Summary of Jam Session:
In this session we did 9 critiques. Christy Winfrey – Personalized Farmhouse decor. Hilawe S – Sit/Stand Desks. Jennifer Richard – Apparel Store. Greg Bastin – Supplement Store. Hemapriya Gopi – Baby Foods Store. Cale Marker – Conservation Apparel Store. LaNiece Birchmore – Christian Apparel Store. Andrea Koput – Kitchenware and Gadgets Store. Jared Mitcham – Product Research & Android Accessories.
Additional Topics Covered: 2019 BGS Live Event, Homepage Practices, Price Elasticity, Free Icons, Product Research.
Housekeeping:
BGS Event: All EI Members get 1 free standard ticket and partnered tickets at a cost of $97 per person. You can upgrade to VIP for $200 and also apply to the Platinum Workshop after the event for 50% off the original $1000 per person. The hotel is now completely sold out, the only rooms available are the ones in the roomblock we have preserved for you. In the members area on the top left there is BGS Live Event banner, click it and follow the instructions. You still need to book your ticket even though it is free.
7 and 8-Figure Award Winners: Make sure you are at the event! We recognise you and would love to reward you for your success.
Support Tickets: Please do not submit multiple support tickets. 1 is enough and will be handled by the team as soon as possible. If you have already submitted a ticket and need to reply with something else, use the already opened ticket that would have been sent to you after you initially contacted support.
Critiques:
Critique 1
0:12:50 – Critique number 1 is for Christy Winfrey, https://olivebranchfarmhouse.com/. This store sells personalized farmhouse decor.
Homepage:
- The desktop banner is cropped out depending on the customer’s screen resolution. The way to fix this is to have the text overlay the image so the text is responsive and not within the image. Also remove the hover color change from the banner CTA.
- Recently Viewed Products heading is left aligned when all the other headings are centered. Also the products can be centered too.
Collection Page:
- Products are not aligned because of color swatches being on some of the products, not others.
- There are no filters on the collection page, i.e. Bed & Bath. The collection page is literally only used for this purpose.
Product Page:
- Remove ShopMessage check tool under ATC, because pre-check has been removed this tool is no longer viable. It is wasting valuable space above the fold.
- Add UVP icons under the ATC button, such as Free Shipping, Made in the USA. These are very valuable propositions that will impress your customers.
- Tanner gives some copywriting advice on the product descriptions.
- Personalization is under ‘How to Order’ tab. This should be on the product page itself, there are a couple apps we use for this. Infinite Options and Product Personalizer.
Cart:
- Proceed to Checkout button color doesn’t match product page CTA color. Your main CTA’s should all be the same color all the way through to Checkout.
Checkout:
- Logo image should have your support email or phone number next to it
Critique 2
0:33:50 – Critique number 2 is for Hilawe S, https://sitstanddesk.com/. This store is based on Magento platform and sells sit/stand desks.
Homepage:
- The header is very crowded, because this business is B-B there is no need to make an account on this site. Also the blog link should be moved to the footer. It also only has 1 post which could be a friction point for customers and make it look like the business is outdated or not regularly maintained.
- Listing the website url again in the main navigation is unnecessary and takes up a lot of room. This space could be used to enlarge the search bar which is incredibly valuable and have the button read ‘search’ instead of an icon.
- Combine the Story and the About pages, adding the founders story to the About page is relevant and also you are removing the amount of links in your navigation.
- The CTA on the homepage banner blends in with the image and text, it is lacking hierarchy of focus.
- The huge icons on the homepage do not represent what the actual value is. The icons should be more relevant to what you are saying below.
Collection Page:
- The benefits on the different collections are not clear and you are making the users try and figure it out themselves. You need to make it very clear on the differences and benefits between each series.
- Team offers a very good idea for introducing a comparison chart to quickly identify the differences between each model.
- Change the color of the price from red, it normally indicates an error and is not visually attractive.
- There is no filter between the different desks within each model. Some desks have slanted legs and others do not. Customers should be able to filter these out if they do not want to see a particular type.
Product Page:
- If you have images that are almost identical with only a slight change, use clear text to tell your customers what the difference is to save them trying to figure it out.
- Product tabs are not clear, they do not look clickable.
Checkout:
- You need to simplify this process for your customers. Lead them through the process instead of making them figure it out, you can use numbers for each step so they know where to start.
