Site Layout feedback

[LightingGiants]

Hello all!

Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather, anyways just wanted some feedback if this site can be improved..... the problem we are is facing is although we are getting an average of 2000 hits per month but sales are low.

http://www.susiewest.co.uk/

Thanks

 

[AndyP]

OK.... just had a quick trawl around the site. Nothing particulary wrong with the layout, probably not the way I would do it but thats just me, the site itself is fine. However, there are no, that I could easily see, company details, no contact phone number, only a contact form.... you provide a fax number for what good that is, but no phone number..... this will seriously put people off for starters. Even finding the address is no easy matter....you don't exactly broadcast it. Yoru stock is extremely limited and this is probably the biggest showstopper.....you simply don't have much on offer. There could be other stuff but I am just passing thru right now....others will chip I'm sure. Nothing is insurmountable, you really just need to offer more and be more transparent to give your pottential customers some confidence in you.

 

[Chunkford]

Andy is spot on with his reply, customers want to know who they are dealing with. You need to gain their trust.
It will be easy to do in actinic, just add a brochure page, call it 'about us', add your fragments and add the link to the new page in your nav bar.
Also add your phone number, or email address next to your header logo.

 

[mobyme]

I think the previous poster has hit the nail on the head. The site badly needs more information on it including your returns policy.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Also add a shippings page and returns policy, and link these off the home page, so that people can see before they start shopping how much P&P is going to be.

 

[LightingGiants]

Thank You Very much to all for your prompt replies appreciate the comments I shall get on to it

Thanks

 

[JamesCartwright]

When you say sales are low, how many do you mean?

Most websites have conversion rates below 10%, and that's quite normal - even for a really good website.

 

[LightingGiants]

too be honest ive never worked out the conversion rate for this site, there is a seo company who comes in and tells me how miny hits the site has had what time they have spent on the page but never had a chance to question what is happening as i have been busy with other aspects of business now that i have a lot more free time on m hand i would like to develop this further..

how do i work out conversion rates, avg basket value etc.

many thanks for your reply appreciate your comments

 

[jolew]

I'm far from an expert (and that's an understatement!!). Your conversion rate - if you have say 100 unique visitors and 5 actually buy something, then that's a 5% conversion rate. Average Basket value - if you have 2 sales, one for £10, and the other one for £90, then the average is £50 (£100 / 2)....Seems pretty basic stuff tbh... But then some people win the Apprentice without knowing the difference between Net and Gross profit!!!

 

[LightingGiants]

lol cheers joel I dint think i would be using the same formulas learnt in school its just that i came across this weird and wonderful formula on another forum and that was failry complex to work out average basket value.

lol thanks joel appreciate the advice

 

[jubba]

Apart from the other good logical comments.

It is hard to get a lot of sales out of such a small selection of goods aimed at a niche market, I would not worry about the volume of visitorship vs conversions as anyone can get visitors with no sales, try extending your ranges and adding accessories, Try to promote directly to the clubbing/wine bar clients directly. sexy people handing out flyers. mabey using magazines/fanzines ect.

I can see you set out the pages around small monitor sizes but you really need larger main shots, you poor models are having to have either their heads chopped off or their feet missing..

Actinic is not great for a young funky meaning website I would go for a more dynamic solution like magento with a inspiring theme.

Oh and if you know a couple of wags get them pi**3d chuck them in a gutter with smudged eyeliner and take a few pics sell them to the mags and make sure they mention you.....

 

[david64]

eCom sites can be really tough to get going because most people don't like to buy from retailers they have never heard of. That will always be the biggest problem with your site.

Also, I don't think your site has been produced with usability and converting visitors in mind. The homepage is pretty good, but as you progress through the site, the pages are less enthralling and engaging accumulating in a checkout which is not what it needs to be - childishly simple.

I think you have a decent base to work on. You are using Actinic, which I don't rate - plus is makes a mess of your HTML. There are a few areas I would look to improve:

Usability
Communicating with your audience
Link building
Strategy

The latter is the most important.

 

[traxor]

It's okay, nothing special though. There is very little padding on the content area, and it could do with a little more spacing to get rid of that 'cluttered' look that it has at the moment. It kind of looks like a generic eCommerce site and isn't doing anything special, you should look into some typography, navigation and layout modifications to make the site much more appealing.

Head over to the e-commerce gallery for a little inspiration .

 

[malcolmcoles]

If it were me, I'd ditch the 'Summer spectacular' thing on the home page (does it have a point? You can't even click it).

And then I'd massively upweight the visiblity of your main sections (tops, dresses etc). When I first come to your home page it should be really obvious what you sell but I have to hunt around for it. So put the main categories in the main content area in a big font next to some pics that illustrate them and add a big call to action button (EG 'See our great tops NOW')

Also, is this a spot the difference?!?: http://www.susiewest.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Tops.html

 

[LightingGiants]

Thank you very much for the feedback.

I shall get onto this and will get the developers to implement the feedback.

Appreciate all your feedback.

I just would have thought a proffesional company developing websites would have managed to get this right first time round.

Regards

LG

 

[Nickdavis87]

I have not had a good look around but the first thing that springs to mind is that the pictures are too small on the category page, and also very few people are going to add to cart etc from the category page (in my opinion) for this product type so i would get rid of the add to cart stuff and stick with price and picture.

For a good example of a well implemented clothing store i tend to look at things like asos.

 

[fisicx]

I just would have thought a proffesional company developing websites would have managed to get this right first time round.

Nope, and that's the problem - they are looking the the programming, how to query the database and display the results. Many developers haven't got a clue how to build a usable website.