I belong to several web site design and development groups.  Recently there was a discussion on what a client/customer would look for, what they want to see, including what annoys them when shopping online.

My personal pet peeves are:

• Having to create an account before I even purchase anything or add to a cart. I will go elsewhere.
• They don’t realize that the US Virgin Islands uses the USPS.
• Having to contact the business to see if they ship here.
• Shipping being calculated as a foreign or international destination.
• I have to call you in order to purchase.  Guess what! I’m not going to call you.

Comments from members:

“I want to be able to find what I’m looking for quickly from the home page. I don’t want any song and dance about the wonderful company or cute names to decipher. I want a clear taxonomy of the products on offer so I can get right to evaluating the product.

I want complete information about whatever it is, and exactly what I want to know may not be the same as what someone else wants to know. I want to know how big it is, what it weighs, is it a legacy product or brand new, what it’s compatible with. What chipset does it use, how much power does it draw. Feel free to make this a second “full specifications” page or popup, but make sure it’s there.

And don’t ever make me guess how much it costs. If I want to become a dealer, getting wholesale prices can wait, and maybe I want to join an affiliate program or maybe not. In the meantime, tell me what it costs to get one in my hands.

I don’t want a bunch of crap about the vendor on the home page, but I do want to know who I’m dealing with. It shouldn’t be hard to learn where the business is, how long they’ve been around, and what business they’re in. If the site is about breath mints, I want to know if the company behind it is mostly in candy or mostly in health care products or just somebody that had a good recipe from grandma and is now selling it for the first time out of their home.

If there’s an interesting story to the business or the proprietor(s), I probably want to hear it. I don’t want it in my face, but I may be starting a relationship with this enterprise, and being able to “personalize” it in my mind is important.

People are different, and how they approach buying things are very different. The site design needs to give everybody what they need to know without blocking anyone else from learning what they need.”

— Van

“I buy almost everything online. I get irritated when I can’t choose the number of products displayed (like 12, 24, 48 or 1000) because I’m on dialup and a smaller number is more likely to download. I can do this easily on Land’s End, but not at all on Jessica London.

I want direct navigation; if I click on toasters, I want to see a bunch of toasters; not toasty socks or a bed warmer.I want to be able to refine my search. After arriving in “womens” I want to see just sweaters, not bathing suits, pants, shoes or overcoats. Make it easy for me to do this. Also, one click should take me to the merchandise I want to see, not to featured products or a general department the merchandise might be found in.

I want an easy way to contact you if something goes wrong; I want to know when things are shipped, confirmation that the order was received, and if anything is being backordered. I want to know when the money will be charged to my account. I want to know your website is vendor safe; verified and that every hacker in the world is not privy to my information. In addition to a picture of the merchandise, I want the dimensions somewhere in the copy. I don’t want to spend $50 on a set of “porcelain” cups & saucers at Target plus $10 shipping only to find out that the copy writer doesn’t know the difference between stoneware and porcelain (they refunded my shipping costs, but I wouldn’t have bought them at all had I known the truth).

I love the ability to read other customer’s comments who have already bought the item I am considering. Sometimes the unanswered question preventing me from making a purchase is answered in a previous customer comment; so that’s valuable.

I don’t want “controlled forms” that I have to fill in to complete the transaction. Land’s End has added a slider bar to their review form, one end says “fits small” the other end says “fits big” and the center, where the slider sits prior to entering anything, says fits perfectly. The form will not be accepted until you move the slider, even if it fits perfectly. Dumb. Makes me not want to try a second time. Or the form that asks for my phone number, but kicks back the form because I let autofill put that in. I have to retype my phone number (exactly the same numbers) in order for the order process to continue. Waste of my time.

Having a promotion code makes me spend more, shop more often and buy things I might not otherwise buy. I can find them at coupon sites,but I prefer to receive them from the vendor as a reward because I am a valued customer. Free shipping is a clincher every time–makes me go back and make sure I haven’t missed something.”

— SDK

“I want to know right up front if they don’t ship to my country. What currency is being quoted?

As for pictures of the product – I want them. Maybe several pictures for a complex or expensive product, and give me thumbnails for sure but give me a decent size large picture so I can really see what the thing looks like. I loathe those sites that give a link to a ‘larger version’ of the image but it’s still just teeny tiny.

I think there’s no such thing as too much information about a product, even if you hide some of that info to start with.”

— Miraz

I want complete information about the product. I also want to be able to calculate shipping to my location before I start the checkout process.

