Store refresh on 30 bees

[annafjmorris]

Hi, my current store is at www.ethical-pets.co.uk, we are updating to thirtybees and making some changes to maximise sales at the same time. We have a staging site at:

http://eptest.gn.**apc.org

(remove stars, don't want a live link to my staging server)

So, it's very early stages obviously, the designer is working on the appearance etc, no need to feedback about that.

I am interested in your opinions of the sales processes and potential places to improve conversion, especially on mobile. Right now most things are either the same as they were before or as default in 30 bees. I am making a list of plugins and tweaks I want and I would love your thoughts and ideas on this. So: how do we make more money and convert more?

Thanks guys!!

Best

Anna

[lesley]

So far the site looks good to me. The only thing I would recommend is adding clear contact information to the site in the footer. A lot of people look for it there. Also, there are two contact links in the top header.

[annafjmorris]

Yes, thanks, both good points.

[marci123]

I like the shop layout with the background trees and the cute basket in the header. However, the theme doesn't seem to be responsive. I would think about a solution for mobile users. More and more users are ordering via mobile phone or tablets. Since you are from the UK I would recommend to check this site. https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses I think there are some required information missing on your site.

[annafjmorris]

Hi, I think you're looking at the old store, the new store is in the disguised link below that.

[vincentdenkspel]

Hi,

I like the navigation to the left. I do have some suggestions: - When i add a product to cart a very small popup will display with the text 'quantity is updated' . I would suggest to change the text in 'your product is added to cart. - In category view (dog/dog-food) i can't add a product directly to cart http://d.pr/i/7PWefS (it looks like it is not available) .in productview i can add product to cart http://d.pr/i/gNtpMc (so it is on stock) - there is an inconsistancy in the category view. Sometime the button 'add to cart' is displayed and sometime not (although the products are in stock Hope this helps

[hfxracing]

Think of things this way every page on your site should be able to answer all the questions a customer might have. This will help with your conversion. Life style photos are a plus as well. show the products being enjoyed. You have to convey that the person looking needs this product & it addresses a need and how your business solves that. One of the biggest questions are why should I buy this from you?

[bzndk]

Just checked your site, and you need your developer to look in to the following thigs.

1) Make sure EVERY item is loaded via HTTPS, currently you got some items that loads via HTTP this makes the browser show your site as insecure.

2) You need to look in to the speed of the site, the site is very slow currently, and for me sitting in Denmark the load time is 5-8 sec, this will actually loose your customers to, according to GTMetrix with there London location used is 13 Sec loading time this should be a main focus to fix - You should read https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/

3) Leverage browser caching - needs to be sortet out to, right now you dont use the browser caching at all, and this is important since revisitors have to load the elements over and over again when they switch pages on your site, with Leverage browser caching turned on, they only have to load it once (unless they flush there browser cache) and this will give some improvements in load, not for first visitors tho.

[lytong]

"i dont want to stir the pot but it makes me cringe all the time

"

[Tomik]

its a spam account @alwayspaws

[alwayspaws]

Oh! Thanks @Tomik

It should have been removed then.

[annafjmorris]

@bzndk said in Store refresh on 30 bees:

Just checked your site, and you need your developer to look in to the following thigs.

1) Make sure EVERY item is loaded via HTTPS, currently you got some items that loads via HTTP this makes the browser show your site as insecure.

2) You need to look in to the speed of the site, the site is very slow currently, and for me sitting in Denmark the load time is 5-8 sec, this will actually loose your customers to, according to GTMetrix with there London location used is 13 Sec loading time this should be a main focus to fix - You should read https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/

3) Leverage browser caching - needs to be sortet out to, right now you dont use the browser caching at all, and this is important since revisitors have to load the elements over and over again when they switch pages on your site, with Leverage browser caching turned on, they only have to load it once (unless they flush there browser cache) and this will give some improvements in load, not for first visitors tho.

Hey, just wanted to let you know we have been working on these things: firstly we moved the site from out VPS to a linode server, employing a speed specialist to do the work. He has configured a lot of things like the browser caching you mentioned which would not function on our old store. I am getting our theme developer to fix the http > https issues. The speed guy also mentioned some plugins which are inefficient, that we are asking the developers to look at. So far so good. The next job is to review all the product descriptions etc which are quite out dated and random in places. We are doing this slowly over time, it's a big job!

[annafjmorris]

@vincentdenkspel said in Store refresh on 30 bees:

there is an inconsistancy in the category view. Sometime the button ‘add to cart’ is displayed and sometime not (although the products are in stock

Yeah, this is when a product has options such as grams in bag or colour. For example a bag of dog food comes in 300g (tiny) up to 15kg (large!) . It's a setting someplace. Can't work out how is Best to deal with it. I don't want to lose out on 15kg sales by making 3kg the default or something....

So, Do I have "add to cart" and set it to add x size or y colour by default? Or perhaps some other way of making it feel quick and consistent, perhaps you click add to cart and a dropdown allows you to specify size/colour etc... Thoughts welcome

[vincentdenkspel]

@annafjmorris I would look at how others are doing this. At Amazon they only list the price of one option. Then you can click on the price or product name and you will be direct to the product page. There you can select a specific option and then you can click the add to cart button

[annafjmorris]

@vincentdenkspel said in Store refresh on 30 bees:

@annafjmorris I would look at how others are doing this. At Amazon they only list the price of one option. Then you can click on the price or product name and you will be direct to the product page. There you can select a specific option and then you can click the add to cart button

True, but that means removing the quick "add to cart" option in search/category pages, for about half our catalogue. I always like to try and maintain fast purchase possibility for our regular/less patient customers

[vincentdenkspel]

@annafjmorris You could create separate products for each weight. Problem solved :)