Feedback For New Stamp Website, Question

Hello All,
I have a question before I take any action so hopefully a moderator or another fellow member can let me know. I have a good friend who with his wife and father has created a new web site to sell stamps online. This has been in the works for years and they created the site with a programmer from scratch. I've been in communication with him for the last few years answering questions and giving advice as best as I can.
The site is now up and running and they have advertised in the APS magazine and Linn's, but they have received little to no web traffic. The few buyers they've had has come from their Delcampe buyers.
My friend is not a member here - I told hime to join and participate, but I was wondering if I could get fellow members here to visit the website and provide positive and critical feedback - what is good, what is bad, etc. I think he needs to see feedback about prices, presentation, the ability to move about the site, search functions, etc.

I'm not asking for anyone to buy anything, but I won't post the name of the site nor web address without permission. If not, then I'll push him hard to join and participate - 50 posts, 14 days and all. If it's okay then I'll post the web address. I just hate to see him struggle with it and take things in a nonproductive or expensive route. I'm trying to talk him out of Google ads right now which I think is over the top, misdirected and expensive. If anyone has any general advice I could pass along, I could do that. I've told him to stick with the online auction sites like Delcampe or ebay, but it was his father's dream to have a stamp store, but to make a brick-n-mortar store is not an economic reality and this website is as close as it can get. Just let me know your thoughts.
Thanks, Will

Hi

You have enough posts to put the website here. I see nothing in the rules to stop that. Until you decide if you are going to or not.....email me the web address and I'll take a look. I have friends I can pass the info on to.

I'll post it then: www.postroadco.com If the moderators disagree, please delete this.

It's the Post Road Company. They have an ad on the bottom of page 265 of the March 2012 American Philatelist magazine.

Feedback about the printed ad would be helpful too.

Thanks again, Will

I don't see any conflict. We all like to have alternate sources of stamps. Post the link please. edit: Posted, thanks.

As to site visibility, you should tell him to register with Google or get his pages indexed (I think it is called) on Google. That way the pages can be found by someone Googling.

You should also use search words or terms that people search for, depending on what you have. Make sure to name the pages (headers I think) with good names that tell what is on them, not just page 1 etc.

Name the scans with informative names also, not just numbers and random letters. People search for pics too on Google.

get on Google Plus (Google+) and Facebook. Start a blog somewhere and mention your name and web site.

Try the free stuff before the Google Ads.

Join here and after the required number of posts and time, show us what you have and post a link or two, nothing really over the top or obtrusive, just letting us know once in a while, liek Battlestamps does (and others).

Try selling on here is you wish.

Add your name onto sites that have lists of other sites, go to local club websites and ask to post a link. Pound the virtual pavement in other words.

The site does have a focus - only well centered mint stamps of the classic period. It's the same way my friend's father collects stamps. He specializes in French colonies and pre-1950's airmails as well as U.S. Postal Stationery, but doesn't sell any of the latter on the site.

The site looks good. Only thing I don't like is the price looking at some of the higher value Canada queen Vic jubs nice stamps and centering but selling them at catalog value or a few dollars below wont make me a customer. I dont see any value or deals to be had. Had a look around but wont bookmark it.

battleships - here is some feedback - I have some knowledge on web site creation, but certainly not an expert.
The biggest problem I see is why I didn't stay very long - poor navigation.
1 - you have to continually manipulate two right side slide bars when looking at stamps. This quickly became, well, frustrating.
2 - When I looked at the tabs across the top, "Policies", etc. I could not figure out how to go back to the main screen. I finally realized that you had to click on the "Country" tab to do so. That is not very intuitive. Have a "Home" button to take you back to the welcomingscreen
3 - At the bottom of the tab data, don't have a click here to go to another tab which I can do with the tab at the top. Have the click here button take you back to where you were when you went into that tab.
4 - A real frustration is trying to enter a "type" in the search criteria. When I put the cursor on the type down arrow, it displays a pull down menu of a type code and what that code represents - okay so far. But to select a type, I have to click of the down arrow at which time the pull down list code description disappears and only the code is shown. So, I have to remember what the type code is for my selection. There is no reason to hide part of the pull down list.
At this point, I gave up because I just couldn't tell what else I could do.
Hope this helps some.

Thanks for the feedback - I'll pass it along to my friend. I just got off the phone with him and we talked about advertising through google and all. I've told him before his pricing is high, especially when your competing with all the other sites like ebay, Delcampe and many more. I haven't really tried navigation that much myself as it was in "beta mode" for a long time. It will giving him something to work on and discuss with his family.
Will

Haven't looked through it a lot yet but to start

I was frustrated with the drop down menu that disappears. You need that to make a choice.

Is it possible to search for a name of the stamp, like the issue name or topic or royal? Sometimes people have catalogues, sometimes they don't.

I like the continuous flow of stamps and smooth scrolling and I really like the circular zoom feature.

Navigation is a bit awkward at times as mentioned above.

All the extra numbers and ID codes are confusing. Keep it simple for the poor dumb customer.

Colours are good.

Tabs along top should be delineated more (separated by different coloured bar or something) from the below stamp border colours. They all blend together which is nice and all but hard to find when glancing about at scanning spped.

Hi Battlestamps

i was in to their website to take a look at it. I think the website by itself is great and easy to navigate.

My one problem is their price range. I looked at several stamps and noticed that they are very close to CV on some stamps and their % of CV overall is somewhat high (CV versus price I mean). I think, in all honesty, if they want to improve on their website traffic, they will have to adjust their prices somewhat to get more people in.

Apart from the above complaint, I think that they have a nice looking website.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Again thanks to all that looked at the site and gave feedback. I forwarded the feedback (without names) to him and we discussed it via several emails today. He's going to work with the programmer on some of the navigation issues as well as readjusting prices. His father is use to buying through auction houses like Harmer, Regency, Siegel, Rasdales, Rupp and the like and that really doesn't translate as well to the Internet where supply is high and bargins can be had through all the competition between sellers. I also hope he makes the site a little less Scott-centric and friendlier to those who want to search via topics aside from stamp type. He's in it for the long haul he told me and I expect there's will be bumps. Hopefully this experience will start to push him in the right direction.

I like the website but as mentioned earlier by most who posted the prices are a little high.

Hi

I looked around a little and have a couple of comments. I'll dig around some more and see what else is not "user friendly".

Navigation has to be cleaned up, as ncbuckeye says it is really confusing. Also do not indent:

Worldwide 
   Latin America
      Argentina and Provinces
         Bolivia
         Brazil
         Chile
      Colombia and States

Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia should be under Argentina. Only indent if one clicks on a menu item and there are sub menu items, those should start a new indent.

As to listings. I noticed one or two sets that are priced singly. An option would be to price the entire set but the way "details" are shown does not allow that. Maybe open a new window for details.

Also on left side of page there is a note that states that there are no items for sale for those countries marked in red. Be consistent and do it for all menu items.

I also have to agree that the prices are too high, especially for common items. In Colombia they seem to be alright but a little high in Guatemala.

Jerry B

Battlestamps,
I just had a look and the site is very attractive.
On the left hand side though no section for English stamps.
Quite a market missing there!

Nice site, prices too high.