— Judy

Additional Resources
How To Engage Customers In Your E-Commerce Website
Getting Started With E-Commerce: Your Options When Selling Online
Handy Tools and Tips for E-Commerce Websites
35 Beautiful E-Commerce Websites – A great starting point to show your website designer or developer what style you are interested in, how you want the products to display, etc.
5 Universal Principles For Successful eCommerce-Sites
Principles Of Effective Search In E-Commerce Design

For more articles on e-commerce visit the blog section on e-commerce.

The following are several website designs that were done either under subcontract and were not the selected design concept, or they are currently under review by the client.

I work with WordPress almost exclusively, and there isn’t any website design that cannot be implemented.  There are some designers or developers that think if you use WordPress you are limited in design.  That is so not true!

If you need a new website design (redesign) or have a design you already love contact me to learn how I can help you.

While conducting research for a tentative project I found a fair amount of information on plug-ins and existing premium themes for WordPress.

What is WordPress? WordPress is an easy to use content management system (CMS) that makes it perfect for many different types of websites.  Plus, it can save you money on maintenance as it’s easy to log in and make the changes yourself.

Please note that some of the following plug-ins may have very specific requirements (MySQL, PHP and what hosting companies the plug-in doesn’t work).

Plug-ins

The following plug-ins are specific to real estate and there are other plug-ins that will enhance a real estate website (property photos, search engine optimization, etc.).

• Great Real Estate
• Real Estate
• FireStorm Real Estate Plugin
• RealPress There are two versions of the plug-in.  Pro and Standard aka free
• Realty
• WPRealty

A general search on WordPress.org for real estate, IDX, RETS, or MLS returns even more plug-ins (some of the results are not relevant to real estate).

The following plug-ins pull in listings from MLS or IDX and your MLS will need to be supported by the plug-in.

• dsIDXpress
• Simple Real Estate Pack (this one will pull in MLS listings from FlexMLS)
• ListingWare
• IDXBroker (you need to an IDX Broker subscriber)

WordPress Themes for Real Estate

Any existing WordPress theme, or you can have a custom theme created based on dictated corporate design, can be used for real estate, and quite frankly the design should reflect your business identity.

The following are premium themes aka not free, but considering the cost it is certainly less expensive than a custom theme.  However, please remember that any of the themes can be customized to reflect your preferences.

• StudioPress – Several great looking themes and while some are not real estate themes they can certainly be adapted.
• Gorilla Themes
• SmoothPress
• iThemes
• ThemeForest
• WebDesignLedger If you are a premium member there are at least 2 themes specifically designed for real estate.  If you do not care to become a member then head over to ThemeShift.

If you’re interested in learning how I can set your real estate website using WordPress then please contact me to get started.

There are some non-professionals that can do a good job doing their own website.

The following website owners seriously need to hire a professional.

Yvette’s: If I were living in the Panama City area and was searching for a bridal shop to find the dress of my dreams…well after seeing the site I’d certainly cross them off my list of shops to visit. Be forewarned…there’s music.

Havenworks: This site needs a major overhaul just to organize the information.

George Hutchins: Seriously who would vote for him? He could beat anyone just by having them visit his site as they would have a terrible seizure and die.

If you’d like to see a lot more ugly websites visit Web Pages That Suck

If you’re a fan and frequent visitor to the bakery they now have a website where you can sign up to received Tweets or subscribe to email notifications using Feedburner.

By using social media the Patisserie will be sending out daily luncheon specials so sign up on their website (look at the top right corner for the little birdie)!

In a previous post I discussed clueless businesses. The “people will call us” to order…yeah right! Well they might get a few callers, but all I can think about is how many they are losing. At the moment it’s Monday night (9:11PM) and say I want to order a few items at the last moment. I can’t call you as you aren’t open, but if I could order from your website I’d do it in a heartbeat.

But the heart of the matter is that you need to stop thinking “old school”. Anyway here is a superb article written by Jonathan Fields. Enjoy!

If Your Business Sucks, Don’t Blame the Market
by Jonathan Fields

Awakened Abstract: Market’s don’t turn businesses bad, failure to respond to markets does¦

Over the last year, I began to notice I was holding books a bit further away. And, getting headaches with increasing frequency.

