Free Magnifier From Koalastamps With Every Member Review

Have you noticed the new KoalaStamps banner at the top of the page?

As a special promotion I am offering a free KoalaStamps magnifier (posted my dime) to all members who would like to visit the site, have a browse around and then post your thoughts here.

Your feedback and questions about content, eye candy, ease of use, responsiveness, functionality and features are most welcome and will help keep the KoalaStamps site fresh and appealing.

Here's the magnifier, sitting on an Australian imperf stamp sheet:



- Magnification rating of 3x to 4x
- Comes with a protective plastic sleeve
- Size: 55 x 85mm
- Made from the highest quality flexible acrylic
- Designed to fit right into your wallet or purse
- Perfect for stamp shows or even as a bookmark

Thanks for taking the time to participate.

In a nutshell, the website is simple and user friendly with lots of information about the content.

The best thing I liked is the detailed description of the country information at the beginning of a particular listing, this gives a more promising look and indulges the visitor/buyer to the website. The 3 links provided is rightly named and adds to a more friendly experience. The postage charges is reasonable and the free postage above the threshold is a good offering. The blog is a much added tool which is missing in many of the stamps trade websites, well more content would be always a welcome thing.

Overall, I personally liked it and wish you the best of luck for your future endeavours.

koala -

I've visited your site several times before looking for stamps of Korea. I find the detailed descriptions with each stamp (esp. the SC#) helpful. I have a 2-vol Korean album I purchased when in Korea. It's layout is very confusing. Your full descriptions are a big help.


One thing you might add is a currency converter to help us non-Aussies figure out the asking price.

Are you taking account info and/or payments on a non-secure site (no https)?
Don

I think you did not notice, the currency converter is right at the top left.

Hi Don, all payments are using PayPal, so definitely yes, payments are secured via https.

Understood. Kudos for the modern, responsive design. Overall, the site design is clean and professional; navigation and performance is good. The cross referencing between stamps 'by country' and 'topical' is nicely done. The interactive map lookup at the bottom is slick. From an SEO standpoint your site appears to have good meta data on most pages.

A few recommendations…
Although PayPal is being used to process the actual transactions it would still be considered a non-secure ecommerce website. Unless I am mistaken, users are entering their name/address and orders are being stored in the site. This makes it a target for bad actors; the additional cost of making it an https site is minimal compared to the potential problems that may arise. Ecommerce sites typically strive to convey the highest level of security and confidence to maximize usage.

Adding a language translator for the site would be a benefit if you desire to reach more international users. (Not a great solution but one that is easy to implement and not costly is to use the Google translation add-in. )

If the site is being hosted on GoDaddy I would recommend changing service providers. Sooner or later you will run into problems with them.

I think the site would benefit from more 'draw'. In other words, what would stimulate me to visit it more often? One thing would be a lot more material listed (I apologize if the site is just getting started.) This, along with a filter feature that allowed me to view only the newly listed items would be a nice attribute. Any other content that can be added to encourage me to revisit often would be good. Perhaps a 'blog' or weekly column with your opinions? Focus on whatever your specialty is, something that you can write about and offer unique insight on. 'View from a Down Under Dealer' etc. Perhaps some educational articles? Or weekly specials? Really anything that keeps the site fresh and changing frequently is a plus.

The 'What's new' section on opening page is a start but at this point might be doing more harm than good. Right now it reveals that the site is not really getting many updates. Without even spending much time on the site I can quickly determine that I only need to visit it once a month or so based on this.

A site has to constantly be updated and changed to keep users coming back frequently. The worst case is to be in an situation where you have to open your wallet every time you want to site updated. If you did not code this site but rather paid someone else I hope they gave you a way to make these kinds of updates yourself. There are ways to develop/configure websites that isolates the foundational code and yet still make simple updates/editing within reach any anyone.

Lastly, watch your website traffic metrics. The sever logs are available to you and provide a lot of good data. Note where users are coming from, note which search engines are sending the most visitors your way. Pay close attention to how long you site manages to hold visitors; the longer a visitor stays the higher the chance they will buy something. Look for 'dead wood', pages which few visitors go to. Note which page that the most visitors leave on.
Don

Wow, Don, what great feedback. Here's my thoughts.


I will pursue the https route, thankyou.


Excellent idea, now implemented!


Thankfully not :) just the domain name. For those interested, I use a virtual server with http://server4you.com and I am responsible for maintaining it. Never had an issue with downtime or the back end. Having an IT background helps with running a bare bones solution but boy you get great hardware for a minimum price.


Now in a position to scan stuff 3 hours a day, and for example, will have 800 new listings for French Polynesia in a few days. I tend to be meticulous with my scanning; large scans, straight, cropped edges, so about 20 scans per hour is my throughput.


Excellent suggestion, It's now on my to do list :)


Agreed, and matches my aspirations for my blog page, just need to be better at time management :)


Ha, never considered that :) It's now removed.


It's primarily free software (opencart) with some paid extensions. All code is provided, so yes, I'm constantly tinkering with the code to make improvements.


Great point. I monitor using Google Analytics, and am already seeing increased hits as an SCF advertiser.

Thanks again Don, extremely valuable input.

Rod,
Good job, it's fantastic that you have the skill and time to make improvements.
I would add one last suggestion. I know it is time consuming but you might consider having both a front and back image for the better quality material. (Or perhaps a note that you can supply back images upon request.) Hobbyists usually appreciate a back image when making a substantial buying decision.
Thank you for the kind magnifier offer; please give mine to any young hobbyist you might run into in the future.
Don

Very clean website with easy to use controls. Looking forward to a business relationship. Thank you

I think the site looks very nice, and is easy to navigate. I appreciate that you took the time to add the additional information for each stamp so that searches turned up useful results. (I like being able to look at all KGV stamps with one search query.)

I'm generally buying used stamps based on the cancel, and when I'm buying mint singles I'm generally looking to upgrade the centering on examples where I have a set that has one or two duds. Your scans are good for both of those pursuits.

I'm sure I can find enough things to make it worth placing an order, and I'll definitely check back from time to time.

One gentleman I bought a lot of stamps from in years past would send a short email to his customers every handful of weeks letting us know, in general terms, what was added since the last update. Very simple, but those were useful in bringing me back to his site when I'd see that it might be worthwhile.

Don't worry about sending me a magnifier. (Especially since I'll probably place an order, anyway.)

Hi oldguy. I've now made the currency converter more apparent and added some more currencies. Thanks for your observation.

Thanks cjd, more regular emails noted

Magnifiers are being posted today. For members that qualify each week, these will be posted each Tuesday AEST.

Don earlier said:

I've had some fun implementing this, hope everyone likes the results

Firstly, every item newly listed in the last 30 days has a small round gold banner, and every item title is appended with the date added, like this:



Then, for each Country, a new filter option displays when there's new items in the last 30 or 60 days, like this:



So for the previous example, choosing the 'Last 30 Days' filter now shows this:



Keep the reviews coming, I have an endless supply of magnifiers.

Hi gang, just reviving the free magnifier offer to reviewers of my koalastamps store.

Also, all buyers using the koalastamps store now benefit from a 10% discount on all purchases made there.

So, DON'T purchase from my ebay store but use the 10% saving at the website to get extra stuff!

Cheers,

Rod