- Emphasise the free shipping offer, especially for a product like this. This is your biggest value proposition
Critique 3
1:09:00 – Critique number 3 is for Jennifer Richard, https://www.livnfresh.com/. This is a State apparel store.
Homepage:
- Titles on the homepage can be improved, they are generic and not appealing.
Product Page:
- Review stars are not your typical Amazon review color. We have tested this and it is backed by data
- Off-white text on the lime green ATC button is hard to read, this button needs to pop and have clear readability.
- The lifestyle product images work great although there is too much background and you cannot see the design that is meant to be the focal point of the images.
- Do not use too many bright colors on your UVP icons as it takes the focus away from your main CTA. Visual Hierarchy is very important
Cart:
- On the homepage there is a 15% discount but once they go to cart there is only 10%. This could be a disconnect for customers and you should always be congruent with your offers.
Critique 4
1:09:00 – Critique number 4 is for Greg Bastin, https://opportuniteas.com/. Greg has designed a nutritional supplement store that has a very competitive price point. Greg is looking for more repeat buyers, anything to increase the LTV of his current customers.
Product Page:
- Reviews need to be changed to Amazon yellow
- CTA needs to change from Select Quantity to Select Your Quantity
- Adding cart icon to your CTA has won on every test we have run.
Collection Page:
- There is no way to filter the Shop collection page. The only purpose of a collection page is to filter through products that are relevant to the customer
Cart Page:
- CTA needs to be changed to ‘Proceed To Checkout’. We have tested this numerous times.
Critique 5
1:51:40 – Critique number 5 is for Hemapriya Gopi, https://shop.mylittlemoppet.com/. This is an educational blog/store that sells homemade organic baby foods.
Homepage:
Product Page:
- The UVP icons under the product image are unreadable. If they are your most valuable propositions they need to be readable.
- Ideally you want your quantity picker on the product page instead of a popup.
- Hemapriya had to explain to the team how to checkout. It was not clear after adding an item to cart. Buyers process needs to be Homer Simpson easy.
Checkout:
- Hierarchy of focus is on 5 different buttons of this page, it needs to be the proceed to checkout button only. No other buttons should share your CTA button color.
Critique 6
2:14:40 – Critique number 6 is for Cale Marker, evergreenbrands.org. POD apparel is in the conservation niche.
Homepage:
- Bundling father and son shirts to increase AOV.
- Price needs to stand out on both homepage and product page.
Product Page:
- Imagery needs to be be clearer when showing off prints.
- Too many color choices, paradox of choice.
Checkout:
- Support & Email should be added to checkout logo for more trust.
Critique 7
2:32:45 – Critique number 7 is for LaNiece Birchmore, https://www.wearthelife.com/. Christian based apparel store.
Homepage:
- Automatic collection scroll needs to be tested against static 4 collections
Product Page:
- Payment icons need to be removed from the product page. Value propositions relevant to your product is more important then payment icons
- Grey text on white is very hard to read, text needs to be black.
Checkout:
- Checkout bump needs to be added, massive disconnect from store to checkout.
Critique 8
2:45:40 – Critique number 8 is for Andrea Koput, https://stepupkitchen.com/. Kitchenware and Gadgets.
Homepage:
- No real value above the fold. Push collections further up the page or replace the value proposition with something you are trying to push.
- Breaking up the collections for relevancy and easy navigation instead of having everything under the one collection ‘Kitchen’.
Product Page:
- With bundles you can add dollars saved when a customer purchases more than 1 product. This allows the customer to not have to think about how much they are saying.
- Biggest value propositions for the copperware is the fact that it doesn’t contain harmful toxins. Use these as value propositions.
Critique 9
3:01:40 – Critique number 9 is for Jared Mitcham. This critique was primarily focused on product research and getting Tanners advice on what products to sell moving forward.
Expandable Garden Hose: Seasonal product although top quality and very easy to market with good margins.
Noteworthy Topics:
0:00:00 – BGS Event: All you need to know about the upcoming 2019 BGS Live.
0:33:50 – Homepage Practices: A few important tips for your homepage.
1:43:05 – Price Elasticity: Underpricing your products can actually hurt your business. Team gives multiple examples of this.
1:24:00 – Free Icons: A great website for minimalist icons thenounproject.com
3:01:40 – Product Research: Tanner gives his advice on a product that Jared has found via Amazon.