Site check please

Hi guys,
Can you please do a critique of this site please www.adultsensations.co.uk
(it's an adult lingerie & toy site).

It is in frames as that is the shop software we use (Erol).

The thing is we get a decent amount of visitors but virtually no sales - not
sure if this is down to the design, layout or what (design is not my choice
btw!)

Any feedback on design, colours, layout, usability etc would be MOST
appreciated.

Cheers,
Pete
Blackdogsquare Studios
www.blackdogsquare.com

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:21:04 GMT, Pete <youtopia (AT) tesco (DOT) net> wrote:

Hi guys,
Can you please do a critique of this site please
www.adultsensations.co.uk
(it's an adult lingerie & toy site).

It is in frames as that is the shop software we use (Erol).

Frames are poor, and therefore your tool is poor. You really don't want
them.

The thing is we get a decent amount of visitors but virtually no sales -
not
sure if this is down to the design, layout or what (design is not my
choice
btw!)

The frames are more than likely to defeat usability and depress the
effectiveness of the site. I strongly recommend a redesign eliminating the
frames. Look into PHP for including files in your HTML templates and CSS
for positioning.

"Pete" <youtopia (AT) tesco (DOT) net> wrote

Hi guys,
Can you please do a critique of this site please www.adultsensations.co.uk
(it's an adult lingerie & toy site).

It is in frames as that is the shop software we use (Erol).

The thing is we get a decent amount of visitors but virtually no sales -
not
sure if this is down to the design, layout or what (design is not my
choice
btw!)

Any feedback on design, colours, layout, usability etc would be MOST
appreciated.

Cheers,
Pete
Blackdogsquare Studios
www.blackdogsquare.com

Where do you get the visitors? Home page? Are they going into the site, or
departing from your "entrance" page? You say that the design is not your
choice, but what design is? Maybe that's the answer. It wouldn't hurt to
try. If you have traffic and no sales then you have a marketing problem and
not a search engine problem.

Here are two (of many potential) marketing considerations - why would people
purchase from this site? What is the advantage you offer? Price? If you
are not the lowest priced site, then reduce your prices to back up your
claim. If you already are really the lowest price, then make some other
claim - something that generates sales since price can't be the main factor
if no one is buying and you are the lowest price. Oh BTW, you might as well
raise your prices if you find price isn't the main consideration!

The other point is what are you using to create urgency? I didn't see
anything. A combination of no urgency plus a claim of the lowest price is
an open invitation for visitors to your site to check out the competition.
You are sending them away! It shouldn't be a surprise if they don't come
back, particularly if they find a lower price somewhere else. You would
have lost credibility if they did.

MM

Also the frames stop a buyer seeing the padlock symbol when you ask them
to enter credit card details.

Peter


On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:21:04 GMT, Pete <youtopia (AT) tesco (DOT) net> wrote:

Hi guys,
Can you please do a critique of this site please
www.adultsensations.co.uk
(it's an adult lingerie & toy site).

It is in frames as that is the shop software we use (Erol).

The thing is we get a decent amount of visitors but virtually no sales -
not
sure if this is down to the design, layout or what (design is not my
choice
btw!)

Any feedback on design, colours, layout, usability etc would be MOST
appreciated.

Cheers,
Pete
Blackdogsquare Studios
www.blackdogsquare.com

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

"MM" <ngreader (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

The other point is what are you using to create urgency?

Sex shop....internet....urgency??? Hmmmm...

"Order today to be sure that your special something arrives in time for that
hot date this weekend..."

Nah, that doesn't work....

"Hey big boy, what do you have planned for tomorrow night. We now offer
overnight shipping...."

Nah...

"Don't wait to get your hands on this..."

I don't think so...

"Order today and we will include, absolutely free, our specially designed
tickler..."

Uh uh....

"All tied up this weekend? If not, let us help..."

OK, I give up. Do you have any ideas?

John Merrell
Gateway Farm Alpacas
http://www.gateway-alpacas.com

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 11:50:26 -0500, Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:21:04 GMT, Pete <youtopia (AT) tesco (DOT) net> wrote:

Hi guys,
Can you please do a critique of this site please
www.adultsensations.co.uk
(it's an adult lingerie & toy site).

It is in frames as that is the shop software we use (Erol).

Frames are poor, and therefore your tool is poor. You really don't want
them.

That's roughly where I started on my path to SEO understanding with a
search engine unfriendly adult lingerie and sex toy site :-)

I used Shopfactory that like Erol creates search engine unfriendly
sites (Erol looks worse though). I created my own custom templates for
Shopfactory, I've not uses Erol but if you are stuck with it there
will be ways to make the templates friendlier.

If not find a different shopping cart, Oscommerce for example (free).

The thing is we get a decent amount of visitors but virtually no sales -
not
sure if this is down to the design, layout or what (design is not my
choice
btw!)

If the traffic is anything like the traffic we get you'll be hard
pushed to convert above 0.5%. My lingerie site isn't taking orders
currently, when it was the best I ever got was 0.4% conversion. I put
it down to a combination of factors.

1. People looking for porn or pictures of lingerie (there are a lot of
those).
2. UK based, most visitors aren't UK based and aren't prepared to
order overseas. Lowering postage to the US helped a lot, we managed to
offer free US postage if the customer ordered enough. What we then had
was US customers would tend to order more than anyone else to get the
free P&P :-)
3. Usability of the site. When I improved the navigation menu and the
colour of the template it made a significant increase in sales (your
template looks better than ours did, Shopfactory has rubbish
templates).

We needed 1500 visitors a day to make it worth while since most of
those aren't looking to buy from us. If I relied on the sites now for
an income (as I used to) I think I'd move to the US for more sales :-)

David
--
http://www.search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk/