New Business - Website Review Please :)

[surveyor]

trickywoo said:

thebraketester said:

On the subject of payment. You really should take paypal too. Some folk will just turn away at the idea of having to go and find their cards to pay.... PP is easy, quick and arguably safer for the buyer.

On the other had I'm one of the folk that won't use paypal so swings and roundabouts.

If you go the paypal route be very clear about what can go wrong.

Best of both works is a choice....

ETA - when the choice was Paypal vs Google Checkout loads chose paypal.

Now it's Paypal Vs Stripe (which presents just as card) loads choose Stripe...

[Jacobyte]

My wife bought a couple of bone tags yesterday (from a physical shop) for our cats.

Two things came to mind when she showed them to me, which might be useful feedback for your business rather than specifically the technical/functional aspects of the website:

1. They are for our cats, they should have been fish or mouse shaped. Bones are for dogs.

2. Many pets are stolen, so she put our surname on them, rather than the their names.

Not much more to add.

[DSLiverpool]

I had to look hard for the address but its at the bottom! ok so no phone number but look at Zopim live help, she can do that from a mobile and reassures people someone is actually behind the site.

Great site, good idea - well done!

I dont need to tell you to join all the Facebook doggy groups do I ;o)

[HappyMidget]

I personally love the dog, happy Staffy grin FTW!

Website seems nice and easy to use and well laid out.

[wheelerc]

Some Gump said:

Whatever you do, don't photoshop a tag onto a stock photo of a dog - it'll make you look like charlatans.

Need real photos of real tags on real animals, or just photos of the product

I've had a quick go at photoshopping a tag onto the ugly dog - better or worse than no tag until we get a proper photo?

NorthDave said:

The dog is fugly but the site is great. Simple to navigate and visually appealing. I particularly liked the delivery bit "order before 3pm for a delivery on Saturday 4th June." I havent seen that before and I love it.

Lack of phone number would not bother me on goods of this value. The design tool does all I would want. I guess you could have a gallery bit with tags in action but not necessary for me.

Hope it is a success. Unfortunately I dont have a pet to order one for.

Thanks, we do have galleries for some of the tags if you click through to individual tag pages, but they're a bit hidden so I'll find a way to get photos on the homepage.

surveyor said:

I like it. Just ordered one...

Don't like Stripe on the payments. I know who it is - but many will not, and as it's all backend no need to confuse...

Good point, I've removed the Stripe logo from the payments box. Planning to add PayPal ASAP.

thebraketester said:

See what I mean? (safari browser)

Yes, it looks like Safari does the same thing as iOS - must be an Apple thing. They shuould look more like this:



Which admittedly can still be improved...

dmsims said:

OK one more rather important point:

The legal requirement is for name and address

So on the front you have 1 line (e.g. Pet name)

reverse, 3 lines

e.g. Phone (optional)
e.g. House & Street (optional)
e.g. Post Code (optional)

I would be changing the last 2 to mandatory and validating them
and you need Name

Yes, this is the legal requirement for Dogs, however there is no legal requirement for Cats (or other animals) so I don't think I'll force people to enter everything. I'll try to make the site a bit more intelligent and show a warning on the tag designer, or the basket/checkout page if they've not entered all legally required information so they are aware. It's also explained on our FAQ page.

EnthusiastOwned said:

I like it. Simple and easy.

Love the first thing you see is to enter the pets name, makes it very personable from the start.

Stock photo - The resolution is poor and you really need one showing off your genuine product. But I think the dog is cute, I really like that it's not the standard type of dog you see everywhere. Personally you'd be better off with a carousel with a few different breed types showing off your different tags (so you keep all types of owners happy and you don't exclude any potential customers - i.e. one small and fluffy with a heart, one working dog with a round, one bull type breed with a bone etc etc).

Tag preview - Too artificial so I'm not really sure what I'm getting - It's engraved but black? Love the fact you can get different fonts though.

