Website Design Ideas...

[Elizabeth Parker]

Hi there, hoping you all can give me some advice...

We're in the process of overhauling our website, and I'm not too sure which direction to take. We currently only really sell to wholesalers, and we have a big name in the wholesale market, but we're virtually unknown to consumers. However we want to change this and start selling directly via our eCommerce solution.

My uncertainty lies in whether to optimise the home page of the site to look like an eCommerce store, i.e. display products on the home page, or do we make the homepage more of a brand showcase as we're trying to really boost our brand and we only sell our products, and keep the product/catalogue pages for selling?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[Paul Murray]

A lot of online stores display the products on the homepage in a way that shows off their beauty and entices consumers to buy into the idea or the lifestyle that's portrayed. Rolex are a company that do this, they show off the detail within their watches

Think of the landing page as a beautifully designed shop window that entices people to stop and look closer. It highlights the details in the products and is your chance to sell, without literally selling. It also enables you to appeal to your demographic with imagery that will appeal to them, and filter out anyone who's not your target market.

The imagery on the Levis landing page (http://www.levi.com/GB/en_GB/) for example says more about what you'll get up to in their clothing than the products themselves. Once consumers have bought into the idea of a lifestyle or a brand being for them, they're more likely to buy the actual product.

An eCommerce layout (i.e. a grid of products) will likely detract from the individual products, so I'd be tempted to keep it out of the way until users want to see more items and instead hit them with bold, professional photography of your products (possibly within a lifestyle context).

 

[fisicx]

I've just looked at the site and apart from being a bit dated it's fine as it is. No real need to overhaul anything, all you need to do is get rid of this awful backgrounds and make it responsive.

 

[Elizabeth Parker]

I've just looked at the site and apart from being a bit dated it's fine as it is. No real need to overhaul anything, all you need to do is get rid of this awful backgrounds and make it responsive.

Really?! I can't help but feel the site looks amateurish, like it was built at home (but trust me, a lot of money was spent on it just a year ago before I recently joined the company). There's no product filtering option, the header menu is way too busy, the search bar is at the bottom (?!), and the background colours change throughout the site... I wouldn't buy from that site; would you?!

I understand we need to focus on converting visitors into sales, but we're also trying to build a brand as we only sell our products. The site in it's current form I don't feel will provide a good platform to build the brand... our brand is mid-range luxury, high quality, etc., and the site needs to reflect this...?

 

[Elizabeth Parker]

A lot of online stores display the products on the homepage in a way that shows off their beauty and entices consumers to buy into the idea or the lifestyle that's portrayed. Rolex are a company that do this, they show off the detail within their watches

Think of the landing page as a beautifully designed shop window that entices people to stop and look closer. It highlights the details in the products and is your chance to sell, without literally selling. It also enables you to appeal to your demographic with imagery that will appeal to them, and filter out anyone who's not your target market.

The imagery on the Levis landing page for example says more about what you'll get up to in their clothing than the products themselves. Once consumers have bought into the idea of a lifestyle or a brand being for them, they're more likely to buy the actual product.

An eCommerce layout (i.e. a grid of products) will likely detract from the individual products, so I'd be tempted to keep it out of the way until users want to see more items and instead hit them with bold, professional photography of your products (possibly within a lifestyle context).

Thanks for the thorough reply Paul. That's the kind of idea I was leaning towards, you just made it sound better!

Cheers

Ryan

 

[fisicx]

Really?! I can't help but feel the site looks amateurish, like it was built at home (but trust me, a lot of money was spent on it just a year ago before I recently joined the company). There's no product filtering option, the header menu is way too busy, the search bar is at the bottom (?!), and the background colours change throughout the site... I wouldn't buy from that site; would you?!

I understand we need to focus on converting visitors into sales, but we're also trying to build a brand as we only sell our products. The site in it's current form I don't feel will provide a good platform to build the brand... our brand is mid-range luxury, high quality, etc., and the site needs to reflect this...?

You misunderstood my comment. The layout of the site is (mostly) controlled by the CSS. Fix the CSS and you will have soreted most of the issues.

Product filtering and search bar locations are just a matter of tweaking a bit of code. The header menu is a 5 minute fix.

What makes me want to buy from you are the products. Some of the cufflinks are stunning and I've already hinted to my wife that Christmas is around the corner.

Focus on the products, get more images, longer descriptions and show me ranges. The brand comes later - you may want to build the brand but your customers just want the products.

The site really isn't that bad. If you want the full review joun the forum as a full member and you will get all the help you need.

 

[kulture]

No site reviews guys, they are against the rules unless in the private forums for full members. The OP asked a general question regarding the difference between B2B sites and B2C sites and whether the home page should concentrate on the brand or products. SO keep any reply general please.

 

[RepricerExpress]

The homepage should focus on creating a good first impression of the company with enticing imagery and nice branding.

Personally, l wouldn't display your products to buy here but it's good to show them in the images.

Product/catalogue selling pages should be easy to find for customers from the homepage navigation menu. Good luck.

 

[antropy]

I've just looked at the site and apart from being a bit dated it's fine as it is. No real need to overhaul anything, all you need to do is get rid of this awful backgrounds and make it responsive.

I did write quite a detailed reply about why I think it does need an overhaul but it got deleted because site reviews aren't allowed unless you're a full member.

