Complete Makeover

[Toon]

Hi there,

I have spent the last couple of weeks totally revamping my site from scratch. I have listed special offers on every page, cross-sell products when on product listings, put the best selling brands all in the same place, create a drop down list on every page for easier navigation and much more.
I have also set up a VIP section where customers can view their order history and current order status etc.
There's a few small things that don't work which will be fixed shortly and a few other features will be added including the chance to add product reviews etc.

The site is located at www.devilwear.co.uk and I'll be happy for your comments.

 

[SillyJokes]

I am going to brutal because that's all I know ) also I hope you will find at least a couple of points you can work with.

I really don't like the site. The navigation is confusing and doesn't follow any web standards at all. The colour is not great, there's no constancy of style across the home page.

the ad in the middle of the page makes little or no sense in the context of a clothing shop - does it bring in a lot of money? If not loose it.

some text resizes, some doesn't

you should add a search

flash entry pages are to be avoided

there is no home button. Your logo returns the surfer to the flash entry page.

the images look a bit of a mish mash. If you are taking your own it would be worth your while in setting up a consistant style, maybe even your own studio which needn't cost a packet.

The animated images are distracting not attractive.

top affiliates will not like a prominent telephone number

There's a lot more I could say but I'll leave it at that for now.

 

[Toon]

I must say I'm quite dissappointed with your reply as I done some good research and looked at competitors websites to make sure I made a good decision.

I personally feel that the layout is the best I have prepared.

I'm not sure what you mean by navigation. The main links are across the top which will be the ones people mainly use, there's a few others at the bottom just like most sites (this forum included). There's a few others to the sides which aren't too important as they are incorporated into other links but are there for ease. The main navigation system is used in the drop down list. You can go to any main page on the site from wherever you are. That's got to be so simple! I also thought this was even easier than a search facility.

I partially agree about the ad. It's the best performing ad we have but I plan to introuduce different banners on different pages.

The home button is the DevilWear logo (top left). As mentioned in my first post, some things need fixing. When you click on the logo on the majority of pages, it takes you to the home page, some pages (not that many - you must have been unlucky) have the wrong link but that will be changed shortly. You can also access the home page from the dropdown.

All photos will eventually be of the manaquin. Not enough hours in the day

We receive very few orders over the phone so the number is really there so people know they have a phone number if they need to chase things up. If they did make an order over the phone, I will ask where they found the site and refer the affiliate accordingly if appropriate.

Comments appreciated. Keep them coming

 

[SillyJokes]

I had a quick look at what I'm only guessing are competitors.

Yoox is a very clean and simple site. Navigation is down the left where people expect to find it and they have a simple boys or girls version of the site.

Sportzwear which resembles your range more also has a unified look although I think their christmas snow is absolutely horrible.

Their site nav is very clear and their USP unique selling points are clearly displayed up on the right.

You can also see how good their images look - I'm sure you can produce the same standard in time.

ASOS is also a great site with very clear nav., attractive images and a killer USP in that they sell stuff famous people like.


A search is important because a high proportion of people like to use them.

You talk about how people will use your site. How do you know how they will? You are hoping. I used to do that. I would really recommend you read, "Don't make me think," by Steve Krug. It is simply brilliant. He describes how you can run a usability test on your website with just a few people very very cheaply and reap the most amazing insights into how people will use your site.

For instance you may find people only navigate by the logos on the left in which case it would pay you to make them look a lot better.

If you can get people comfortable with using your site they will stay longer and come back more often.

Another quick comment is your orange bar at the top looks a little like an advert rather than a useful part of the site. This will mean some people may ignore it. This effect is enhanced by the ad banners you already have.

ASOS have ad banners but I've never been a fan. You're either a shop or you're an affiliate site. Ads make it look like you can't get enough revenue from your core business.

Anyhow, I have savaged you enough. I really hope you can sit down and watch just a couple of people perform a task on your site. It was a revelation to us when we did ours and we made some major and beneficial changes as a result. Usability is virtually a religion for me and I think it should be for everyone in all aspects of life.

 

[Sibs]

Hi

I only would like to briefly add to what had already been said.

Firstly, the splash page - if a site has one I tend not to be bothered with the rest of the site because I don't want to hang around and watch it, I know I don't have to but I see no useful purpose for it.

Secondly, the first thing I notice is the logo & images down the left bar, these are poor quality and should be replaced.

I briefly looked at a couple of the womenswear pages but came across some errors which need looking at.

I hope this helps.

Thanks
Sarah

PS Another good book which really helps when designing a site is Homepage Usability by Jakob Neilsen & Marie Tahir

 

[gary]

Hi Toon

Here are my thoughts:

I agree with removing the Flash intro - it serves no purpose. and just puts people off.

The logos on the left are of a very poor quality and this leaves the impression the site as a whole is of a poor quality.

Dump the banner ads - they just cheapen the site. If you're going to use them, use them to sell your own products.

There are a LOT of errors! I know you are aware of this, but make sure you fix them all. Even one error can put people off buying from you.

The shopping basket colouring is totally different to the rest of the site. It's also left-aligned when the rest of the site is centered.

Don't forget the little things. Your copyright sign shows as (c) - use the proper HTML code to get the proper copyright sign.

Hope that helps!

Gary

 

[kyber]

I am afraid I support the comments already made.

Despite your efforts, which I am sure have demanded blood, sweat and tears from you, the overall site does not work as effectively as it could IMHO. Whilst I am sure it is bringing you business, I am sure you could do better.

