Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

I like the instant price quote, but an not sure that should take up so much real estate on the front page.

Your submission process assumes that someone is a graphic artist. This may stop a lot of people who aren't as experienced in graphics art, but would still create relatively simple things like business cards on their own. Using my own experience, I did my last business cards using printingforless.com. They provided Word templates that I used to lay out my card, and they printed from those.

What are your conversion rates? They actually may not be that bad, considering that you are in a pretty competitive industry.

One way to induce closure would be to put a deal on the home page. Buy now and get xxx.

For what it's worth, I am actually in the market for some letterhead right now, so I just tried to use your calculator. It keeps insisting that I need to select the number of colors when I have selected full-color front, blank back. I don't think I am making a mistake here; it just seems to me that your calculator is not bullet-proof.

Also, when I changed to postcard (just to see if I could get an order going), the calculator shifted to the bottom of the page because the following error message made the column too wide:

Warning: Division by zero in /var/www/html/shopping/pricing_calculator.php on line 354

So, it seems to me that a lot of people are going to do what I did: bail!

I'd troubleshoot that calculator and make sure that every possible combination works, 'cause it does not appear to be working for me. (And if I am doing something wrong, let me know. I would be happy to send you screen shots outside this forum.)

I actually think that the price calculator is a very good thing to have so prominently, because let's face facts: people who are shopping for printing on the Web are concerned only about price, so if you make it easy to see your price, you have an advantage in getting the work.

My $0.02.

Paul

Richard

I had no problem with the calculator... Perhaps it's been fixed since the comments above.

Why do you think something is wrong with your website anyway?

What do you know about the people who visited but didn't convert? Nothing?

Sooo... What makes you think they were actually in the marketplace for your services?

Aside from the site being a tad bland graphically, it seems very workmanlike.

It is also very price focused, as if that's the only issue when someone is deciding to buy print.

- Is price the only issue? What makes you sure?

- Who are your competitors?

- What are their websites like?

- Any idea what the competitors click/convert ratio is? Better or worse than yours?

It seems clear to me the website is OK. Functional and friendly enough. So what are you doing to drive targeted traffic towards it, to make it work for you?

- What does "success" look like for a printer's website?

- Do you put your URL onto every piece of collateral you use in the business?

- Do you ALWAYS use it in off-line advertising?

- Is it on your cars, trucks, courier delivery scooters/skateboards/helmets?

- What other marketing activities are you doing to drive targeted website traffic?

I know that's a whole bundle of questions, but they need to be answered to get you some improvement in your business.

Unless it's already running as well as can be expected?

Good Luck

ChrisB

Also, I tend to agree with the implcation that a customer has to be a designer or they cannot use the service. I would consider using an artist to offer card/logo design if people need it (I can help).

We can also help you with the SEO and the overal site design. I agree it needs a little TLC.

Personally, I was prepared to use you exclusively and had all of my clients lined up and ready to sent you business, then thy saw my cards (which were not-acceptable) and heard that your solution was to have me send the cards back along with print outs of what the logo is supposed to look like...all on my dollar. I sent you 5-6 different file formats to view and the grphic came back looking like ....well...blurry and pixelated. I was told it would cost me $25 for a preview to sign off on, so I just went forward blindly...big mistake.

Although you were attentive in RESPONDING to my emails stating the errors, you solutions were unacceptable. Why not go back to the original 6 file formats I sent you in order to see what it looks like? Why charge me $25 to view a digital file on my own order? Why should I have to take time and money out of my day PROVING that I am not a liar by designing a special package for you to double-check to error?

I decided it would be easier to simply go to another provider...and take my clients with me. I sent the crad design in almost every format imaginable to reduce the possibility of error, but it didn't work.

If you still have my original email with the graphics, please send me a preview to sign off (and not a $25 one), and I will give you a second chance. Plus, I cannot jump through hoops and put together "proof of integrity packages" everytime their is an error. Otherwise, I cannot promote your services...and I have a lot of business to send "someone". I believe you can do it, but the intial error was grossly mishandled.

Thanks Richard!

I have to agree with Paul - your calculator is lousy. It just estimated my shipping costs for 1000 postcards as over $500.

I think you turn many people off by immediately throwing a cost in their face, rather than stressing benefits of quality printed material, especially if the price is absurd.

If you can't get the price calculator to work, why should I expect you won't screw up my business cards?

Richard,

One of my biggest frustrations with online printers is that many seem to have a lot of trouble providing adequate off-line service.

As a marketing guy, I need to be able to have some flexibility in my relationship with my print supplier. While this is tough to operationalize online, there are some things you can do.

For example, you might offer real time customer assistance - Live Help. I found this useful with another online print house, until they goofed my quote and then refused to honor it - even after I sent them the e-mail from them with the original quote.

I would also like to see more site content based on the profile of your clients. For example, as a marketer, upon my first purchase, I would like to have a rep assigned to me, who follows up with me regularly and is empowered to 'break the rules' when I have a job and budget that might require some special attention.

I might even take the time to fill out a qualification form (that you can use to calculate my potential lifetime value) if I got a nice first-time discount.

If you nailed that first job with a personal touch, I'd be more than happy to push my business to you and spend my time on anything other than sifting through print quotes.

Good luck,

b

P.S. I tried to order business cards for 10 people through you guys and was told your internal system required that my credit card would have to be run 10 different times, processed as 10 different orders. While your rep was kind enough to offer to run the orders for me if I sent her my card info and files, it all sounded way too hard. Maybe just an early kink that needs to be worked out.