Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

If you have time, could you kindly complete a critique of my website?  Although we have a retail storefront, Bucket o’ Brew has a goal of increasing online sales and are currently building plans to meet that goal.  Although I’d welcome comments on the entire site, there are two specific areas that are of concern.  1)  How would you rate the product photos and 2) we have a high number of customers creating accounts but only 1/3 of those are placing orders.  I’m curious as to the reason why.   My thanks in advance to those of you who are willing to spend time to give me your advice.   http://www.bucketobrew.com

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WWW.Bucketobrew.com Need a gift delivered? Make it something good!

Hi beerLady,

Well your site is Fabulous! I can say without hesitation, that the reason could be because, 1)they are not in need of your service.....yet,and  because you have a nitch biz, (which is a great one by the way!) and they will call when they are in need. Have you ever thought of combining some products together? I have a bbq sauce line (2 of the sauces have placed in world competition  our hot placed 2nd and our mild placed 4th). maybe call it a bbq n brew set? I don`t know just some food for thought.No pun intended of course.

Hi Beerlady
Well I`ll tackle #1.
i had a great deal of trouble looking at the enlarged images. The java that was driving it seemed to work funky on my mac. Sometime just a white screen, then I would click on it and it would disappear. The 2nd time I tried it, worked fine.
The large images seemed a little over compressed. Some of them (dark beer) looked like a flash was used from a hand held camera . The flash is blowing out some of the labels.  None of this is a big deal to fix.  I would use even larger images (600 X 600), don`t compress them too much and shoot outside in the shade with the flash off.

Hi Benihana -

Thanks for your comments!  In answer to your question, yes, we do combine products and around Father`s Day we create a summertime bucket with BBQ sauce and mustard - both are made with beer which goes along with our beer theme  :)

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WWW.Bucketobrew.com Need a gift delivered? Make it something good!

Hi, beerlady!

I`m in Meridian, ID and am familiar with your organization.  I`m not sure if I saw a billboard or something downtown, but I remember becoming aware of you about a year or so ago.  Have you had any press in the Statesman - maybe that`s where I saw you.  If not, you guys are a perfect fit for their local lifestyle stories.....

As far as the # of accounts created vs. the number of sales.........it may have something to do with the way your site is set up.  I initially went through your product pages, and then attempted to determine shipping costs through the shopping cart, which prompted me to create an account.  Only afterwards did I realize you had shipping details under the more info tab.   You might want to consider a tab for shipping policies and $$??

I think you`ve got a good thing going.  I probably would have used you over the past year if I`d been more aware of your services.  When I saw your post, I remembered the initial advertising I had come across..........but could not recall any other advertising to keep your name in front of your customers.........are you currently advertising in the valley?  Hey - what about doing something with the Big Easy?  They are practically your neighbor and their clientele would probably be a great market for you.  Steelheads giveaways?  Local radio stations would love your product......

I`ve got some gift occasions coming up and will be making a trip down to 8th street to check you guys out.

Hi Boiseboys (and neighbor!)

Here`s a list of our media coverage - you probably heard about us from one of these:

Media Coverage

Sept ‘04 – feature article in Idaho Business Review

Oct ‘04 – feature article in Idaho Statesman Business Section Wondering what to buy a man?  Try a bucket of beer

Feb ‘05 –  mentioned in The Sunday Oregonian article The Case for a Capital

Apr ’05 –  featured on” Good Morning Treasure Valley” radio show – KBOI AM 670

Jun ‘05 –  mentioned in Idaho Statesman article BoDo Construction: The Trip to 8^th Street Merchants is Well Worth it. 

Jun ‘05 –  mentioned in Idaho Statesman article ­World’s Greatest Dad Father’s Day Gift Guide

Fall ’05 – mention in Boise State University Focus Magazine

Sept ’05 – feature article in Idaho Statesman for First Thursday Come celebrate Bucket o’ Brew’s first birthday

Dec ’05 – mentioned in Idaho Statesman Scene Magazine Hide brew under the tree

Feb ’06 – featured on Speaking on Business radio show; aired twice daily on nine Idaho radio stations

Feb ’06 – Mentioned in Idaho Statesman, First Thursday Valentine’s Day Feature

Feb ’07 – Idaho Statesman, Jeanne Huff Valentine’s Day Gift Guide

March ’07 – Crave segment, Channel Two News

We also purchase radio ads before the major holidays and usually an ad in Thrive.   Oh, and direct mail.  But that`s that hardest part about starting a new business - getting people to know you`re there! 

Anyway, thanks for the great advice.  I will definitely look into a separate page for shipping.  We may have to create different shipping rates because it costs us so much more to ship to the East Coast.  Maybe a page with a shipping calculator would help.

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WWW.Bucketobrew.com Need a gift delivered? Make it something good!

On the `products` page, I`d suggest varying the photos for each of your
beer categories. Right now they are all the same photo and you want to
visually differentiate between the different categories. You have enough
photos to choose from in the interior pages. Pick three different ones.

Are you planning on adding two more categories after the wine bucket? If
you are going to stick with four, I`d stack two on top of each other or put
four across. The blank space is wasted space and awkward.

It took me a while to to view the page. I am not sure if it is my browser, but it took almost two minutes. I would definitely look at that. Sometimes too much traffic at once could slow your server down.

I think it`s a great idea too.  Great for gift giving, and special occasions.  Hence the niche market...(I`m going to save your site too!.) If customers create accounts, I`m sure many of them plan to come back. And if they signed up to receive a newsletter, you can keep in touch. As any business, it takes time.

Your store front, with delivery must do very well. 

On the Products page, it`s a waste of time having the pictures. Instead, have a sub-list on the Products tab....sub-categories. There only are 4, so just put them in text. Then people can go right to those pages. As it stands, there are three pictures that look exactly the same, and one for the wine bucket. Wasted click, in my opinion.

What I`d like to also see is on the "Beer/Wine List" page, instead of only having a link to each company, why not also give each bottle a link to its own page?

I don`t drink, so I didn`t test the mystery of account creation. However, I`m familiar with sites that are so cagey about the costs and shipping that they demand I create an account. Long ago, I used to do that. Now, I just leave the site and shop somewhere else.

As a result of being here on SuN, I found out that this process isn`t the site owner being difficult, it`s the shopping cart software they`re using. So maybe that`s the reason for the high accounts setup, and low orders.

However, I also know that when I`m wandering on the Web I`ll often stumble onto a site that`s very interesting. I`ll bookmark it, knowing I don`t want to buy something today, but certain I`ll buy something in the coming year. That`s 365 days into the future...or somewhere in between, not in the next 30 days.

I like the option of going to a store and choosing when I`ll spend my money. I don`t mind sales, and sometimes don`t mind getting periodic emails letting me know about specials. No more than once a month, but that`s okay. Those stores are where I`ll go with an account, not buy, but *later* do some buying.

Those seem to me to be the two solutions, as people have said above. Otherwise, the site looks nice, it`s easy to use, and if I liked beer, I`d likely give it a shot...see what happened. :-)