We recently worked over an ecommerce site that was doing a reasonable amount of business but nothing spectacular. The new site looks better and wherever there is a difference, works better.  For example the search is much faster.  

So why have sales dropped off a cliff? 

The old site is here: http://bizlib.server2.textor.com (mostly working but you can't buy anything).  The new site here http://www.bizlib.com

There are obviously things you could argue with (like the home page text and the need for a mini-registration before you place the order).  However these are the same as the old site as far as I can tell.  We don't want to change any of these things until we have sorted what must be a fundemental problem. 

We don't do PPC on this site, but traffic levels compared to last year are very similar.

I would appreciate any insights as to what we did wrong.       

Traffic levels compared to last year are very similar.  Hardly a fag packet between them.

Two things struck me immediatley; clicking on order tells me to log in - and the text is so pale I had to strain to read it.

Had I not been responding to your post I would've hit back instantly!

Also there is no easily identifiable strapline or intro summing up what it is that you do.

I would recommend you do some usability testing with some task analysis and work out what call to action you want people to undertake and then systematically remove all barriers to them acheiving it.

But then that's just me...

On 15:50:23 3 October 2007 DavidMcLean wrote:

Hi

In your traffic reporting have you considered any drop out points during the purchasing process as there may be a problem area(s). 
It may also be worthwhile to do some user experience testing to find out how the average visitor uses the site, what areas they automatically choose and which ones they don't.
Also I noticed from the home page its not obvious that you are selling anything, so perhaps a well placed 'feature product' may encourage visitors to delve further into the store as everything blends a little to well and there is no clear call to action, so perhaps in the blue highlight colour.  Finally, vary the text size a little, again everything is the same size so its not clear what the important messages that you are trying to convey are.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like any other assitance

David McLean
Outscope Limited
david@outscope.com

I've seen a temp drop off in sales when a radical redesign occured on a a site i worked with - it was 25% week 1, 15% week 2 and then back to normal. How long has this been for?

Aside from that:

- the name is diff - i looks like 2 diff websites - are people thinking they've arrived at the wrong place. Has the homepage bounce rate gone up?

- exactly where are people dropping out. Do you get the same number of people to the 'product description' page as before (e.g. 25% of visits) or are they lower. After this point are they dropping from diff part of the buy process (e.g. more people dropping before they get to the credit card page etc.) - Analytics should allow you to compare the purchase flow of the old with new to see at what point they are dissappearing.

- the new site is slicker - but the nav of the left is less prominent and most of the homepage content distracts from the task in hand - finding the products for sale. Recently i changed a site to place all the key product categories in the middle of the homepage to great effect on sales conversion

hope that helps

Robin G

The main things that stand out to me are:

• what does biz-lib.com have to do with cmsinfo? Inconsistency could cause lack of confidence in the users.
• Homepage really tell the user that they can buy stuff.  The content starts by talking about CMS's location and history which could potentially switch users off.
• 'Hot news' on the right hand side column is misleading.  Isn't it more about products than news?
• Clicking Buy has a very slow response (30 seconds for me).

Rosie Sherry
Software Testing Club
http://blog.drivenqa.com