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You’re the Boss Blog: When a Small Retailer Shoots Itself in the Foot with a Weak Web Site

December 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Susan and Steve Karasanti: This was an awesome experience.Marilynn K. Yee/The New York TimesSusan and Steve Karasanti: “This was an awesome experience.”

Site Analysis

What’s wrong with this Web site?

Last week, my post asked whether a small retailer can compete online with the big boys.

The answer to that question is yes, but only if the small retailer creates an online presence that differentiates itself from the competition. The site has to have a great design, and it has to have the structure and navigation to make the purchasing process simple and intuitive.

The retailer we looked at, Little Dudes and Divas, sells clothes and accessories for babies and toddlers, as well as accessories for the parents of babies and toddlers. The readers of this column clearly want to see Little Dudes and Divas — and its owners Steve and Susan Karasanti — beat its bigger competitors, but they generally felt that the site has too many issues to do so.

For example, the readers were nearly unanimous in their view that the site is too cluttered. “Wow, what a mess,” Micah Choquette wrote. “You have so many things trying to get my attention, it’s actually impossible to pay much attention to anything. I’d trim the home page down to probably 20 percent of what they have on there now: focus on specials, brand names and strip your testimonials down to one with a link to the others. Featured products should probably be condensed to four or five, not 20.”

Or as Manwich in Connecticut put it: “Your site suffers from too much selection, where shoppers can look at page after page of items. There is a missed opportunity here to make some decisions for the customer, be taste makers and put a heavier focus on a smaller selection of items, which can give the impression of a truly hand-picked selection.”

Clutter can make it difficult to compete with more sophisticated sites. Because Little Dudes and Divas hopes to sell high quality, hard to find brands, this is a big deal. As Friend in New England put it, “I don’t like the site because they’re selling high-end products but the visual appearance of the store is bargain basement. If I’m buying expensive products I expect the Web site to have sophisticated graphic design with attractive, thoughtfully chosen colors and fonts. I went to the Coach Web site to compare and that site is gorgeous! The pages look like a fashion magazine in style and layout, and the bags look like works of art.”

Many of those who commented expressed support for the Karasantis and indicated that they would prefer to support a small business. In this case, through, the small business may not be making a strong enough case for itself.

“Why would you buy from this site instead of one of their bigger competitors?” asked Morgan S. of Atlanta. “I probably wouldn’t. This site doesn’t tell me that they are super customer-focused. This site communicates that they are just another mass retailer. What makes them special? What makes me want to a) buy from them and b) come back?”

Steve Karasanti Responds

Mr. Karasanti was remarkably gracious in his response to the commenters’ tough love. “This was definitely an eye-opening experience,” he said. “The comments were well thought out and very informative.”

He admitted to being surprised by the overall impression that the site is too cluttered and visually unappealing. “I thought we did a good job on the redesign, but I guess we fell short,” he said. “It seems that most of your readers agree that less is more when it comes to shopping online.”

He said he planned to take immediate action to fix the site. “We will start by cleaning up the home page and focusing on a clean and visually pleasing design with less clutter,” he said. “We will do more to convey the message about our customer service. We will try to showcase our story on the site so customers know more about who we are and what we do.”

As readers of this column know, not every site we have reviewed has been so receptive to the reader comments (for example, there’s this review). But Mr. Karasanti has fully embraced the comments and the suggestions. “This was an awesome experience,” he said. “I’ve learned so much from your readers. I would recommend this to anyone who owns a Web site and wants to improve on it. I hope that other business owners can benefit from the comments about our site. I know I did! I would like to thank everyone who took the time to write these comments about our site. We are excited to see how these changes will make a difference in our business. Thank you for the opportunity.”

My Take

I think the comments about clutter are absolutely right. I look at this site and see a lot of stuff, but I don’t know what kind of stuff. When you use a term like featured products, you are telling your visitors that you have taken the time to select products that you think they will be interested in. But when your home page is crammed with featured products, and there is no clear organization of those products, you are going to confuse and frustrate your visitors.

As a result, there is a gap between what the Karasantis say they want the site to be and what I see on the site. They tell me that their business is about offering exceptional customer service and great brands that you won’t find on other sites. But why aren’t they delivering that message on the home page in a bold, clear way? They are competing with some awfully big stores that have built up a huge amount of consumer trust. To beat the big boys, you have to provide something they can’t. If you have better customer service than the big stores, emphasize it. If you have products they don’t offer, emphasize it.

When I dig into the site, I see they do have good products and they do offer strong service, including a lowest price guarantee and free shipping for orders over $50. And that’s all fine, but very few visitors are going to take the time to dig that deeply. You have to make your value proposition clear.