I believe that your core proposition is a good one but the overall image created by the site is of poor quality and demonstrates a lack of attention to detail. I also do not get a strong "brand" identity coming through.

Your visual identity is not well developed and implemented. Perhaps you would benefit from someone training/trained in marketing visual arts to help you as I suspect you are probably suffering from a wood-for-trees problem.

You are right about navigation at the top being the most popular generally. The category links though, for example of a problem, seem disconnected from from this.

I appreciate the time and effort that goes into getting decent images of your products and that you will get around to this. (I remember when launching the websites for B&Q and Woolworths the complex and expensive efforts we had to go to to get this right - and for the record, I did not agree with the original online proposition for Woolworths but that is another story).

It would come as no surprise to me that I would not be within any of your customer segmentations. No doubt [actually, lots of doubt as I have not discussed this with you and am guessing] your target segments expect and are attracted to something more dynamic and less "corporatey" than some of the biggers brands (you are more like the LA surf scene perhaps?) but the site still needs to be clear and push your key proposition and brand loudly and clearly.

A few specific points:

• retail sites perform less well when there are launch pages involved
• images are not of good/consistent quality
• your non-product images are not contributing much value to site
• the mid-page ad is distracting and not obviously connected to your proposition
• navigation is a little confusing
• what the hell is the clock for?
• background on cart is overwhelming - certainly not accesibility compliant as contrast is poor
• hard to continue shopping after adding to cart
• form pre-population for unknown customers can frighten customers off
• don't insist people tell you where they heard of you
• cart is on different domain to product pages - can put people off
• secure page is different scheme to cart (let along main site) - again, can put people off
• seems to be a problem with session management anyway - have you tested this properly?
• different logo of cart - does not take me back to main site
• "I'm sorry, you seem to have made a mistake or clicked on an old link. Please visit our home page at www.devilwear.co.uk." - oops, sorry, just trying to buy something from you!!!
• link in last does not work anyway
• actually, given up - site keeps breaking, have started new session, difficulty adding more than one item to cart.

Was that the sort of feedback you were looking for?

Stuart

 

[Toon]

That's certainly enough to keep me going Thanks for taking the time to review the site. A couple of comments:

The clock was placed there as it was requested by a few customers when i asked them about my old site! I agree it serves no real purpose but I don't think it does any harm!

The cart is configured to blend in with the old site and will be reconfigured shortly.

The error message has been fixed.

What do you mean by your last point: "Site keeps breaking"?

 

[kyber]

What do you mean by your last point: "Site keeps breaking"?

In my playing around with the cart, I got to a point where I got errors in the html stream and was unable to break out of the cycle. I imagine if I had closed my browser and waited a few minutes, all would have been well. Sorry I can not be more precise than that off the top of my head (on a client-site in Cork at the moment waiting for a workshop I am running to start). I would suggest though that you get a set of "tame" users/customers to do their worst with the cart and see how it holds up. There may be session management and usability problems in this area.

Stuart

 

[Toon]

Changes made so far:

• Logo should now always point to homepage.
  Flash Intro removed
  Colouring and logo changed on cart
  Continue shopping button added to cart

 

[SillyJokes]

On the affiliate front, top affiliates do not like prominant telephone numbers and if you ask your customers where they found you on the phone they will not be able to remember with any accuracy. Affiliates know this.

10% commission seems quite high for clothing sold at rock bottom prices - are you sure you can afford this? It will be difficult to reduce commission in the future.

A 14 day cookie is too short. Serious affiliates will find better deals elsewhere. 30 days is really the minimum.

 

[Toon]

I've always had a phone number on the site and affiliates new this when they signed up. Outwaying the pros and cons of having the number there, I'd prefer to leave it. I have many more orders coming in from Google searches and such than affiliates.

The average order value is £25 so commission is going to be around £2.50. That's not a bad price to pay for a customer who could potentially come back again and again. I'd much prefer to pay people 10% than to pay per click which isn't guaranteed a sale and is potentially dead money.

I was thinking about increasing the cookie length and may increase it to 21 days for now with a view of further increasing it in the future.

 

[SillyJokes]

I've just told you that your affiliate program is unattractive to top affiliates and you say that you don't do much business through affiliates.

These statements actually support each other.

You would do more business through your affiliates if you had an attractive offering for them which meant top affiliates promote you. Their SEO skills are excellent and they can really drive sales.

I know for a fact that ASOS does a massive amount it's business through their affiliates for instance.

I've probably hassled you enough already. I hope the comments from everyone help your business become a success.

 

[gary]

Toon, your affiliates are going to expect a 90 day cookie at least, and to be honest they probably wouldn't bother with anything less. The phone number is always a contentious issue with affiliates (though we have kept ours visible) and some won't work with you at all while the phone number is easily visible. That said, probably less than 1% of our orders are done by phone, and sometimes it's people who have been given the phone number to call - they haven't even seen the website! So affiliates are certainly not losing sales as a result.

As Caroline says, ASOS (formerly AsSeenOnScreen.com) has a massive affiliate base who generate a large amount of their sales (from what I'm told), but you have to give the affiliates what they want. If you're serious about affiliate programs, have a look at the Affiliate Forum at http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/ - you need to register to see all the forums, but it's the best place for affiliate information in the UK, IMHO.

HTH!

Gary

 

[Toon]

Thanks. I'm already a member of the a4u forum. I think what I should do first is contact my existing affiliates to see what I could do to make them sell more and see what suggestions they have.