Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Quote:
Originally Posted by farennikov
There are techniques to make Flash SE indexable.
As far as speed, you know, in 5-10 years from now there STILL will be people with dial up. Same as there still will be people who ride horse carts not trucks. You can't adapt to that kind of demographic forever. For example, I know that my t-shirts are a little more expensive then regular t-shirt price. So I assume that if my demographic can buy my shirts, they can also afford high speed internet. Plus I know exact stats on connection speed of my users from Google Analytics, and I know that only 3.5% of my visitors still use dial up. So I don't take them into account - and if I want a huge cool Flash presentation, I will have it.
My point is, you have to know your demographic and not simply make it a rule that Flash is a no-no because some users have dial-up.
it's not the that it is only people with dial up that dont want to see it. people dont want to waste their time before they look at you site. I have dsl and cable and sometimes flash intos take forever to load.
why would you wanna drive people away from you site no matter how little percent it is.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
It's not the point, maddog. My point is that you got to know your audience/demographic. If you think whatever Flash is going to help you - fine, don't worry if your 1% of site visitors who have dial-up will get frustrated. I am not a fan of Flash intros either. But like I said, it does not matter if I am a fan or not, it's about knowing your audience and its needs, preferences.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Good point, its very important to know who your customer is. I'm in a similar situation, most of my customers have a high speed connection. But, most of them are extremely short on time & they don't care about extra bells & whistles. I think if you want flash its important to have a bypass intro link. Personally, I click past flash because of the time issue. I'm curious about the techniques to index flash - I guess that's another thread. I would also think that flash would be more appropriate on some sites depending on the entire look of the site. For example, flash would be more appropriate on a very high tech site that sells high tech items.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Some folks appreciate the ambiance of certain multimedia on a website. I happen to enjoy the sound bite of the seagulls calling and the waves rolling that play out on the Hollister website, it brings me closer to my little seaside paradise. However, their site mainly serves a purpose of driving customers to the MALL, and I will admit, even I own alot of clothing from Hollister, but NOT ONE piece was purchased from the website.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Yes, if you enjoy the shopping experience & you're not just in a hurry or trying to get shirts ordered so you can get on with other business. I deal with primarily business owners so they tend to be in a rush. It all goes back to "knowing who your customer is".
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Also remember that you can't know all your customers.
So, while you, and say 20% of your customers might like music, if 50-80% of your visitors will be severely turned off by music, it might be a good idea to play it safe and leave the music off.
While music is "nice" and some people may "appreciate it", when you break it down to "will it help a person buy from my site", then you can see how it's safer to leave it off.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Exactly, you just can't know. You can get an idea, by checking your stats. With my main site, my mom wrote me once that my stepdad couldn't get enough playing with all the flashy effects, sounds and music. And 60% of my visitors visit the flash side, over the html side. But would I want them distracted by playing around my site, or do I want em to check out my shirts, and preferably BUY something?
No, keep the store simple, highlighting your products. Beyond that, you can always have a general company site to have something more entertaining to impress them with, like I do.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
It is definitely safer in most cases to just leave it off. There will always be more people that will be turned off by it than those who will actually purchase BECAUSE of said multimedia. (Would ANYONE actually buy just because of a music clip???)
I somehow doubt it. It's good for entertainment, but we're not in the music industry. lol
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Keep it simple and eye catching not eye gouging.Smooth navigation and stress free purchasing.Most important,information.People love to read about what they are getting and get excited so be articulate as well...
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website?
Yeah, it would, but remember our store isn't in flash format. Just the company site for local custom jobs have the two options, flash or html. They can immediately enter the store from anywhere within the company site. That is where I can try to see where folks are clicking from and see which are more likely to buy. The store has only been open a week, so it will be some time before I have the numbers to throw out. But I will follow up on this thread, when I have some data.
LOL ... right now, I am just watching which shirts are folks more attracted to (which are viewed more than others), to give me an idea where I should focus my design efforts.
This is a discussion about 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website? that was posted in the Ecommerce Site Design section of the forums.
Re: 5 Best Practice Tips for creating a successful T-Shirt Website? 
... "you can't take the sky from me"