Take a look at the difference between this site and Diapers.com. See how clean and inviting the home page is. The design is warm, the value proposition is clear, and the navigation is intuitive, with major categories on top and useful filters on the left. Now look at the page that competes most directly with Little Dudes and Divas, the “Clothing Shoes” page:

Instead of bombarding you with dozens of products, this site highlights seasonal clothes and makes it simple to find exactly what you’re looking for. There is no clutter. If you were going to buy from one of these two sites, which one would you choose?

Little Dudes and Divas is a small business run by people who know their business and have great products and service. But they have done themselves a disservice. Look at how many of the commenters told the Karasantis that they need to invest in a redesign. I agree.

Would you like to have your business’s Web site or mobile app reviewed? This is an opportunity for companies looking for an honest (and free) appraisal of their online presence and marketing efforts.

To be considered, please tell me about your experiences — why you started your site, what works, what doesn’t and why you would like to have the site reviewed — in an e-mail to youretheboss@bluefountainmedia.com.

Gabriel Shaoolian is the founder and chief executive of Blue Fountain Media, a Web design, development and marketing company based in New York.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1283bb7dac59cef8abe87cbe5eb80c9c

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With: , ,

Off the Charts: Signs That the Era of Cheap Chinese Imports Is Ending

October 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Beginning in the 1990s, the emergence of China as a major exporter first depressed and then held down the prices of many goods, helping to improve living standards in the United States. But recently, prices have begun to rise.

The change can be seen clearly in the accompanying charts showing the Consumer Price Index for apparel. Because prices can be volatile, they use three-month moving averages to smooth the trends.

The chart above shows how prices have moved over the last two decades, from the end of 1991 through the September figures released this week. Prices are still well below where they were in 1991, a performance that no one would have expected at the time. Over the previous two decades, beginning in 1971, that index doubled.

But in the last few months, the index has begun to rise at the fastest rate in many years. This spring, prices were still about 9 percent lower than in late 1991. Now the prices are just 5 percent below the level of two decades ago.

A second chart shows the 12-month change in the index. It is now up to 3.6 percent, the highest since 1992. Over the last six months, the three-month average has risen at an annual rate of 7.6 percent.

Prices for apparel were broadly steady for most of the 1990s, before beginning a sharp descent in 1998 that continued until 2003. Much of the decline was because of imports from China, which forced down prices and allowed Chinese suppliers to supplant companies from many other countries. The declines continued at a slower pace for several more years, but prices now appear to have hit bottom in 2007.

When Chinese trade was helping to push down prices for many things, the reported low figures for inflation gave optimistic central bankers a reason to think that there was no need to slow rapid growth in the United States.

The continued monetary stimulus helped push unemployment rates down to the levels of the late 1950s. The underlying assumption was that technological innovations had produced a new economy that could boom without inflation.

The alternative explanation was that a substantial part of the reported low inflation came from imports of Asian, primarily Chinese, products, and that that effect was bound to be temporary. At some point, trade imbalances would become unsustainable and the inflation picture would reverse, as either the dollar lost value or costs began to rise in Asia.

That is what appears to have happened. Labor costs are rising in China. Some business is going to other countries, where wage rates are lower than in China. And some product prices are rising.

The excessively easy monetary policy helped lead to bubbles in the American economy, first in technology stocks and then, much more damaging, in housing. There was substantial inflation, even when import prices were falling, but it was in other parts of the economy.

The third chart shows the United States balance of payments — largely determined by the trade surplus or deficit — as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product. From a rough balance two decades ago, it deteriorated to a deficit of more than 6 percent of G.D.P. in 2006, before the economy began to stumble.

If the era of Chinese-led deflation has ended, the implications may be unfortunate for consumers, as the price of necessities rises even as the American economy continues to struggle along in a slow recovery from the recession of 2007 to 2009.

Floyd Norris comments on finance and the economy at nytimes.com/economix.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/business/signs-that-the-era-of-cheap-chinese-imports-is-ending.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: Things to Do on Your Financial Tuneup Day

March 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

In this weekend’s Your Money column, I write about my third annual financial tuneup, where I try to cross off as many things as possible on my list of undone money tasks.

For those of you looking for ideas for what to do on your own fiscal health day, you can consult our nifty interactive checklist or look at reader comments and suggestions from two years ago.

Does anybody have anything new to do? What did you do to tune up your financial life recently, and what’s left on your to-do list?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a2ed1f95d64b2539c8ebe9ce633974ee

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,