Just a Few Gripes

I’ve been noticing some things as I surf some sites lately that get to bugging me. And if they bug me, chances are they bug other potential customers too. And since we want to entice customers rather than annoy them, I just thought I’d share some of these gripes with you, in case you do any of these things. Just something to think about really.

No Wholesale Terms: Do you offer wholesale products on your website? If so, do you have a page that lists your wholesale terms? If not, you really should. I personally cannot stand when I find a site that has some products I might like to purchase wholesale. But after scouring their entire site, their wholesale terms are nowhere to be found. That drives me nuts! Sometimes, it irritates me enough that I will just leave the site. I do not want to go through the hassle of requesting wholesale access, only to find out that your minimums are too high for my budget, or your shipping rates include outrageous “handling fees”, or that you don’t allow resale of your products on another website. Come on, save us all the guesswork (and the bother) by having your wholesale terms spelled out on a page of your site!

New Products, No Photos: Are you adding new products to your website, before you even have the photos of the products ready to upload? Sigh. If so, why? I can’t be the only person on the planet who is NOT going to buy a product I cannot see. And I really hate surfing through a site seeing product after product with no photos! If you want to tell folks what is coming in the future, then just create an info page where you can list those products by name.

Too Many Product Pages: Do you have 10 pages of products in one category? This one really gets to me. If you have a lot of products in one category, use an option on your site that allows a page of thumbnails to be seen before each individual product page. I personally would rather see all the products you have in a category on one single page; this allows me to click on only those products that I have interest in seeing, rather than having to click through 10 pages of products to find the one product I am looking for. You want your website to be as efficient and as easy to navigate as possible, so if you are making customers flip through page after page after page, you are not making it easy for them at all.

Guess that’s it for now. These are just some things that I’ve been seeing a lot lately, and they just bug me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Can’t hurt to share info like this because not everyone will think of the consequences of some of these things, which can include (Yikes!) lost sales.