Critique My Site (March 2007): DiamondsOnFifth.com

[Ina]

Today's Critique My Site is DiamondsonFifth.com:
http://www.diamondsonfifth.com

The AuctionBytes Critique My Site feature asks readers to visit an ecommerce website and make suggestions on how the merchant can increase sales. Readers can submit their own websites, too, by emailing the editor. Here's today's challenge:

When DiamondsonFifth.com recently redesigned its site, it saw a decrease in visitors and sales - not the effect they were hoping for! Owner Moshe said that even though he thinks the new design is better with more programming features, he is concerned that the new site is not user-friendly.

Diamonds on Fifth are diamond wholesalers who have been providing diamonds to jewelers throughout the US for over 20 years. The company began selling directly to consumers through online channels 6 years ago.

Moshe is looking for advice from readers on what they think of the site, and whether anything needs to be changed on the home page. Please visit the Diamonds on Fifth website and let Moshe know what you think by posting your comments here.
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Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

[DizziPinz]

Hi. I think your site is actually quite nice. It seems sophisticated and with it's colors (signature to a very famous jeweler) and title (which one relates to New York's Fifth Avenue) all seems designed to appeal to purchasers of high end jewelry and/or stones.

In fact - I've created a wish list of my own and pointed out several items as we have a significant Wedding Anniversary coming up!

There are many people out there on AuctionBytes who will be able to give you much more sophisticated feedback than I but I did want to point out what was the biggest negative to me - and that's the product photography. I anticipate seeing sparkling diamonds but instead I saw very flat photos with some even out of focus. I really think that if you want to draw in an e-buyer for a $10,000 eternity band the photography should reflect the sparkling brilliance of diamonds. Also - I'm not sure what type of descriptions your previous site had but the ones I looked at weren't necessarily inspiring me to spend $5,000 or more. You do have all the other necessary information in an easy to find and easy to read format so that's great.

So, basically I think that creative and inspiring product descriptions together with brilliant photography it might help make your site as sparkling as your diamonds.

A couple of last thoughts: With a slowing economy I suspect that except for the weathly, most will first slow down on purchasing luxury items. And there are many people I personally know that were really impacted by the film "Blood Diamond." Most of them have said they would no longer purchase diamonds. Regardless of the fact that measures have been put in place to stem the tide of "conflict diamonds" I think the film may at least temporarily affect the diamond business. And then my thought here could be all wet. But perhaps you might consider putting information on the site regarding your sources of diamonds and include a disclaimer wherein you state that you knowingly purchase diamonds which could be conflict diamonds.

That's it for my thoughts! Back to shopping for diamonds, now.

DizziPinz
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Make it a Magical Day!

DizziPinz
Collectible Disney Trading Pins
www.dizzipinz.com

[DizziPinz]

Oops! In my last response I meant to say "where you NEVER knowingly purchase conflict diamonds" but I inadvertently deleted the "never" when I added "knowingly" and forgot to put it back.
Sorry! )
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Make it a Magical Day!

DizziPinz
Collectible Disney Trading Pins
www.dizzipinz.com

[justonce]

Hello. Not near enough glamour. Not flash, or glitz, but something other than lines and squares. More curves and variety of color....softer lines maybe blurred a little too

Also the center of the picture features a salesman....you're not selling salesmen.....you are selling diamonds and the most inviting, best deal, gem should be the center of the page with some inviting words or phrases accompanied by something really beautiful like roses, champagne, a gorgeous hand with shimmering red nails...

With 20 years in wholesale you need to mention that in discrete type at the top of the page. It makes you special and trustworthy. Include an article about what "blood diamonds" are and how you are smart about that and protect your customers from such nasty trade.

The build a ring is nice....needs only an enticing link on the home page and a good, detailed page for the actual build a ring process with suggestions, ideas and a place to ask questions.

I suggest you ad a gift service where a customer can write in to you for suggestions on what to give for a particular occasion.....men especially need this kind of help. The central focus of your home page should be easily changed to provide new art and design to accommodate the holidays, occasions and seasons such as St. Valentine's, Mother's day, and those words and phrases on your home page will help to get you indexed on the engines. Always have the words engagement, anniversary, wedding, etc on the home page for the engines too.

The home page should be inviting to women by giving them an idea of how great they will look with one of your jewels and suggestive to men of how great the women who is receiving the jewel will look in his generous gift.

Change the blue to green - it's the color of money. Use a soft sage green....men and women both relate to it...only men relate to bright blue.

