Ecommerce stores - recent observations

Design, layout etc of stores Ive seen

[Essex_boy]

Recently Ive been swopping links, or attempting to swop links, with ecom stores that have a similar theme to mine, Ive been surprised at:

Stores that use a free email like hotmail.com etc for a point of contact.

Dire (I mean dire) websites, some look like they have been put up in around 10 minutes by a 12 year old.

And you know what? These were sites in DMOZ, makes you think doesnt it?

So what are your horror storys then?

[FalseDawn]

You only have to browse any number of shopping cart forums for a few minutes for a never ending supply of amateurish howlers.

[sniffer]

that annoys me slightly, because we still cant get into dmoz even though we are a reference site (albeit commercial in nature) for professionals for over 5 years

the worst in my industry are those who use font size large>large>large etc so that H1 is an inch thick! Seo? hehe

[lgn1]

If a site looks amateurish graphically, but is well laid out and easy to navigate, customer will still buy; that is why these sites are still around.

They have not blow their budget on graphic designers.

Take a look at Google. Guess how many graphic designers they have employed.

RETRO SELLS!

[Essex_boy]

But Google looks clean a professional you look at some of theses sites, yellow background red text and dancing Gifs!

I wouldnt mind if they were laid out nicley but their not.

[RailMan]

don't worry about their sites, worry about yours!
if their sites are cr*p and yours is good, you'll make more sales than them - let them fester and die!

[ectect]

I imagine a lot of us started off with red backrounds, yellow text and dancing gifs - looks pretty good when it's your first attempt, no point knocking it.

[jweighell]

A little while ago, I spend some time looking through all the other sites in my DMOZ category...

One thing that really stood out was how many of the sites didn't make their shipping information easy to find. This is such a simple thing to do to help conversions, but so many people get this wrong. I really shouldn't have to hunt around in the help pages or start to register to find this out.

I've added a simple banner to my site "Delivery only £3.99 - FREE delivery on orders over £45". Keeping shipping charges simple to understand is also very important in my opinion.

As others have said, what a site looks like is generally unimportant - it's how usable it is and how easy it is for a customer to find the products they want that is important. Badly organised categories or confusing navigation are things I've seen in the past (and have been guilty of myself!).

And once a customer has found the products they want, there must be plenty of information and good images to make them want to buy - another thing that some sites seem to not take seriously!

[jsinger]

I've added a simple banner to my site "Delivery only £3.99 - FREE delivery on orders over £45". Keeping shipping charges simple to understand is also very important in my opinion.

I think there is a very welcome trend in that direction. Fixed shipping costs work well for many types of products sent domestically.

Just because modern carts can handle a thousand different shipping options doesn't mean you need more than one or two.

One beauty of the K.I.S.S. method is that you can instantly tell phone callers how much their order will cost to ship.

BTW, we advantage of having "free shipping" at some point is that your site may come up in a SE when someone looks for +widgets +"free shipping"

[Essex_boy]

no point knocking it - Its hard not to.

After all we go to great lengths to get it right and still cant get in to DMOZ.

[FalseDawn]

DMOZ is practically an anachronism now anyway - little point bothering with it.