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View Full Version : I need Opinions for my new website.



whiteelephant
03-29-2011, 06:51 PM
I just redone my whole website layout. So i need your Opinions about my website.

Check it out.. http://perfectwhiteelephantgifts.com

docsecurity
03-30-2011, 02:24 PM
The site looks good, but I'm not sure how sending someone a "random" white elephant gift would draw appeal. Show them exactly what they are going to get, and I think they would be more likely to purchase. Nice and light-hearted theme by the way!

jamesray50
03-31-2011, 11:49 PM
I don't get it. Why would I buy something that I don't know what I am getting? I wouldn't.

Duston McGroarty
04-01-2011, 08:53 AM
This is a great idea... I know why you chose this market... a lot of monthly searches
and little competition. I know you came here looking for feedback on your site's layout
but I'm going to agree with the other two...

You won't get much response by hiding the gifts. Make this for the person trying to find
a white elephant to give to someone. That's who is searching.

Being an info-marketer, I would create an ebook titled "Unforgettable White Elephant Gifts"
and go into detail as to which gifts get the best response.

I think your visitors are coming to your site looking for ideas, not something to buy.

vangogh
04-01-2011, 11:21 AM
I had a completely different post written, but then based on Dustin's post above did a quick search for White Elephant Gifts and now have a better understanding of what your site is about.

For those like me who aren't familiar with the term here's some quick info from Wikipedia:


A white elephant gift exchange is a popular holiday party game found primarily in North America. Generally, white elephant parties need a minimum of six participants. With a larger group, game play may be more protracted. White elephant parties have been known to result in intensely vicious and/or playful rivalries between players trying to get sought after gifts. The goal of a white elephant party is usually to entertain rather than to gain. Gifts are typically inexpensive, humorous items or used items from home. The term white elephant refers to a gift whose maintenance costs exceed its usefulness.

With that in mind I think the site looks pretty good. The design is on the playful side, which makes sense given what it's about. I had been thinking who would buy a gift they couldn't see in advance, but I now understand what not seeing the gifts isn't really relevant and in fact might even add to the fun. I can see people buying gifts and no one opening them until the party.

Your success is naturally going to be in gaining the attention of people who know about white elephant gifts. As you can see many of us and probably main in the population aren't going to get the site. To those who don't it'll come across as why would I give you money for something when I don't know what that something is.

I take it search is going to play a large part in your marketing so you're going to need to put in a lot of time working seo.

Business Attorney
04-02-2011, 11:14 AM
Like Duston and VG, I'm going to veer from your question about the site design and comment on the business. I have been to a lot of white elephant parties throughout the years. Both my wife's family and my previous law firm centered their Christmas parties around a white elephant gift exchange.

It seems like many of the people participating in a white elephant gift exchange simply buy something that meets the price point and don't really give much thought to the gift. I confess I fall into that category. Shopping just isn't my thing. For that reason, I might fall into the category of shoppers that you are targeting.

However, there are a lot of people who clearly pick gifts that will shock, delight or entertain others. They would never buy a gift blindly. At this point, I agree with Duston that THOSE SHOPPERS are the ones who are most likely on the internet searching for "white elephant gift". They are looking for gift ideas. The first group doesn't put enough thought into the process to even search online. The first group will stop by Target or Walmart and grab anything.

So here's my idea: target both types of buyers. How? Build your site to satisfy the second type of buyer by featuring a wide variety of gifts at common price points, but prominently offer the choice "SURPRISE ME!" that is along the lines of your current idea. That should give both kinds of shoppers the chance to buy a white elephant gift.

Spider
04-02-2011, 12:01 PM
David has the right idea for seeing or not seeing the gift. You will need to do it this way in order to satisfy those people who don't want to see the gift but still need to be convinced the $20 they spend will get them a $20 gift and not a cheap bit of nonsense.

For your site -
-- The white elephant needs to be white, not blue,
-- I don't think blues and greens are fun colors - why not reds and oranges?
-- Testimonials will be very important for buying unknown gifts - so, put testimonials on the front page and make them large.
-- The plain sans-serif font is boring - you need a fun font - There are some basic ones around - Comic sans MS, Curlz, Chauncy, Accent, Matura, Brush script, Lydian - and there are plenty available to be purchased that could be downloaded with your page so viewers have the right script. Even Arial Rounded could be used to better effect.
-- You need a good, clear explanation of the game on the front page.