Now, I’m 44 years old, I don’t wear glasses or contacts and the last time I went to an optometrist, my vision was 20:15. In fact, the guy laughed, sent me on my way and told me clients like me made it hard to pay his kids’ college tuition. Flash forward 5 years and it appears I’ve entered what’s known as the mid-40s vision-drift crowd. Still 20:20, but I now need reading glasses when writing or reading for long periods.

I learned this while visiting a new optometrist last week. After the exam, he shared, I’d love to sell you something, but my glasses range from $300-$700 and frankly you’d be better off grabbing a pair for $20 at CVS.

Thanks, I replied, then added, So, are you going anywhere for the holidays?

No, he said, business is really tough right now.

I’m new to this whole glasses thing, I replied, but I’m curious, what’s making it so hard? Is it the internet? Can people buy what you’re selling for a lot less online?

Click here to read the full article. And subscribe when you’ve finished reading. He’s a very smart man!

Recently I was contacted by a gentleman requesting a quote for search engine optimization for his website. He used Intuit’s Website to create his website. So being curious, especially after seeing TV commercials, I went and checked it out.

Their package details can be found here. And quite frankly I cannot recommend them even for someone starting out. And for $14.99 extra a month you can be listed in their WebListings and get found. You would be further ahead listing yourself in Google’s business listings and manually submitting your website.

Intuit Packages*
*As of December 11, 2009

Intuit mentions nothing about submitting to Google, Yahoo or MSN, and quite frankly most website designers/developers always feature your site (at least good ones do) so you’ll get picked up. But content and a search engine friendly website is important.

E-commerce with Intuit
They use SimpleStore and is an additional $9.99 a month and is only available to Gold or Platinum website packages. Details are here with additional packages here, and quite frankly if you pick one I think you are unbelievably stupid to pay those prices.

For what they want for the Enterprise Package ($2759.88 annual costs and that is for each and every year). For that price you could have a professionally designed website and a shopping cart, and then you only have annual hosting fees with a good web host, merchant fees (which are extra no matter what service you use) to process credit cards and an SSL, or use PayPal. There are several excellent shopping carts.

My Recommendation
Businesses would be further ahead using WordPress. It’s great for SEO, it’s dynamic, it’s easy to add content, you can blog which can be a simple as just news about your business, get subscribers, use social media, affiliates, and so much more. There are several WordPress e-commerce plug-ins, or just simply add Buy Now PayPal buttons. If you want to add features such as wholesale, wish lists/gift registry, etc. then you will need a full-fledged e-commerce solution.

Reviews
Amazon
Why not to use Intuit Website Builder

Footnote
It’s not just Intuit. I have a current client that will be moving to a different shopping cart. The original web designer set the business up with a company that charges $229.00/$299.00 a year for the cart and that’s in addition to separate hosting fees for the site. For $159 the client will have a shopping cart that does not require annual fees.

Bottom line is that a good web developer knows what’s out there, and what does and doesn’t work, and will save you money in the long run.

Let’s just say I’ve seen more than enough ugly real estate websites. On the other hand I’ve seen quite a few really great ones.

Real estate websites should be about the real estate which is buying and selling. The agent should leave their ego out as the the website should not be all about the agent. Okay, you are some what important and should show the potential client what you can do for them, but never forget that it is about the property.

I highly recommend having great photographs of the house, condo, villa, vacant land, or commercial property When someone is going to be moving to a new area the first thing they’ll do is go on the internet and start searching, and looking at various listings. The ones that will catch their eye (besides a great price) is the photography of the property. There’s nothing worse than gray and dingy looking photos.

It’s certainly not required but I would recommend providing information about schools, shopping, activities and other useful information such as police, fire, and hospitals.

Lastly there are some great tools out there to manage your website and listings. So let’s get started!

I finally finished! There is still some work to do, but so far I’m very happy with it.

What are your thoughts?

I think all web developers have come across the following type of potential clients, and we are just absolutely floored. So here goes:

Business #1: They did their own site. It shows. They constantly refer to “contact us” on each page, but their email address is only on the home page and there is no link not even a “mailto”. They sell products and you cannot order them unless you call them. They think that’s just fine. But in this economy you cannot afford to do that. Oh heck, that’s any economy.

Business #2: Same thing. They also want to offer wholesale.

Business #3: Someone did their site in all graphics. Since the site was launched (2001?) they haven’t made one sale from their site. The site cost them $200. Actually the site has cost them more than that….all those lost opportunities for sales.

The problem with all three businesses is the total lack of understanding of how a well developed website can help their business. And many potential customers are not in their time zone.