decide if we want to improve our site FactoryDirectMirrors.com or just combine in into our main site www.FactoryDirectCraft.com

So any comments on either site are always appreciated

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

I would think about hiring a designer to create a masthead/graphic that you could plug into the header of your site. Adding a well designed banner graphic to the top of the page, I think would be enough to eliminate everyone`s concerns about the uninspired look and design. It would be a small cost compared to having them design an entire site. The content and structure of the site are ok, but it could use a few things to look more polished or professional. I would add some lifestyle imagery though out also, such as people using your products. That will help give customers that "warm and cozy feeling" that will make them trust your site.


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Scott Thornton . Web. Print. Identity : BlenderhouseCreative.com

Just to give everyone here a heads up, we decided to for now point the site to the mirror section of our main site. So those who visit the site may not get anything as i had to change the name servers over, but the redirect should be functioning within 10-15 hours (or whenever the name servers update their cache).