Payment gateway - For a person who uses PayPal at every opportunity, even if it costs me more because I'm lazy and don't have to grab my wallet out of my pocket for my card details, or enter any further address details; I actually loved it. It's the simplest and quickest gateway I've ever used, it wasn't as painful as I was expecting.

Placed an order!

Thank you for the order! I have emailed you regarding your order earlier today.

I think he's kinda cute too, but we'll get some photos done with a variety of animals wearing our tags...

The tags are 'laser engraved' which is a process where a thin coating is applied to the metal and then bonded to it with a laser. The text is dark black and etched into the surface of the metal, but not 'deep engraved' as you would get with a punch or mechanical engraver for example. We use the same technique as far as I can tell as many online sellers and have had all positive feedback so far.

Thanks for the feedback on the payment gateway. From a developers point of view it's incredibly easy to work with, but it seems a lot of people prefer PayPal so we will get that integrated, even if they take a larger cut and have a reputation for freezing merchants funds

LaurasOtherHalf said:

I'd echo the thoughts on the photo of the dog, not exactly cute.

One other thing that bugs me is the drop down menu for the type of lettering "sans-serif" etc. I have no idea what each type looks like so it would be nice if each type was written in it's own type-does that make sense?

Yeah I know i can just click through each one to see the example but it would be easier if I didn't have to

I feel a bit sorry for the dog now, he's getting a hard time on here!

Yes, good point regarding the fonts, that can be improved. I'll add it to the list!

jammy_basturd said:

wheelerc said:

Regarding the mock-ups, they are made using some fairly cutting edge technology and may not look great on all devices. I know iPhones for example can't render the shadow or brushed metal effect correctly. They are SVG files with SVG lighting, shadow and texture filters, with a PNG file of the preview text overlaid which has been generated on the server by the same process which makes the PDF files to be sent to the laser engraving machine. So what you see matches exactly the layout of the tag. AFAIK no other company does this.

Why so complicated? Surely a PNG background image of the tag overlaid with text would have worked just as well and been much better supported across browsers?

Well, I needed to make the vector files for the laser machine (to cut its own jig for the tags) and the SVGs are very lightweight in terms of bandwidth, look crisp as they are vectors and easy to customise for each colour texture. However, I think you may be right. Layering another PNG behind with a rendered or good quality photo would be better from a users point of view, so that is what i'll do

Dejay1788 said:

I like it, it's simple to use and easy to figure out what you sell. A few things I would look to change however.

- I see you have some testimonials in the footer, but you don't appear to have a dedicated reviews page or tab, this would be nice to see and help build buyer confidence.
- No phone number or business information.
- It would be good to see an example of the finished product without having to search for it - your banner is a perfect place for this.
- No social media links. It's nice to see how active a company are on social media, can also give an idea what customers are saying and how customer service rates.
- The free next day delivery information on the homepage is misleading. You use 1st class which can take up to three days. I know it's a small thing but as it's advertised on the home page I would expect next day delivery. Perhaps change it to express delivery or something similar to save headaches on delayed parcels.
- Just an idea, but people love taking photo's of their pets so maybe you could create an instagram # for people to show off their pets wearing your tags, people would do it and you would be able to integrate this as a sort of gallery - more proof of happy customers.

Overall I really like it and think you've done a great job, I hope some of this helps.

Very helpful!

We have testimonials on the footer from general feedback about the site as a whole, and reviews on the individual product pages for feedback about specific products, but not an overall 'reviews' page - I'll add that to the list and link to it from all testimonials.

We'll add some photos of the product to the homepage as per the suggestions from others.

We have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pettagsuk/ so I'll get that linked to from the site. We're also on Quidco.

Regarding next day delivery - Royal Mail aim to deliver 93% of 1st class mail on the next day and I believe most customers understand this when they see 'next day delivery'. Our FAQ page also says "We post all orders via Royal Mail First Class. Orders placed before 3pm on week days will usually be delivered on the next day (Monday – Saturday).". We've had no complains so far regarding delivery.

