Subscribe to RSSThe ugly truth about pretty websites
Most of us do not operate e-commerce websites, that is, websites that sell products directly to customers. This is different than sites that make money from adsense ads, referral links, and so on. I’m talking about sites that have “Buy Now” buttons and sell directly to customers.
Yet despite having no experience or data to inform our position, it doesn’t stop us from making certain assumptions regarding direct sales e-commerce websites. For instance, here’s some of the “truths” that I started with:
- Customers prefer a nice looking website and if customers like the site, it will be effective.
- A nice looking website will perform better than an ugly website.
- If customers complain about your website’s look (or even the copy), you should fix it.
- A website that is praised by respected sites and personalities will perform better than sites that are loathed by the Web 2.0 community.
- Giving customers what they say they want in a website will improve sales.
This all seems pretty obvious. Of course these must be true. I never would have challenged these assumptions four years ago. That is, not until the actual data told me otherwise.
Before we look into these “facts” in more detail, let’s talk for a moment about metrics and objectives. The first question is, what is the purpose the website? We need to know that so we know how to measure success. If we’re talking about websites that are selling products to customers directly, you would think the objective would be sales. However, it’s not always quite that simple. A lot of websites also serve a calling card role. We call this “branding”. People tend to focus on this side of a website, but “branding” can often be at the expense of “selling” and vice versa. In other words, if your objective is “selling” then the metric should be sales, and your actions, and the ultimate appearance of your site may be dramatically different as a result, than if the focus is on “branding”. This “branding” versus “selling” trade-off is probably one of the most challenging compromises one has to battle with for e-commerce websites.
That said, let’s assume for the moment that we’ll focus on “selling” where our measurement for success is sales. But this “branding” issue is sure to raise its ugly head, before we are through. As we look at the “truths” we’re going to let the data speak for itself and not let our emotions dictate the conclusion.
Customers prefer a nice looking website and if customers like the site, it will be effective
The first part is probably true - or at least customers will tell you they prefer a nice looking version of a site (with the same headlines and content) over an “ugly” one. However, that doesn’t always translate to what they actually do. Just because the positive feedback increases, doesn’t mean our metric improves. Remember what we’re measuring. This is an important lesson for anybody running a direct sales site, so let me repeat it: Remember what we’re measuring. What do you like better: getting positive feedback, or getting more sales? If the latter, then you may let positive feedback inform your “branding” compromise, but it is irrelevant to the “selling” question. The site that sells better very well may produce less positive feedback and you’ll need to decide if you can live with that. Likewise, a site that gets more positive feedback, might be less effective with selling, even with the same headlines and the same sales message (copy).
A nice looking website will perform better than an ugly website.
Given the same content (same headlines, same sale pitch), one would assume a nice looking site with cool CSS and Web 2.0 niceties, would produce better sales results. It doesn’t appear to be the case. Or certainly, it’s not universally true. I have some theories about why this is true, but really they are only theories. Perhaps users think they are getting a better deal by buying from an ugly or “cheesy” site?
This is another example of this “branding” vs. “selling” compromise. How ugly are you willing to let your site get even if the ugly version performs better?
If customers complain about your website’s look (or even the copy), you should fix it.
Every customer is sure that they represent some huge population, that there are millions of other people that think just like them. Such people are not shy about sharing their opinion. The louder and more aggressive a certain customer is, the more pressure we feel to do something. However, it’s important to step back before overreacting. Does this one customer actually represent a significant population? Does that population represent a customer segment that you want to sell to? In my experience, the louder the customer complains, especially pre-sales, the smaller the population they represent. Many of these people were never going to buy anyway, even if you made all the changes to the website they suggest. Each individual complaint is exactly one person and we’re measuring sales across a large population. A individual complaint may hurt our feelings, but it usually has little or no impact to our metric: sales.
Praise from the Web 2.0 community
An ugly website is never going to become the darling of GigaOm or Boing Boing. But do you care? Just because a website is all the rage on Twitter, doesn’t mean it’s making any money. These sites may bring you traffic (often not as much as the mythology suggests), but the trade-off may not be worth it. If the changes to your site required to make it “worthy” among the technorati crowd reduce your sales conversions, are you better off?
