New business startup - criticism and feedback
Discussion
This query could probably be in the Computers and Stuff section, but the Gassing Station> BUSINESS section is normally my first port of call.
[MARKETING SPIEL ON]
Anyway, my other half has after much research, surveys, hard work and heartache, just launched her new business website selling plus sized ballgowns, bridesmaid dresses and cocktail dresses:
www.berkswelldirect.com
The site is aimed at the plus sized niche of the market, but smaller sizes are also catered for, especially useful where a bride wants all her bridesmaids, big and small to be co-ordinated (apparently).
[10% discount code for pistonheaders using the case-sensitive password "piston"]
[MARKETING SPIEL OFF]
I have tried breaking the site, before it is launched into the wide open world, but it might be better if someone a bit further from the project takes a look to make sure it is working properly and that something stupid has not been missed out.
Constructive criticism and feedback is welcome (wanted actually).
Thanks in advance.
Alan
[MARKETING SPIEL ON]
Anyway, my other half has after much research, surveys, hard work and heartache, just launched her new business website selling plus sized ballgowns, bridesmaid dresses and cocktail dresses:
www.berkswelldirect.com
The site is aimed at the plus sized niche of the market, but smaller sizes are also catered for, especially useful where a bride wants all her bridesmaids, big and small to be co-ordinated (apparently).
[10% discount code for pistonheaders using the case-sensitive password "piston"]
[MARKETING SPIEL OFF]
I have tried breaking the site, before it is launched into the wide open world, but it might be better if someone a bit further from the project takes a look to make sure it is working properly and that something stupid has not been missed out.
Constructive criticism and feedback is welcome (wanted actually).
Thanks in advance.
Alan
the site looks good !
the only thing I would mention - is the name the right one for the firm? It may be off puting in the first instance. It may be too late to change or not desirable i dont know.
If you had in the name part of what you sell/design that may help with search engines and directory listings. ie 'Dress with style direct' etc.
my firm has my name in the title but I would not if I was just starting our again I would try to incorporate what i do into the name.
Best wishes & Good luck. be careful with staff.
the only thing I would mention - is the name the right one for the firm? It may be off puting in the first instance. It may be too late to change or not desirable i dont know.
If you had in the name part of what you sell/design that may help with search engines and directory listings. ie 'Dress with style direct' etc.
my firm has my name in the title but I would not if I was just starting our again I would try to incorporate what i do into the name.
Best wishes & Good luck. be careful with staff.
I like it. Obviously I've not done ANY market research on it, but in principle it sounds great.
It looks good too. I like the layout, and from what I just tested all seems to work fluidly as you would expect.
The only 2 minor points would be this, maybe it may be worth pitching it a little less at the larger market. I realise that's it's best selling point but it's not the only one. I think as you mentioned in your post the fact that you can get ALL sizes from one place is a HUGE plus. I think you maybe need to emphasise that and incorporate the fact that you "go large" into that message as it wasn't immediately noticeable to me. If that makes any sense?
The second point was the sizing. I read your reasons why you put things in US sizes, but that is the major let down to the site. I realise women are probably more acutely aware of their dress size than I am of my waist size, but it's a hassle that surely doesn;t need to be there? You give them a sizing chart which could be built into an interactive part of the site - maybe a "Size Slider" that as you move up the inches for bust/waist/hips indepentently it will change the value in the required size window.
These are 2 minor points and for what it's worth I like it and I think if you can market it, you will be onto a winner. This, I have found, is the hardest part of any new busines startup - you may be the best, but if people don't know about it they are not going to use you.
Hope that helps,
JC
It looks good too. I like the layout, and from what I just tested all seems to work fluidly as you would expect.
The only 2 minor points would be this, maybe it may be worth pitching it a little less at the larger market. I realise that's it's best selling point but it's not the only one. I think as you mentioned in your post the fact that you can get ALL sizes from one place is a HUGE plus. I think you maybe need to emphasise that and incorporate the fact that you "go large" into that message as it wasn't immediately noticeable to me. If that makes any sense?
The second point was the sizing. I read your reasons why you put things in US sizes, but that is the major let down to the site. I realise women are probably more acutely aware of their dress size than I am of my waist size, but it's a hassle that surely doesn;t need to be there? You give them a sizing chart which could be built into an interactive part of the site - maybe a "Size Slider" that as you move up the inches for bust/waist/hips indepentently it will change the value in the required size window.
These are 2 minor points and for what it's worth I like it and I think if you can market it, you will be onto a winner. This, I have found, is the hardest part of any new busines startup - you may be the best, but if people don't know about it they are not going to use you.