I hope that helps.

Business Attorney
04-02-2011, 12:29 PM
Also, your site says someone can get "clothing, shoes, automotive, tools, books, electronics, computer games, movies, cosmetics, outdoor living, toys, collectibles, home decor, jewelry, or many other things". I think you need to allow someone to narrow the gift down to certain categories. In my wife's family, the wrapped gifts are identified as men's gifts and women's gifts. A man might take a chance on tools, books or electronics, but would probably not want cosmetics, home decor or jewelry.

whiteelephant
04-02-2011, 02:55 PM
Thanks for the great ideas and tips. I already have five different gifts categories base on the person sex. I think it would be great to have things like clothing, shoes, automotive, tools, books, electronics, etc... on my website.

Harold Mansfield
04-02-2011, 03:58 PM
You already have enough advice on the concept so I want to concentrate on the design.

First impression and the home page:
Although I agree with having a brief welcome message, I don't like using the entire front page for it. The welcome message could easily fit into a smaller area, if you want to keep it on the home page, leaving plenty of room for you to use imagery to set the tone. I don't have any exact ideas, but images of people receiving gifts, parties, birthdays, etc would immediately convey to me that this is a gift site.
Even though it's overused, featured image sliders are still effective in providing both promotional photographs along with tag lines or brief descriptions of the company or products. They also hold people's attention more than text alone.
The lack of any images stands out.

You have a lot of space in the header but you aren't using it efficiently. The first thing that lets people know that this is an ecommerce site is credit card logos. It tells them not only that they can shop here, but what form of payments you take. I agree that the elephant should be white. I would also use gift boxes up there, instead of grass and butterflys..after all it's a gift site, not a game preserve. You have a lot of space up there, but you have the elephant crammed over into the title, leaving the right side sort of empty.
Speaking of the title, instead of repeating "Perfect White Elephant Gifts", you need to use that tag line area for a brief description of what the site is or does to people that don't know what "White Elephant Gifts" are.

I looked at a couple of other websites in this niche and found one who's tag line had me immediately intrigued, "Your holiday gift exchange will never be the same". You need to lead with something like that or even make it to your tag line in the header.

The first sentence sets the tone and the expectation of what is to follow. You need to lead with exactly what you are doing and what you can do for me. Concentrate more on the website, instead of the tradition.

Your "What is this?", "How it works" and "Gift Odds" can be on one page and I would title that page "How it works".
I'd scrap the "Gifts" page altogether. At least in it's current state. Maybe it's just my browser , but it took me to Cool Iris to view the photos. A big no-no. If you are going to show a gallery of things, at least tell me what I'm looking at. Are these possible gifts? Previously shipped items? What?

The "Buy Here" page is pretty sparse. I'd probably throw some text in there about what to expect, and I'd probably include the gift odds there with each selection instead of on another page with a link to that other page to explain what the odds mean. Kind of like a "read more about odds" link.

Other things that I noticed that were missing were a privacy policy, shipping information, return policy, actual contact information including a phone number. These things instill confidence that people are spending money with a reputable website , that can be contacted in the case something goes wrong or I have any questions.

You need to make use of the space where you have "Featured Products". Whether that be larger images, or adding descriptions but the layout is not symmetrical. Either make the box smaller or the items bigger.
Also, get rid of the "testimonials" link, until you have some testimonials. That's just going out of your way to point out that no one has submitted any. Something that wouldn't ever have been noticed if you didn't point it out. If you want to get the testimonial ball rolling..send out a follow up thank you email or add it to your "contact page" which also could use more information.

The last thing I saw that I don't like is the Wibya tool bar at the bottom. It screams blog. I'm all for things like Facebook connect and having your social media icons displayed, but the tool bar looks out of place and amateurish. Not to mention it's red and doesn't match the site colors at all.

The design as a whole is not bad if this were another kind of website. But it doesn't look like a shopping site and right now it doesn't gain my confidence to plop down my credit card number, but I think with with some attention to detail and stepping back and viewing it as a consumer, it could be very easily.

I hope this doesn't come off as too harsh.

whiteelephant
04-02-2011, 04:31 PM
Eborg9 your reply wasn't too harsh. I need reviews like that,to make my website better.

Paper Shredder Clay
04-05-2011, 12:19 PM
I agree with the people above. I know you seem to be starting out. But when I go there, there is not enough on the site. Ecommerce sites tend to bombard people with their products, but your site is very bare. I do salute you with having paypal or google cart.

