Critique My Site (August 2007): PinkiesToys.com

Ina · Joined: 02 Aug 2001 Posts: 452 Location: Massachusetts, USA

Stuart and Susan Welch have been selling vintage toys, photography equipment, pottery and porcelains on eBay for 7 years under the name MyRetroMoms. This year, they set up the Pinkies Toys website to focus on a market they both enjoy: Vintage Toys and Pop Culture, and they are today's selection for the AuctionBytes Critique My Site feature (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y207/m08/abu0196/s06).

Stuart and Susan are looking for advice to improve sales on PinkiesToys.com. Visit PinkiesToys.com at http://www.pinkiestoys.com and leave your comments and suggestions here!
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Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

yourdogstuff · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

...but... I think the landing page needs to be revised.

1. Nice that you offer the deals, but the text choice, the size, the use of underlining AND highlights looks very unprofessional.

2. I would remove the word 'New' from the pink elephant's mouth. People want to buy from sites that are well established, and although you mention your positive reviews on ebay, the word NEW will stick in memory.

3. Contact us only lists email addresses. I hesitate to purchase anything from a place not listing a street address, city, state, zip. As an ebayer, you don't consider yourself a business, but you may wish to rethink this. Having better contact information is important.

4. Wonderful photos and detail pages!

Just a few minor changes!

Best of luck to you,

Juli
www.YourDogStuff.com

Sherrean · Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Queensland Australia

I love your toys and the photographs are excellent. I found the links down the side hard to read and my suggestion would be to group similar titles together as sub categories.

I was looking for a doll and had to really study hard to find the doll category.

Good luck with your site.

Rhondda

misterfindit · Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 74 Location: Northern USA

1.) I'd change or get rid of all text between your pink heading and the photo. Everyone want to pay for their shipping. I'd maybe set your prices to include a flat shipping rate, or add options as to shiping with your Paypal buttons.
2.) I Agree agree about the word NEW.
3.) To help highlight or separate the side bar - put each category in a colored bar, you could use two colors all the way down. And maybe in alphabetical order.
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Providing resources to collectors, buyers & collectible price guides.
www.misterfindit.com
Mister Find IT

3rdPower · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Atlanta, GA

Great header/logo and fabulous selection of inventory.

3 areas of top priority changes in my opinion:

1) Use 1 font family for all text. Reserve bold to drawing attention to special areas and do not use bold text for the entire section titles.

2) Size your site properly and center orientate it. Get rid of the boot and hats, very distracting.

3) Create categories to ease navigation. Too much choice is equivalent to NO CHOICE from your customers. Make top categories to group similar items (i.e. toys for boys, toys for girls, Disney, Star Wars, etc.)
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Thanks,
John

Tradguy · Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 519 Location: Florida

Great comments - you covered most of what I saw.

Top priority - clean up those categories - they need to be much simpler. "Action figures", "Games", "Dolls", etc. I found what you had to be confusing and impossible to navigate.

I also think you need to use more of your real estate - you have a very "skinny" page and don't hesitate making the page incredibly long. I actually don't see a lot of product without doing a lot of scrolling. You'd do better to make the listing pics smaller, 2 or 3 across, with short descriptions - maybe go 3 rows down, then paginate.