It’s easy to become pre-occupied over the look and feel of your website, the buzz, the hype, the branding, but this can cause one to miss an important lesson in selling online: the best websites don’t call attention to themselves. Instead, they call attention to the sales message they’re meant to convey.
I found the following comment on a message board:
I’ve found that the more basic I make my site, the better my conversion rate! I’m not gonna win any design awards or impress anyone on this board…but I sell a lot of merchandise:o)
I have seen exactly the same thing. Just because your site isn’t getting the attention of TechCrunch or winning awards, doesn’t mean it isn’t selling the pants off those other sites. If you need to be stroked by blogs, by all means, you better have rounded corners, lots of gradients, and some pastel colors. But be aware that those things may do nothing to improve your sales, and they may even hurt your sales. Even if you do get a lot of free coverage on popular web and blog sites, the imapct will be less than you expect, and it won’t last. And the vistitors from those sites may not be your target customers anyway. But now you’ve tuned the site to the bloggers and nobody is buying. It may be time to dress your website down, ugly it up a bit, and let the cash from the increased sales take the sting out of those harsh comments you’re likely to hear from those who don’t like the look of your site (but probably weren’t going to buy anyway).
Nokia N97 - when will they get that it’s not just about a touchscreen?
Om has a nice post about the forthcoming Nokia N97 Superphone to be released “sometime in the second quarter of 2009.” He says:
As for the 5800 Xpress, a friend of mine recently brought one to the U.S. and after I played around with it for an hour, my response was meh! The touch was OK, just like it’s OK on any other device, but it’s not as responsive as the iPhone. So no, it’s not an iPhone killer, not by any means.
The N97 however, seems, like a worthy competitor… it will be sold in the U.S., where it’s going to cost $650; it will go on sale in June 2009…
I agree with these comments, but I would add that none of these other mobile players, whether carriers or phone manufacturers, seem to understand what battle they are fighting. They seem to think it’s about touch screens and hardware. Even Om emphasizes the touch screen issue:
The very fact that Nokia is only now getting out touchscreen phones shows that as a company it is stuck in bureaucratic quicksand, with a culture of consensus that makes it difficult to respond to new challenges. Nokia — and I have been following them for a while — has become one of those companies that, much like Microsoft, is good with announcements, not so great with the follow-up.
Stuck in a “bureaucratic quicksand” perhaps, but it’s really more than that. Nokia is selling just another piece of hardware. At one time, that mattered, because that’s how the industry worked. Apple changed all that and nobody has really grasped the magnitude of it yet. Apple changed everything about the mobile landscape. It may seem the same, but it’s not. It seems few people really appreciate what happened. That’s good for Apple - bad for the all their competitors. As long as Apple’s would-be competitors continue to respond in 20th century ways to the new 21st century mobile phone landscape, Apple will continue to run roughshod over the industry.
Nokia is offering a Do-it-yourself solution, where users have to bring their own carrier, service plan and applications. That’s never going to be an “iPhone killer” because it’s not the same market - it’s not the same battle at all.
The problems for Nokia and any would-be “iPhone killer” don’t end with simply realizing the situation they’re in. Once they realize it, they will also realize they can’t compete on the same playing field. Apple owns the hardware, the distribution, and the service plan. (I know people get an AT&T plan with iPhone, but it might as well not be. It is an iPhone plan.) Nokia can’t do this. They don’t have distribution or control over the service plans. The carriers can’t do this. They don’t have Apple’s expertise at controlling the hardware. And most importantly, none of them have the App Store.
It’s not about the hardware. If it were, Apple would already be in trouble. Compared to many other mobile phones, including many of those from Nokia, the iPhone is a piece of junk, hardware-wise. Apple isn’t winning because their phones are better. Apple is winning because the experience is better. People can actually use the iPhone. Ordinary non-technical people are doing things they have never done before on a mobile phone - things they would never do on a Nokia or other DIY solution.