Hope that helps,
JC
Thanks for the feedback, I'll relay it back for evaluation.
I'd agree with a lot of what you both have said, especially the US size issues, which is currently been looked at as we speak (might take a while though).
Don't think a name change is going to be possible at the moment, although thats definitely something for the future and other enterprises.
As part of the marketing, Gateway HTML pages are going to be used to explain the dresses and size availability issues as search engines don't spider the database part of the website very well, if at all.
Its going to be a slow burn process of recognition
Cheers
>> Edited by thepeoplespal on Sunday 14th November 01:28
I'd agree with a lot of what you both have said, especially the US size issues, which is currently been looked at as we speak (might take a while though).
Don't think a name change is going to be possible at the moment, although thats definitely something for the future and other enterprises.
As part of the marketing, Gateway HTML pages are going to be used to explain the dresses and size availability issues as search engines don't spider the database part of the website very well, if at all.
Its going to be a slow burn process of recognition
Cheers
>> Edited by thepeoplespal on Sunday 14th November 01:28
some random comments:
-on visiting the site i clicked "checkout" (top right). it took me straight to "Step 2 Shipping Info". Not sure that should happen. (was just checking you used SSL for the payment section...)
-shop by category list and shopping cart list have capital letters for each item whereas policies & info list is lower case. everywhere else uses lower case for buttons too. Same should apply to the checkout titles which have caps.
-Copyright notice isnt 100%. Should read:
Copyright © 2004 Berkswell Direct. All rights reserved. (otherwise it's not accepted worldwide)
-design looks tidy, well-laid out. curiously if you have a physical presence, is the design consistent with the shop and marketing literature?
-on visiting the site i clicked "checkout" (top right). it took me straight to "Step 2 Shipping Info". Not sure that should happen. (was just checking you used SSL for the payment section...)
-shop by category list and shopping cart list have capital letters for each item whereas policies & info list is lower case. everywhere else uses lower case for buttons too. Same should apply to the checkout titles which have caps.
-Copyright notice isnt 100%. Should read:
Copyright © 2004 Berkswell Direct. All rights reserved. (otherwise it's not accepted worldwide)
-design looks tidy, well-laid out. curiously if you have a physical presence, is the design consistent with the shop and marketing literature?
thanks for all your replies guys 
I'm currently using Paypal (gakk!) so all credit card details are dealt with on their secure server. I'm looking into payment gateways offering a similar function.
Thanks for pointing this out - done
working on this one
thanks, done
We're doing it the other way round - tying in marketing lit with the site design, which is courteousy of theshopping cart software.
This is a totally self-funded start-up (so far) so I won't get a cute girly site design until I can afford it. Having said that, I'm a huge fan of simple monochrome design myself anyway.
shadowninja said:
(was just checking you used SSL for the payment section...)
I'm currently using Paypal (gakk!) so all credit card details are dealt with on their secure server. I'm looking into payment gateways offering a similar function.
shadowninja said:
-shop by category list and shopping cart list have capital letters for each item whereas policies & info list is lower case. everywhere else uses lower case for buttons too.
Thanks for pointing this out - done
shadowninja said:
Same should apply to the checkout titles which have caps.
working on this one
shadowninja said:
-Copyright notice isnt 100%. Should read:
Copyright © 2004 Berkswell Direct. All rights reserved. (otherwise it's not accepted worldwide)
thanks, done
shadowninja said:
-design looks tidy, well-laid out. curiously if you have a physical presence, is the design consistent with the shop and marketing literature?
We're doing it the other way round - tying in marketing lit with the site design, which is courteousy of theshopping cart software.
This is a totally self-funded start-up (so far) so I won't get a cute girly site design until I can afford it. Having said that, I'm a huge fan of simple monochrome design myself anyway.
jconsta6 said:
I like it. Obviously I've not done ANY market research on it, but in principle it sounds great.
I'm hoping so ... the ladies formalwear sector in the UK basically operates as a cartel (which is why I've gone for imports) - and there is still a big thing against us fat birds. OK, it's getting better, but this business grew out of an abortive attempt to get a black evening dress to wear to my wedding (1st marriage over 5 years ago), which ended up in tears .... you'd have thought I was asking the Oxford street department store shop assistants to go down on me or something. It didn't matter that I would have been happy to spend *any* amount of money by that stage.