Just my humble opinion....Franci
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Justonceonline.com

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead

[leeflang_archives]

My comments after reviewing the site:

1) Technically great and good navigation
2) Too much a look alike to bluenile.com, so no uniqueness in design/graphics
3) No unique selling propositions, so no unique competitive advantage that make syur buyers choose you over others
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Peter

[misterfindit]

Just a quick note, when asked to Critique, I seldom go very deep, my first look is at your page source, as this is where most make their mistakes. Most likley an area where you changed or forgot to change when you up dated your site. One thing I noticed is you have used "diamond" 4 times in your keywords (should never use any one word more then 3), yet you don't have "diamond" in your title. You have "Diamonsonfifth.com" in your title, but no where in your describtion, or keywords. And only used in the fine print of the page. Your title, describtion, and keywords have to be consistant with your page.
That's it for my 2 cents.
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Providing resources to collectors, buyers & collectible price guides.
www.misterfindit.com
Mister Find IT

[Tradguy]

I'd agree with all the comments so far, and also add..

1 - Missing links. The "special occassions" section has no links for the occassions. The "watches" section if you select it off the top bar takes you to a page with pictures and no links. The sidebar "watches" takes you nowhere.

2 - Pictures - yes, they are not very good. But the earrings are especially troubling since they are in haphazard sizes so the listing pages look disorganized. All your photos should be "normalized" - same size and quality.

3 - Product page categories are counter-intuitive. When you click on "rings", you get a sub-category listing in the middle of the page. If you're not careful, you click on the wrong links because the layout creates "boxes" - but it's easy to mistake the links for box headers.

4 - No breadcrumbs or side-bar navigation follow-thru. This, I think, is the #1 problem with the site. If I select "rings", and then "gold rings", there is no indication of where I am, and no direct path back to, let's say, "silver rings". As the customer moves thru the site there should always be an indicator of where they are and how they got there (for example, "Rings - Gold Rings"). After I select "rings", it would be nice if the side-menu expanded to show me the subcategories so I could not only see where I was, but also explore your other ring choices without having to go back to "rings". Overall, if I had to rate your site navigation, I'd give it a 3 on a scale of 10.


It's a "nice" site. It's clean and professional looking. But it doesn't actually work as good as it looks. As for looks, it's very conservative and not really that interesting - it looks like a dozen other jewelry sites. For someone selling $25,000 rings, I'd expect a lot more pizzaz. As professional as it looks, I'm suprised at to find the dead links, and really suprised at the poor navigation.

I'm sure you paid some company a lot of money to design this site - but I'm not sure they had the artistic or technical ability to really pull it off. I'd seriously look for a new web designer. I'd find someone who had dynamite looking sites that are very easy and intuitive to navigate.

Rich

[sailcat]

Hi -first let me congratulate you on your web site. I hope that your site designer encouraged you to join Overture and subscribe to as many key words as you can afford monthly. Staying ranked in the top 3 will help you.

My experience in critiquing your site - I have been proofreading sites since 1998 - my son is a designer.

First and foremost - I hope you have the ability to update your site yourself. If not, you need to learn. It's far better for you to just jump in and change something, add something, etc. then to continually have to call the designer, have them do it and have yet another bill to pay - repeatedly.

I'm a stickler for spelling and your site designer should have his hand slapped for a spelling error right on the front page - left hand side - jewelry is misspelled. That should cost him!! Also - we are now well into March and Valentine's day is all over your site - it needs to go!! There is far too much blue on your site - it flattens the appearance - maybe a darker border or something - it just doesn't pop out when you arrive on the front page. Your watch section there are dead links on men's and women's - and isn't the Watch Croton just Croton and not Crotons????

Most photos are good, since they are diamonds and everyone wants to see brilliance - do make sure they are in focus, sharp and clear always. I think the how to propose is kind of hokey but that's just me.

I think the free overnight, insured shipping should be highlighted better. I think personalized service should be emphasized as well as the fact that 'this is not just another diamond site'. We care about our clients, etc etc.

Most importantly, YOU have to be in charge of your site. Meaning, you actually have to go through each and every link, find errors, correct them, make sure the site is updated accurately and on time and stay involved with the ongoing upgrading/updating of your site.

You should be promoting on the front page weddings and bridal now with some color shots - not bland blue shots. You need to make me WANT to buy from you.

Best of luck to you -with some tweaks here and there and a strong monthly Overture budget, you will do well.

Mindy

[diamondsonfifth]

I would like to thank everybody for there idea, I will have my Tec team work on these ideas ASAP. What do you think about the home page, does it need to be more simpler? is it to much on one page? or it is fine, please let me know what you think.

[sailcat]

Your front page is good - pictures could be slightly smaller and you could get the watches on there. You want to hit your customers with the good stuff as soon as they arrive on your site - so they're interested in something they see!! SALE items might be nice - who doesn't like a sale - might be nice to make that a tab up top - it'll keep them there looking. The idea of a homepage is as soon as a person gets there - you've got to have something on that page to keep them there long enough to click on a link and go further into your site. Curiosity makes them click - go for it!!

Mindy

[diamondsonfifth]

Do you think the telephone number needs to be bigger?