Nokia may do fine in the DIY niche they’re in - but they will never have anything approaching an “iPhone killer” unless they make a bunch of acquisitions and change who there are.
Spykee iPhone Hack
At left you’ll see my first cut at a rudimentary Spykee mini-console for iPhone. If you’re familiar with the standard PC or Mac Spykee console app, you’ll recognize many of the functions.
This app only implements a sub-set of the full PC and Mac consoles. I basically wanted to get some minimal functionality working before going too crazy with the UI and more esoteric features. Here’s what it will do:
(1) Move the robot, using the left, right, forward, and back buttons. Each press of the button moves a fixed amount.
(2) Turn the camera LED light on and off.
(3) Tell Spykee to take a snapshot.
(4) Turn ‘Video surveillance’ mode on and off.
Most importantly, the app shows you on the iPhone what the Spykee is seeing. It does not stream video in this version. It updates the “viewport” image periodically when the scene changes (or on demand with the ‘Update’ button). This keeps bandwidth usage down and still gives you a view of what the robot is seeing — and it even works on slow Edge connections.
It’s got another feature to help when controlling Spykee from a slow iPhone connection, where using the ‘Resolution’ button, you can flip between a lower resolution (but much less data) image and the normal full resolution Spykee view. This, and other features of the app, are demonstrated in the video below.
I made a video to show that, while this is still a hack, and is not ready to distribute by any means, it does actually work in real life, with a live robot. If I just provided the above screenshot, there’s no way to tell if it’s just a mock-up.
The video shows some of the basic functions as well as limitations. Even with those limitations, it is pretty cool (if I do say so myself), to be able to sign in and view what Spykee is seeing from anywhere, with just the iPhone without lugging around a PC or Mac, and even on a slow Edge connection.
Spykee wi-fi robot - first looks
I saw the Spykee robot at Costco and so I went home and researched what it was all about.
Then I decided to run back to Costco and pick one up before the US supply runs out. It was $229.99
Spykee was created by a French company, Meccano and is being distributed in the USA under the Erector brand. The robot has been available in the UK and Europe for some time - it was at one time called Spyke, but probably as a result of some trademark issues, now is called Spykee.
The basic idea is that the robot connects via wifi and therefore can be controlled either locally on the same wi-fi network, or remotely from any IP address. It’s sort of a remote-controlled webcam that you can drive around.
It’s supposedly a kid’s toy, but I’m not sure it’s going to be all that fun for kids, frankly. It’s very cool, and I hope to do some fun (and perhaps even interesting) stuff with it, but here are a few of my gripes:
- The building process is overall poor. The instructions are terrible. The fasteners that Meccano provide with it are really junk and awful for load bearing - I substituted my own nylon screws with nuts to end the thing falling apart at the slightest touch/bump.
- Meccano support sucks. Well actually, it just doesn’t exist at all. The toy doesn’t come with a CD or printed manuals. You have to download them. But the catch is that Meccano doesn’t seem to know how to operate either a web server or a mail server. Their web server takes users to the UK site with no links back to the US site, for reference, you can get to the US site by manually entering this address in your browser: http://www.spykeeworld.com/US/
- As I note, they can’t run a mail server either, apparently, because mail to the address they list for support bounces (and it has been this way for a long time, according to forums around the net).
- The robot looks like it has arms that move, but the entire body of the robot is just a frame to hold the webcam. It serves no function and doesn’t do anything (cannot be moved via remote control). The “active” parts of the robot are the base with the tracks and CPU etc. and the webcam “module” which also houses the LED light and microphone. The rest of it is inanimate, just for show.
- The Spykee is not very autonomous. It only does things while one is connected to it from the “console” software. You can’t activate a function, then log out, and expect it to do anything (like act as a surveillance camera).
- There is no web interface - the only way to connect to the robot and interact with it is to use a specific binary application (Mac and Windows supported). So that app has to be installed on any computer you want to use to interact with Spykee and those computers have to be a Mac or Windows PC (i.e. no iPhone or othe such).