Instagram would work great for customer photos. I'm also thinking of adding something to the follow-up feedback email we send out after delivery which would allow customers to upload a photo of their pet to go on the website.

dmsims said:

On the payment side

The payment dialogue is to minimalist

Some people won't know what CVC is (really!)

There is also no reassurance (e.g. card logo, mention of SSL or padlocks)

It actually made me look at the browser bar to check it was https

At the moment the payment dialogue is controlled by Stripe, the payment provider we use. We could build a custom form for it, but I quite like their solution and they feedback we've had so far is all good. We do have card logos on the checkout page (in the 'Payments' box) on the right. They are currently in black so I'll change them for colour versions so they stand out and are more quickly recognisable when browsing.

The browser bar is where you should be looking on every site to check it is secure. The website owner can put any number of padlocks, logos etc on the page, but only the browser can tell you for sure. I'd rather not promote adding our own 'padlock' symbols on-site as it teachers visitors bad security habbits. We do force all connections (even when just browsing) to use a secure connection.

thebraketester said:

On the subject of payment. You really should take paypal too. Some folk will just turn away at the idea of having to go and find their cards to pay.... PP is easy, quick and arguably safer for the buyer.

Yup, agreed, PayPal on the list. Will keep our existing provider too so people have a choice. Some people actively avoid PayPal

Jacobyte said:

My wife bought a couple of bone tags yesterday (from a physical shop) for our cats.

Two things came to mind when she showed them to me, which might be useful feedback for your business rather than specifically the technical/functional aspects of the website:

1. They are for our cats, they should have been fish or mouse shaped. Bones are for dogs.

2. Many pets are stolen, so she put our surname on them, rather than the their names.

Not much more to add.

1. Yes, we have a category for 'Cats' and one for 'Dogs' (partially for SEO purposes). Cats has Heart shaped and round, Dogs has Bone, Round and Heart. We're thinking of adding Star and Fish shapes next. We're also thinking of adding coloured aluminium tags, as well as leather and possibly even Wood if we can make them durable enough.

2. I've heard other people advise against adding the pets name in case they are stolen. I'm not sure exactly what the issue would be. My dog probably come back to me if I called any name, and probably wouldn't go to a stranger if they called his name... or am I missing the point?

DSLiverpool said:

I had to look hard for the address but its at the bottom! ok so no phone number but look at Zopim live help, she can do that from a mobile and reassures people someone is actually behind the site.

Great site, good idea - well done!

I dont need to tell you to join all the Facebook doggy groups do I ;o)

Yes, company details and registered address in the footer. Regarding the live help we'd have a similar problem to the phone in that we couldn't always answer immediately. I think (hope) having regular testimonials from happy customers will re-assure people we are around and actively trading.

You shouldn't have needed to tell me to join dog groups of Facebook, but I'd overlooked that, so will do!

HappyMidget said:

I personally love the dog, happy Staffy grin FTW!

Website seems nice and easy to use and well laid out.

Thank you! Glad someone likes him

[jammy_basturd]

wheelerc said:

jammy_basturd said:

wheelerc said:

Regarding the mock-ups, they are made using some fairly cutting edge technology and may not look great on all devices. I know iPhones for example can't render the shadow or brushed metal effect correctly. They are SVG files with SVG lighting, shadow and texture filters, with a PNG file of the preview text overlaid which has been generated on the server by the same process which makes the PDF files to be sent to the laser engraving machine. So what you see matches exactly the layout of the tag. AFAIK no other company does this.

Why so complicated? Surely a PNG background image of the tag overlaid with text would have worked just as well and been much better supported across browsers?

