Thread: what are the best features about your favorite e-store

what are your favorite online store or website stores and what do you like about them?

easy clear instructions?

do you use an 800 number to place orders?

allowing paypal and other credit card options?

do you custom order thru the site, if that was an option would you?

how is it set up..are items displayed with a buy it button right next to it?

No sound or flashing, moving objects. All that might be OK for a personal website (still annoying but no lost business on a personal website), but for a professional website selling products or services I find moving objects distract from products or services so I shop elsewhere. Plus anyone prone to eye problems can find them uncomfortable. Of course there's the issue of not being able to access certain sites due to the moving lights, falling stars, etc from jobs that block such things.
As a potential consumer all the items you listed are important to me. If items are not in-stock I want to know prior to ordering. If on back-order advise potential availability. If I have a specific question re an order I prefer to have a contact for Orders Placed so my email isn't buried in the many from potential customers. That email would require an order number to proceed with the inquiry. I have no problem placing custom orders online, as long as I am advised everything is understood and the order will be processed as listed. If that is not an option then custom orders would need to be handled via phone.
So Jes, are you actually buying a house up the street or are you still considering a move to AZ? I might have missed a recent update.

Jess, AnnaTX has a thread asking similar questions about e-stores. You might want to check out the responses there:
http://www.bhuz.com/forum/business-b...-research.html

thanks you guys, you always give the best feedback :)

we had pretty much decided to take a trip to az ..at least to visit and check out the job situation for him but this house fell in our laps..it's just up the road a mile or so, its a two bedroom but its super large and has an outbuilding that is already set up where i can dye things..plenty of room in the yard to also put up a canopy so when it rains i can dry things

the 'chi' was very nice. it is an older house, built in 78, but i loved the floorplan and it had a really large screened in lanai (porch) upstairs, it's almost as good as being outside but with walls and screen

we are shopping for loans right now. i'm still nervous about buying anything but my husband really really really wants to buy a house so as his wife i have to set aside my own fears i suppose and let him do it. we are trying to qualify just under his income to keep mine free cuz i may end up buying a farm in costa rica :) more on that later ... lol

No sound! Nothing is worse than opening a home page & being blasted by a song when you forgot to turn your volume down!

I appreciate clear photos with clearly indicated sizes and pricing. And easy to navigate shopping carts!

Big Yes on the Paypal thing...it's a must-have these days, I think.

No super-bright eye-hurting colors, please, and make the text readable, not giant and purple...ugh.

I want clear photos, and I want to be able to zoom in and/or see things from different angles. I'd rather see the costume on a person or a manniquin than laying flat on the ground, because it's just too hard to imagine what it looks like.

Good features especially for a BD-retail website:

1. Good pictures - I wanna see what I get.
2. Accurate descriptions.
3. Checkout that allows me to enter ZIP only to show how much shipping will be. Kult Of Athena - swords, axes, maces, flails, and other medieval weapons is very nice in that respect.
4. I rather like a little bit of background info - say, for veils, what silk weights mean. Or, how to store veils properly and what to avoid. Washing instructions. That's a bonus, of course, but one that I always enjoy. Flying Skirts' website is a nice example of that done well. It also personalizes a bit.
6. Clear indication whether something is in stock.
5. Continue listing the available color schemes - I find that inspiring. Alternative pictures (e.g., veil and one of a skirt) could be even better.

And, of course, the whole thing has to be well-designed in terms of HCI and design principles. Ease of use, fast loading, eye-pleasing colors, easy-to-read fonts, ... should not even have to be mentioned anymore. (It is a shame that too many web designers are not properly qualified, this is all part of the state of the art.)

Maybe a user test would be beneficial before a designed website is put online?

I love on bellydancestore that the costumes are searchable by cup size.

On Dahlal, I like the fact that you can sort of see what is in stock now, but I miss the function that let you "page through" costumes.It;s annoying to look at a costume and then have to back up one page in order to see the next.

For bellyancewithk, I think the prices and quality are good, but the shrieky "don't TALK to me" tone of the copy is irritating. What happened to the common mantra of "your business is important to us"? On the contrary, I always imagine their staff holed up in the office with boards over the windows, Dawn of the Dead-style. In my imagination, the mailman and the order-packer are clutched together and sobbing in one another's arms while zombie dancers pound on the boards, moaning "Beeeeeeeeeadddsss...."

For me, photos are important. Since I can't touch something, pick it up and examine it with my own eyes, I am always more leery about buying online. I appreciate when an online store will have photos with multiple views of an item (i.e., front and back, or lying flat and then on an actual person), or multiple colors. I like the way the Flying Skirts shows their color palette. It's always helpful to see an item on an actual person, to get an idea of how it wears.

I agree with lotus that I find the copy on bellydancewithk off-putting. I want to feel like a business owner wants my business and not like I'm bothering them by placing an order. I also dislike that most of what they put on their site is already sold out by the time it's listed. It feels very cliquish--like you have to know the owner and get to it before anyone else does.

And I agree with Sonja on the sound. I'm often listening to my own music when I surf the web and it's annoying to have my music suddenly interrupted by someone else's music.

Returns for off-the-rack items are a must. A postage paid return shipping label is a great bonus, and is a must on orders costing over a certain $ amount. Ditto for shipping. If someone drops mega bucks at your store, send them their stuff for no charge. Things like that make me a repeat shopper.

appreciate everyone taking the time to respond

right now the entire ecommerce site is just in the plans and something that keeps me up all night (i love building new things) but this info is being 'filed' into useful info to make a good site

i've been exploring other ecommerce sites lately and one thing i want to make sure to avoid is having multiple pages to click thru to find an item, only to find at the last page there is no way to instantly buy it . i get pissed when i navigate a site and then find the item and cant instantly gratify myself (lol that sounds funny) my current site is like that and i dont like it at all..it points towards the etsy store but etsy is hit and miss of what you will find

also dont like the contact page..just not sure what to do yet since i cant handle all emails and produce

my hired help just bailed on me with 150 in his pocket and my weed wacker so back to square one

for products page it would be cool to put all items on one menu page..i mean who the hell knows to find a silk divinity dress in the luxury silks page? and veils in the dance section. the current organization reads like a book instead of a ecommerce site

i see making a menu of items on the left side with a few color options of that item on the right side with a larger pic and description and either a link to direct purchase or order, color options, sizes if needed

and taking at least three more closeup pics of each popular color design (narrow it down to the top twenty or something) this will take time too, and then a feature section of new designs/colors

blabber blabber

beeeeeads lol

I like the search function. It speeds me to what I want without having to navigate the whole site and see hundreds of items I'm not interested in. especially when looking at costumes. I'm a velvet person so I only want to see velvet costumes...

For veils, I'm looking for circle and weight....