- The name has the word “Spy” in it, but Spykee is not very stealthy. It’s not going to sneak up on anybody (It’s LOUD).
- You can theoretically talk beween the remote PC and somebody near the robot, but it doesn’t work very well, at least not on the Mac version. It has horrible delay and no echo handling, so is near useless. If you mute the mic on the PC side, you can use this feature to listen to sounds near the robot, but it’s hard to interact.
- The manual says the software is “open source” but it is nowhere to be found (people keep saying it will be released, but there’s no dates anywhere that I’ve found).
There’s a good YouTube video out there listing some of the above and a few other criticisms here.
I got Spykee because it supports the Mac. The other wifi robot, Rovio, only works with Windows.
I haven’t done anything with the Spykee yet except the “officially supported” things, which are actually pretty cool, but limiting. I want to connect to the device directly with my own software, with web services etc. Unfortunately, the protocols are not released, nor is the supposed “open source software”, so this will require hardcore reverse engineering. I haven’t spent any time on that yet, so I can’t provide any details yet.
In getting the remote control mode to work, you setup a name/password for your robot on SpykeeWorld.com and then connect from a remote place using that name. One thing I found out is that this name/password must be simple letters with no spaces or other punctuation. It will let you set a name with these characters, but when you try to connect, it won’t work (and the diagnostic “recipient not available” is not helpful). I have been able to use the remote access (from outside on the Internet to the robot behind a NAT/firewall) with the robot sitting behind many different makes and models of firewalls and routers, and I even tried two layers of firewalls and that worked too, which surprised me. I’m not sure yet how it gets through the NAT/firewall.
Like I said, I rushed out and bought it because I didn’t want to miss this wave of US shipments, but before you do the same thing, you might want to be aware of the above caveats.
Historical footnote
Today I sold my last Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) (formerly SUNW) stock - at a net loss of about 80%.
I was looking pretty smart back in 2000-2001. Even though to a large degree I had lost faith in SUN, I must admit I held this stock more based on emotion, always a bad idea. I felt I was supporting something opposing MSFT and held on to the stock on that basis - I even dollar cost averaged.
I finally decided to take my lumps, accepting the symbolism of the decison, admiting something that I have known for a long time, but didn’t really want to admit: that Sun Microsystems is destined to become a textbook warning sign for other tech companies.
It’s not unlike the day you realize your child isn’t a child anymore, or the day you realize that you’re not as young as you think you are.
Speaking of U-Verse
Om Malik notes a Lazard Capital Market analyst report suggesting that AT&T is having trouble signing up the 1 million “triple-play” U-verse subscribers that it promised by the end of this year.
However, we are increasingly concerned by the possibility of AT&T missing its annual projection of 1M subs, and believe that unit expectations will need to be reduced further in light of the macroeconomic environment. We believe it is more likely that AT&T will reach 30K subs per week by year-end, rather than 40K.
I realize it’s just anecdotal, but I was recently attending a street fair type event where AT&T had set up a booth trying to sell U-Verse. The poor sales reps staffing the booth were being bombarded by irate U-Verse customers complaining about all manner of problems, mostly with the TV service and the DVR features. These booth reps were probably outside consultants, not even AT&T employees. They most likely were getting paid on commission. I felt sorry for them, since they obviously were having second thoughts about hitching their wagon to the U-verse horse.
It looks like AT&T may be out of their league, or at least that they underestimated the challenge of providing TV service, and how long it takes to develop a mature TV and DVR experience, and how far they are behind their competition in this area.
Google ads fate in economic downturn
Triggered by Om’s post today, I’m still undecided about what happens to on-line ads, in particular what happens to the big gorilla, Google ads, in this new era of economic Armageddon.
On the one hand, I tell myself Google’s ad business will be hurt badly because companies will be cutting back.
On the other hand, one could also argue that with layoffs, and more people having to resort to working from home etc. Google offers the only low barrier to entry option, so Google advertising will increase like never before.
What do you think?
