Anyone want to give me some website feedback?

[Poita (Peter)]

I've been involved doing some photography and setup for a company that sells blinds online.
I made some recommendations to change their website, but they are somewhat reluctant to change.

If anyone has some free time, I'd like your thoughts on what you think of their site, be brutal

www.materialworldblinds.com.au

I'll be interested to see if your feedback matches mine, or if I am way off base.

They are an old family company, and don't really understand online retail all that much so it is a bit like pulling teeth sometimes.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Looks alright to me

Flash

[mplanet62 (Michael)]

Pleasant site - one of too many. it has a very nice "home" feel - but misses on gadgets and imagery. Too static. As a possible customer I would be interested in overall look (present) as well as some detail (not really present). So, having a picture of full view of blinds changing to closeup when mouse comes on it would be a great improvement. Getting rid of any trace of formality (like logons) on first page and further promoting friendly "home" feel would be beneficial in my humble opinion. People have enough "greatness" from retail outlets. Mind it, main decision makers for this stuff are mostly housewives.

[allan gould]

Michaels post above really captures the essence in that it's women who do this type of shopping and the imagery on the site is extremely poor and uninformative
The photos need to be at least 4-6 times larger and have a detail of the individual components as well as an overview. One of the images looked to be of a bed and not the blind behind it.
People really need to see as much of the item as possible as well as colour ranges and alternate fittings.
Additionally some of the images are way out of focus and there is no detailing of the material variation they offer.

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

hi Peter

being a joomla based site (yes?) i thought you might be able to improve the graphics presentation a bit better perhaps
(as an example - your front page main graphic of 3 images - the transition could be automated instead of the 1 2 3 selection which had me thinking at first what it was for)
lots of components and modules available for transitions, mouse overs, sizes etc
i had to really look to find the home button
where you only have a single product on a page, i would center it and enlarge the size to fill the page view (reduce the white space)

basically i thought it was ok - with room for a bit of fine tuning

geoff

[Poita (Peter)]

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far, most of it is in line with my report, but there have been some great ideas that I hadn't thought of.

The photography isn't final yet, a lot of the blurry photos are placeholders until I can get the photography done (waiting on the products to arrive so I can photograph them).

The products are made at a factory in QLD, so they don't have any promo images or anything, it all has to be created.

Keep it coming

[acropolite (Phil)]

Firstly the positives, I like the simplicity of the site and the site does what is needed without clutter.

I don't like the tabs on the images, the content fills about half my screen the rest is waste, it's not that difficult to make a page that resizes to suit the browser. The links around the banner area could do with more emphasis, the Home/About us/Contact links could be moved to the lower part of the banner and there is too much space wasted in the banner area. Also, there is a lot of space wasted in the menu area at the left that could be used for the content that has to be scrolled to access now.

In a nutshell too much wasted space.

[Poita (Peter)]

Thanks Phil, that is really great feedback re the space usage.
What do you mean by the tabs on the images? Do you mean the 'price' in the corner of them?

Geoff, it isn't a Joomla based site, but those suggestions could still be done and are a good idea.

[CosMos (Rich)]

Peter, check out the website that I set up and maintain for a charity in NZ.
http://www.sfauckland.org.nz/
Notice that it gives two testimonials, one from a family member and one from a professional accreditation organisation on the Home Page...helps to build trust. Then a small blurb about what we do and how we do it with a link to further info.

When a customer enters a website, they want to know why they should buy from that retailer, can they trust them. Why are they any different from any other similar retailer. This needs to be prominent and to the upper left. The front page needs to be clean and uncluttered and easy to navigate.

I find the large red banner irritating and the large writing the same. Anyway, hopefully that is helpful. Best of luck in changing their minds.

[Poita (Peter)]

Thanks for the feedback, that is good advice. I'm struggling to read the grey on blue on my iPhone, but I'll have a proper look when I get home.

Yeah, changing Luddite's minds is always a challenge!