Well, I needed to make the vector files for the laser machine (to cut its own jig for the tags) and the SVGs are very lightweight in terms of bandwidth, look crisp as they are vectors and easy to customise for each colour texture. However, I think you may be right. Layering another PNG behind with a rendered or good quality photo would be better from a users point of view, so that is what i'll do

A future feature could be to allow the user to upload a picture of their own pet and position/scale it as the background image so they can see what the tag would look like against the pet.

[INWB]

You live in my home town so that is good in my book. I would add a phone number (use Soho66 and divert to mobile) but apart from that it is all good. Would order one if I had a pet.

Good luck with the business.

[DSLiverpool]

Zopim can be set to message if away - I would add it for a month it gives you loads of site stats as well

[Dave_ST220]

surveyor said:

Best of both works is a choice....

ETA - when the choice was Paypal vs Google Checkout loads chose paypal.

Now it's Paypal Vs Stripe (which presents just as card) loads choose Stripe...

For us loads chose GC. Choice is good. Shame GC disappeared. I guess it was too much for Google adhering to FSA rules

Pay Pal Pro means you can offer card payments (unbranded) or Pay Pal AND benefit from better fees. Downside is all eggs are in one basket. Consider NOCHEX.

Edited by Dave_ST220 on Thursday 2nd June 22:43

[LivingTheDream]

Good timing, Monty lost his tag last week and I've been meaning to get around to ordering a new one.

So. Order placed

Feedback - I've had to put my name on the address line so as to comply with dog tag requirements - this doesn't look great. Add another line on the back for name.
Once you add to basket, you have a call to action to check spellings etc but there's no way to edit my order, I have to delete it and redo. Yes, my details were remembered so it was easy but I didn't know that at the point I had to delete my order which felt annoying.

I assume you've done your maths on cost and therefore profit but I'm amazed I can get this for £5.99 delivered.

Once it arrives, I'll try and get a decent pic of Monty wearing it that you can use on the site, he's a handsome dog plus it means you'll be right with the current trend of using Vizslas in every marketing campaign I see!!

[Gr44]

thebraketester said:

On the subject of payment. You really should take paypal too. Some folk will just turn away at the idea of having to go and find their cards to pay.... PP is easy, quick and arguably safer for the buyer.

Yeah, that person would be me, I'm so lazy I'd sooner spend another 20 minutes finding a competitor and then spend £2 more so I don't have to go to the car and find my wallet!

I like the website though, I've no pets (bar fish) but as said above by others, 2 key points for me:

1) Lack of good photos of the end products, both in use and by themselves

2) The 'mock up' needs to be improved, should be easy to make them a bit 'shinier' and 3d like in photoshop

Looks good though, best of luck with the venture

ps. happy to take some photos if you're nearby (Herts)

[singlecoil]

This line in the FAQs needs fixing-

"We are not aware of any current UK legislation which requires Cat's to have a collar tag". Get rid of the grocer's apostrophe and the capital letter.

[dmsims]

LivingTheDream said:

Once you add to basket, you have a call to action to check spellings etc but there's no way to edit my order, I have to delete it and redo. Yes, my details were remembered so it was easy but I didn't know that at the point I had to delete my order which felt annoying.

+1 when I ordered I was looking for an edit button everywhere (and back didn't work)

[DSLiverpool]

Also if you do swarf free engraving (laser) its a plus point as some nasty engraving has sharp edges - just a reassurance point.

[surveyor]

Domino says cheers

[dmsims]

So does Holly

[miniman]

It's a nice site. I'd echo the PayPal suggestion, and having photos of the products for real more visible. However I disagree that you need to make the preview more realistic - it does what it says on the tin. The markup is good and looks pretty well SEO optimised although I'd question the need to use SVG to draw the logo!

[loafer123]

I would encourage customers to post pic of their pet with their tag on, like the pic above....good engagement and reassurance for putative customers.

[RickRolled]

Nice website, I'd echo the Instagram suggestion, people can post photos using you # which you can then re post to your page.

[minky monkey]

It's the wife's birthday next month. I know what to get her now.