Moving Political commentary to separate blog
Administrivia:
Prospectively, I will be posting most of my political commentary on a separate blog: There, I said it
I’ll be shifting the focus of Mr Blog back toward various technology related issues. I’ll limit political posts here to those more related to the tech. sector, and less general politics. I’ll use my There, I said it blog for general poltical commentary from here on out.
McCain: “If you can’t beat ‘em, Join ‘em”
John McCain was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by a very ugly, and deeply personal, smear campaign. Voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” (At the time, McCain was campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.) It was a despicable and vicious smear. And it worked.
Shortly after losing the 2000 election, McCain told an interviewer that there must be “a special place in hell” reserved for the rumormongers of this so-called “whisper campaign.” When asked about it by a South Carolina voter he responded by saying “I promise you, I have never and will never have anything to do with that.” He denounced such practices as “cowardly” and he called upon all GOP Primary candidates to join him “in pledging not to engage in such despicable tactics throughout the balance of this campaign.”
But, just as he has set aside so many other moral standards under the pressure of a campaign in freefall, Sen. McCain has chosen the low road once again. With polls in swing states moving in Obama’s direction and with the electoral map steadily turning against McCain, he has become what he decried in 2000. Rather than show how he would lead us through the greatest economic crisis in seventy years, he is content to use the same tactics he despised eight yeas ago, orchestrated by some of the same people that he once said were reserved “a special place in hell.”
From “push polls” to “racially tinged” attacks, to inspiring Open Racism and Death Threats McCain is stooping increasingly lower and lower. The results are disturbing - We’ve seen what amounts to angry mobs at McCain/Palin rallies shouting “treason” and even “terrorist” and “Kill him!” all without the slightest protest or denunciation of such behavior from the McCain camp.
Where is the outrage that we saw in 2000 now, Sen. McCain?
Obviously the senator has learned his lesson. The smear campaign of lies against McCain in 2000 was very effective. Bush made up a double-digit poll deficit in the primaries to beat McCain in racially charged South Carolina. So with his hopes of winning on the issues or his plans for the future dwindling, McCain is turning to the only thing left - the old GOP standby: appealing to fear and hate. But this time it’s different. This time we have a black candidate. This is beyond reckless - and McCain knows it.
UPDATE: More results of thinly veiled racism, from Andrew Sullivan:
McCain-Palin supporters at a Palin rally tell us what they think of the “terrorist” running for president. More accusations from McCain supporters in Pennsylvania that Obama is a “commie faggot” and a Muslim terrorist here.
Comments include: “He’s Got The Bloodlines” “Look at his name” “The name says it all”
Or these accusations from McCain supporters in Pennsylvania that Obama is a “commie faggot” and a Muslim terrorist:
Congress told Martial Law would be declared in USA if Bailout fails
To ensure the false sense of urgency, congress was threatened warned that Martial Law would be declared if this bailout bill doesn’t pass. WTF?
To back this up, the Army announced that, beginning October 1, and for the next 12 months:
the 3rd Infantry Division of the 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) has a new mission. For the first time on our soil, an active-duty unit will be assigned to NorthCom (here in the USA), to “coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”
“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
As the Keep It Trill blog described it:
[The YES vote on the Bailout Bill] left me feeling that something terrible had just happened. It was the utter lack of joy in the politicians interviewed afterwards. Their mouths moved that this was a great thing and it will avoid an economic catastrophe, but none of them looked happy about it. They looked guilty as shit.
Terrific. “Shock and Awe” against American citizens.
UPDATE: More on the illegal deployment of US troops against US citizens here: U.S. Troops In Homeland “Crowd Control” Patrols From October 1st
[Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
Under the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
However, these changes were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807.]
This is why we have the Second Amendment. It’s all fine and dandy to hate guns or even to hate the NRA (which has been taken over by right wing nut jobs), but the reality is the Second Amendment is the last stop. It’s the only thing that sopped Nixon, when he realized there were 50 million armed regular everyday citizens (not just extremist nut jobs). It’s a weird deal: if you have the Second Amendment, you don’t need it, so it doesn’t seem that important. But if you don’t have it, you need it, but then it’s too late.