CloptonCapital
04-07-2011, 02:46 AM
it needs more real pictures and a dynamic css

whiteelephant
05-22-2011, 05:53 PM
I decided to change the name of my website. Perfectwhiteelephantgifts.com was too long and did not explain the type of business. I, now, am using Randomstore.net. Can you please review my new website and critique? Thank you.

Spider
05-23-2011, 02:11 PM
Hmmm. Grey? Vermillion? Not exactly vibrant, happy, party colors, I think. Still no indication of what the gifts might be. No explanation of why I would want to buy a random gift and no mention of White Elephant party games.

I see a change from what you had before but don't see real improvement. What is your thinking behind the changes you made? What rationale are you using for the decisions you are making? Perhaps if we understood the reasons behind your changes, we could at least follow along with you.

vangogh
05-23-2011, 06:38 PM
I think the new design is fine. I see plenty of vibrant blue and red. Maybe there could be better color choices for the grays. I think there are party colors in place, but you could go further.

I'm wondering why the domain change. I understand wanting something shorter, but it seems like your market are people playing white elephant party games. I would think they would use those words to search before looking for random store.

whiteelephant
05-25-2011, 06:36 PM
I think the new design is fine. I see plenty of vibrant blue and red. Maybe there could be better color choices for the grays. I think there are party colors in place, but you could go further.

I'm wondering why the domain change. I understand wanting something shorter, but it seems like your market are people playing white elephant party games. I would think they would use those words to search before looking for random store.

I changed my name to open up the target audience to a wider range of people. Not as many people as I expected knew the term “white elephant” and understood its meaning. The new name states that it is a store, taking the questions of “what is this?” out of the equation.

vangogh
05-25-2011, 09:51 PM
That makes sense then. I know the term white elephant was new to me, but when you first posted I thought maybe it was well known to a certain group of people. If it isn't that well known then randomstore does make more sense.

whiteelephant
05-25-2011, 10:38 PM
I'm getting four to five times more traffic then my other website...My worst day of traffic was equal to my best traffic day of my last website. I'm so glad that i switch website names.

vangogh
05-26-2011, 12:58 AM
Definitely working then. Nice when you make a decision like that and have proof it was the right one.

By the way most designers would make fun of you for using comic sans. There are movements to ban its use. Given the topic of your site it might be one of the few appropriate places to use it, though.

whiteelephant
06-07-2011, 10:01 PM
I updated my website once again. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

vangogh
06-10-2011, 12:32 PM
I'm not sure I know what's different, but here are a few quick thoughts.

1. I wouldn't bold all the text on the home page. The idea behind bolding text is to make that text stand out in comparison to the non bold text. When everything is in bold there's nothing to stand out against.

2. I'm not a big fan of the social media bar at the bottom of the page. I'm not sure if it works for you, but when I land on sites with bars like that or in the sidebar I find I spend less time on the site, because the bar distracts me at first and eventually annoys me. Clearly that's a personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

3. I wouldn't make all your products load solely through Flash. I have Flash blocked by default so instead of your products I see a big gray box. Go ahead and offer the Flash, but also make sure to offer non-Flash for those people who have it blocked or don't have a Flash plugin installed.

bizmultiplier
06-10-2011, 04:09 PM
I've got to be honest with you. Not to put you down in any way, but so that you can improve your site and make more money. I admire your courage and your go getter attitude.

I think your site is lacking any sort of wow factor. People go to websites and if they don't like what they see instantly, they click off it. Personally, yours is one I would click off of (again, not trying to be mean or anything, just want to help).

Additionally, people want to buy from trusted merchants, and I would be skeptical to buy from a site that looks like yours.

Can you get a BBB seal or something to put on the front of your site, also some other trust marks like Verisign (legitimately of course). Also, adding a customer support phone number to the home page will help.

I think you would be better off getting yourself a good Wordpress theme and using that, maybe have @vangogh customize it for you a little. I would recommend woothemes.com and elegantthemes.com as good starting points. Of all the WP themes I've used, these seem to be the best and easiest to use.

If you have any specific questions let me know. I'm more than happy to give any input.

PS: I think I'm looking at the right site (Online Gift Store - Random Gift Store (http://www.randomstore.net/)), if not, please let me know what your real site is.