So, I'm hoping that this will be a good goer. However, this is also my main concern. I'm totally self funded here, so all reserves I have are strictly for cashflow only, in case I get rushed...
jconsta6 said:
The only 2 minor points would be this, maybe it may be worth pitching it a little less at the larger market. I realise that's it's best selling point but it's not the only one. I think as you mentioned in your post the fact that you can get ALL sizes from one place is a HUGE plus. I think you maybe need to emphasise that and incorporate the fact that you "go large" into that message as it wasn't immediately noticeable to me. If that makes any sense?
see your point - have altered the front page speil.
jconsta6 said:
The second point was the sizing. I read your reasons why you put things in US sizes, but that is the major let down to the site. I realise women are probably more acutely aware of their dress size than I am of my waist size, but it's a hassle that surely doesn;t need to be there? You give them a sizing chart which could be built into an interactive part of the site - maybe a "Size Slider" that as you move up the inches for bust/waist/hips indepentently it will change the value in the required size window.
I agree with you here. However, variation in UK sizing, particularly at the plus size end of the spectrum is apalling - I could just fit into a 26 at Ann Summers if I stopped breathing, yet an Evans 22 is a little loose - so I can't afford customers just buying "their size" because it depends on where they tend to shop. I have a huge table of all the high street retailer's sizes compared if anyone's interested ;-)
As it is, the european womenswear market is pushing to move away from dress sizes towards bust-waist-hip measurements, and I would jump on this bandwagon quite happily.
jconsta6 said:
These are 2 minor points and for what it's worth I like it and I think if you can market it, you will be onto a winner. This, I have found, is the hardest part of any new busines startup - you may be the best, but if people don't know about it they are not going to use you.
Yep - but at the same time, I'm happy to let business build gradually for the first few months. I know of a small business that put a small classified ad in Vogue and nearly went under due to the amount of business they got!
Thanks for your comments,
Anna
a TVR, one that can fit the dog (with his football) in.M@H said:
Nice design.. !
I must say ClickCartPro looks better than my Actinic Catalog setup too (and cheaper !) you're limited on total number of product items though I guess..?
To the best of my knowledge there are no limits to the total number of product items or categories. According to this www.clickcartpro.co.uk/html/feature-list.htm anyway.
Worth spending the extra £20 to get them to install it on your server though, was a bit of a pig to get it working, despite having done a few cgi installs before.
great site, and having done quite a lot of MR into this area specifically for some US and Geramn clients I can pretty much guarantee you're onto a winner!
My only change would be if you could add some more pics for each dress? I realise you have quite a large number of dresses, but people shoping online, when spending this level of money, often want a few more pics (like an ebay sale I suppose). Just close ups of a couple of detail points - like neckline etc.. maybe?
That said...I aint a bird so whatdo I know about clothes?!
key point for online marketing will be an affiliates program for this sort of thing....assume you already have them underway?
cheers
Night
My only change would be if you could add some more pics for each dress? I realise you have quite a large number of dresses, but people shoping online, when spending this level of money, often want a few more pics (like an ebay sale I suppose). Just close ups of a couple of detail points - like neckline etc.. maybe?
That said...I aint a bird so whatdo I know about clothes?!
key point for online marketing will be an affiliates program for this sort of thing....assume you already have them underway?
cheers
Night
oldbanger said:
However, variation in UK sizing, particularly at the plus size end of the spectrum is apalling - I could just fit into a 26 at Ann Summers if I stopped breathing, yet an Evans 22 is a little loose
oldbanger said:
As it is, the european womenswear market is pushing to move away from dress sizes towards bust-waist-hip measurements, and I would jump on this bandwagon quite happily.
Interesting point. I've always wondered why women's clothes are in sizes. When I buy a pair of trousers I buy a 34" waist* / 30" leg, not a size 14 (or whatever) and have often thought that it would be more sensible for women's clothes to be likewise.
(* ok, well 36" these days
) >> Edited by JonRB on Thursday 12th August 16:54
jconsta6 said:
The second point was the sizing. I read your reasons why you put things in US sizes, but that is the major let down to the site.
I was thinking about this, and decided to go through my big table of collated size charts. Using the best known retailer over here, "my" US size 32 works out as a 28-32 depending on the measurement you look at (formalwear, in the western world at least, is universally cut with small waist sizes for some unknown reason)*. So, I've just gone and removed all mention that they're US sizes, but still insisted that customers measured themselves.
Thanks, Anna
*this means that you usually have to buy a wedding dress two sizes larger than the size you ordinarily wear, which is why so many wedding shops rip out the size labels.
It's all those extra in-and-out bits we have to keep track of the size of ... 
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