Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Wow - I can`t believe how expensive baseball caps have gotten!

I would say one suggestion is to have better photos - they all seem too dark to me.

Could you maybe get some pictures of some "cool" people wearing some of your hats?  Or maybe some sports stars?

Great ideas...I should probably edit the pics and get people sporting the caps.

added a video for now :)

As far as your layout, there is a lot of wasted space at the top .... maybe use a larger font and more text ..... the more textual content, the better for search engines and rankings ..... Ideally, create a text area next to the video to keep the text in one general area, not wrapping around the video and wasting so much space.

Your about page .... sorry, but it really doesn`t say anything about you, your company, why you are better than the next guy selling caps, why I should trust your company, etc. You not only need to sell your products, you need to sell your company as well. Tell me something to gain trust in your business and I`m more likely to buy something.

In wanting to show off your product, why only 3 on the main page? Show 6, 10, 12 .... I`m here to see caps, and get an idea of what you have right away, so throw a nice mixture of them right up front ....

The main thing, though, is price .... it looks like the average cost is @ $30.00 a cap .... throw in the shipping cost and we`re talking almost $40.00 .... now, what exactly am I getting for that money? All your descriptions are somewhat generic, and pretty much the same from what I saw ( I didn`t look at all of them ) .... so yeah, I`m getting a cap for that money, but so what? i can get one at K-Mart or WalMart or somewhere else for a lot less, and actually see what I`m getting .... what are yours made of? What are your guarantees? How high of a quality is there? Basically I have no clue what I`m getting from you.

The video .... to be honest, I have no idea what was being said/sung, so I can`t tell what the purpose of it really is.



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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

I`ll echo Webline`s thoughts, particularly on the video. No clue what that`s about, other than something involving rap-something. If your target market is urban youth, do they have the $40 plus online access for e-commerce? Do they have the transactional capability to buy caps online?

That big bar of whitespace is just that...empty space.

One thing you`ve mentioned would be a logo. I think if you do it right, particularly given the company name, you could create a "person" icon...a "character" around which to build your whole business. "Talk with the Cap Junkie," or something along those lines.

The Catch-22 is that it takes money to make an attractive store, online or off, and bring in customers. But it takes customers to bring in the money to make an attractive store. That`s why startup capital....investment capital...is such a problem for so many new businesses.

If all you have is a very limited amount of money and you`re going to bootstrap, then I`m thinking the key things are: Logo, shopping cart, photographs, descriptions. Those all should be very professional, very clear, interesting, and obvious.

With good "mail-order" desrciptions, the overall page content on each page can be less than stellar. But it should still be interesting. So you`ll want some sort of access to or deal with a photography person and a copywriter.

Great points Webline. Within a week I`ll get something better up with many of your suggestions. And Yes Craig I do agree, I should invest more money into this startup if I want to bring in customers. With the video I was trying to make it interesting and a little funny. The guy is singing about caps in particular new era caps and its evident by just looking at the video and not neccessarily having to understand it. The target market is urban/hip hop/skater males and yes they do have the resources and money to buy the caps. The New Era brand baseball hats are premium just like an expensive pair of jeans. Again I will make changes in the next week for sure. Thanks for all of you guys help.

Take a look at other sites that sell the same types of products .... look at their descriptions, company information, what they are using to get attention and create sales .... is essence, what is their pitch to their target market? .... I`m not saying copy everything they do, but get a feel what they do to be successful ....


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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons