Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Well i like the site design, nice and simple. There are a few problems.

When using firefox 1.5 i get this error message on the resources page

https://img526.imageshack.us/my.php?image=error1la.jpg

I was going to host it on your site (as well as test the site out) but ran in to a few problems.

1. The image would not upload, it is a jpg file.
2. You assume that i live in the united states and only give me options to select states that are in the united states.

You do have the option of selecting "other" as one of the states, but i have to enter a united states based phone number and address to use your site. WTF.

I REALLY get pissed off when site do this, its as though they know people from other country's use there site but half ass and dont test it properly. If you are going to half ass it you might as well not do it at all and say only united states citizens are allowed to use your site.

3. I dont see how to pay for it, do you take paypal? credit cards? check? cash? you dont seem to say.

4. It would be easier to upload to another site that hosts images for free say www.imageshack.us then use www.tinyurl.com to post the address in the ad. (it would use less characters)

Also there are lots of free sites that host web pages like yahoo's geosites branch, where they are given 15mb of space for free with a yahoo account.

5. Also if people are still using the newspaper to search for items and not using say www.ebay.com then it might not "click" that to see the picture they have to visit your site and put in the number.

6. $1.99 per photo seems a bit expensive to host a 90kb file. If they have 15 images then they might as well just hire some server space themselves for the month and set up there own site.

Thanks for the feedback.

Puru, some of the points you mention are things we have considered adding to the site. Like adding a counter so sellers can see how many times their item was viewed. We are a hosting site only so we don't intend to give buyers the ability to purchase items through our site. We don't plan on providing sellers contact info since the buyer will be able to obtain this information in the ad in which our site was referenced. Also, once 10 pictures are uploaded and you check out, you can then begin a second upload. As far as the indexing goes, that is something we will definitely look into. I really appreciate your thorough analysis and perspective. You have made some valid point. Thanks again!

Firefox, I am not sure why you could not upload to our site. To date, we have never had anyone have trouble uploading so I can't say why you were unable to. I am aware of the coding problem on the resources page and will be fixing that.

As far as international customers go, we have had numerous orders placed outside of the U.S., mostly in the UK and Canada, and have never had any complaints. We use 2Checkout for payments and this is clearly outlined in our FAQ.

Yes, there are other sites that will host pictures, but there will always be competition. As far as using Yahoo or geocities space, that is a lot more complicated to do. If you just want to host a picture of a dining room set you are selling in your local newspaper, you are not going to take the time to set up an entire webpage on one of these sites. It is just not practical. Our target market is not people who are selling items online, although we have had many customers that have used our service for online selling. Our target market is people who use traditional newspaper classifieds. And, even though online classifieds have skyrocketed over the last few years, there are still millions of newspaper classified ads listed each day worldwide. If someone needs to upload 15 pictures, they could get server space and set up a webpage which takes time and knowledge. Or, they could upload the 15 pics to our site in a matter of minutes and be done with it. Time is money. There is also a huge population of people who are not very computer savvy and who would welcome a simple website such as ours. Thanks for your comments.

Ok and I am sorry about my rude response. I shouldnt post when i am in a bad mood. I had just tried to sign up to this newsletter I really wanted and the site would let me sign up unless I selected a "State" and post code that was valid for the US, but later they let me select New Zealand as my country. The "state" and "post code" were mandatory, so I couldn’t sign up since I don’t live in the USA.

I would disagree about using yahoo geocites. It is just as simple as your site and they don’t limit the photos to 100k in size.

I might have gone a bit over board with the "setting up a site" thing, but don’t most ISPs in America give there internet users some web space? I know in New Zealand even the cheapest plan comes with 10mb of web space.

Also, I didn’t see the question about the payment method because it is buried in the middle of the FAQ; most people don’t bother to read all the text on a page of a website let alone a whole FAQ. I just skimmed the question titles and didn’t see anything that jumped out at me as the answer to my question.

You might want to combine a few of the questions, such as:

How much does your service cost? and How do I purchase picture uploads? or at a minimum put "How do I purchase picture uploads?" closer to the top of the questions.

Heck I get over 30 people a week sending me an email asking a question about my site, and the answer is in 24 point, bright red and flashes in the middle of my homepage and in the FAQ.

People are LAZY especially on the web.

I appreciate the follow-up response. No hard feelings. We all have bad days now and then. Anyway, our website provides a specific classified ad photo hosting service as opposed to Yahoo geocites (which I still feel is more difficult to use than our website) and I believe there is a market for this service. I guess we can agree to disagree.

Thanks again and have a good day.

Keep the ideas coming! They are very helpful and informative.

John, our service is free to try. This includes 2 picture uploads. Additional photos are 1.99. This information is outlined on the homepage and on the 'Why Use our Service' link and FAQ links. I find it very interesting that you missed seeing it since I thought it was so obvious. That is why it is so wonderful to be receiving this feedback from people looking at the site for the first time. It gives me a different perspective.

Great point about including more personal info. It is something to think about.

Thanks!

Picture Perfect Ads! I really like that. Thanks for the tip.