However probably safe to say this design doesn't just need a few tweaks here and there to bring it in line with the luxury brand it should be.

 

[Elizabeth Parker]

Hi @antropy. I managed to read it before it got deleted (and luckily a copy was sent to my email address) - very useful stuff and I agree, the site doesn't reflect the brand image at all. I'll likely sign up as a full member shortly to post it in the website review section as well.

Thanks for your help people!

Ryan

 

[antropy]

Great stuff. I didn't mean to break the forum rules, I just wanted to explain to you and @fisicx why I thought there were fundamental flaws with the design.

And I can definitely recommend full membership

 

[tylnewcastle]

I guess experimenting is what you need to do. We are also, experimenting with a website, wherein we are not putting products on the home page, but just the description about the product category along with a link which will take them to the page for shopping that category of product.

Yes, building a brand does help, but it's a long walk. In this long walk you can obviously experiment and try out new ideas instead of just using old tried and tested methods. You need to be unique to create a brand image.

 

[deniser]

How do your retail customers feel about you selling directly to the public?

I know that I for one would discontinue stocking a product that my supplier was selling directly to the public.

 

[Faevilangel]

Personally I would do 2 sites, one B2B and one B2Cm that means you can have different checkout processes, different marketing material etc

If you add a B2C shop on a B2B site it can dilute the message to both types of customer, you will have larger costs to build 2 sites but in the long run it will enable you to prioritise the marketing to the separate sites.

 

[Elizabeth Parker]

How do your retail customers feel about you selling directly to the public?

I know that I for one would discontinue stocking a product that my supplier was selling directly to the public.

Our wholesalers are already aware of our retail intentions and always have been, it won't be a problem. For the most part we actually design exclusive lines for our wholesalers/retailers in the UK so there isn't much in the way of competition, and those who buy from our catalogue are mostly selling abroad in shops.

 

[deniser]

Our wholesalers are already aware of our retail intentions and always have been, it won't be a problem. For the most part we actually design exclusive lines for our wholesalers/retailers in the UK so there isn't much in the way of competition, and those who buy from our catalogue are mostly selling abroad in shops.

That's good.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

The homepage needs to showcase the products, either by a slider or by displaying the cream of the crop of your products on the homepage.
You can make the wholesaler landing page all about the Brand. New clients are primarily going to be interested in seeing the products. Make sure you use the word cufflinks when naming the images, in the ALT tags and in the product description. This way, suddenly Google will see hundreds of cufflink pages and will give you a better ranking for the keyword 'cufflinks'. Those images will also appear in Google Images too.
You should also start an article section to enhance your Brand and online profile.

 

[fisicx]

Make sure you use the word cufflinks when naming the images, in the ALT tags and in the product description. This way, suddenly Google will see hundreds of cufflink pages and will give you a better ranking for the keyword 'cufflinks'. Those images will also appear in Google Images too.

That advice was ok 10 years ago but Google won't take the slightest notice of these technioques anymore.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

Well, it is still working for me and my clients. If you type 'glass ornaments' into Google images you will see loads of images from Boha Glass (my wife's art glass shop), because I labelled them in the way I outlined above. Things may have moved on apace, but Google still needs to display relevant content and it can't do that unless we tell it

 

[fisicx]

Nope, it's the page title and the product name that gets you there not the alt text.

PS: I only see three images, you may well be seeing personalised results. And your site keeps crashing my browser....

 

[The Byre]

Personally I would do 2 sites, one B2B and one B2Cm that means you can have different checkout processes, different marketing material etc

If you add a B2C shop on a B2B site it can dilute the message to both types of customer, you will have larger costs to build 2 sites but in the long run it will enable you to prioritise the marketing to the separate sites.

THIS!

When in doubt, copy somebody who works in a totally different industry! Look at www.simplyhops.com - they are the B2C and B2-micro brewery arm of the very large Barth-Haas Group from Germany - the largest and oldest supplier of hops in the World. They sell hops by the truck-load to large breweries, but they also sell 5kg packs of hops to home brewers and have contract and call-up orders for micro-breweries.

The guy needing 20 tons of hops by Tuesday is a totally different beast to the guy who wants to mug-up a few gallons of beer for his usual Saturday night kegger!

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

Agreed. The product title and description are the most important factors in getting your images listed into Google Images

 

[branddesignexperts]

Hi there, hoping you all can give me some advice...

However we want to change this and start selling directly via our eCommerce solution.

What I understand is that you want your brand name more visible with the products supplied by you. For this customers need to relate products with your brand name. Along with website design you can use ads to associate product with the brand name.

Also, have the product links from the website home page as normally the most viewed page is home page and customer can find the respective product from there. In short have a high quality internal linking.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

If you are advertising and promoting your brand then the home page will be the most visited. But if you break your product section down into niche keyword-rich categories (cufflinks for men gets 3600 searches per month on Google UK, silver cufflinks gets 1900 etc etc) then it will be those internal pages that most people searching by product will arrive at.

Elizabeth Parker only gets 170 searches per month whereas cufflink keywords get over 10,000 searches per month, so you should also market yourself to people searching directly for products.

By combining Brand Marketing with a coherent online marketing strategy you can have the best of both worlds. You can have space on the homepage to promote your brand (and some product categories) and the internal pages will be busy drawing in huge traffic from product-specific searches in the Google listings.