Just one piece of feedback on http://shoplocket.com/ - the thing I went looking for straight away was the demo of the actual widget, with an actual product in it (even if it wasn't something I could actually check out with) - I couldn't find a demo linked from the homepage, which I think is a missed opportunity.
I'll blog about this later this week, but you'd be surprised how unalike geeks and customers are on this one. Geeks perceive value from playing with software. Many customers perceive negative value from having to interact with software.
At the risk of stating the obvious, no HNer will ever buy ShopLocket, for somewhat hyperbolic values of "no". Optimizing for the trialing preferences of HNers, who consume many free trials but pay for fairly little in general (and near nothing in terms of hosted shopping carts for non-technical sell-atoms businesses), is directly against your interests for optimizing the first use experience of people who trial very little software but have a hair-on-fire problem in their non-technical sell-atoms business.
There's a related sell-the-sizzle-not-the-steak issue where someone is not buying the particular CSS/JS of the shopping cart but rather the ability to improve their life by selling things online. You do not necessarily need to show them a shopping cart to tell that story.
Again, further comments later this week at length.
Point #2 on the list: "Don’t make it hard for me to try your software. If I can’t play with a trial version or sandbox immediately, I’m moving on."
Another piece of constructive criticism: promotional codes. I can't find the article now, but it argued lucidly that promotional codes are an obstacle to user sign-up: they prompt people away from the page to search for a discount/benefit instead of engaging a user immediately in the service. If the Shoplocket author is lurking about - might be worth setting up A/B testing to figure out whether the Beta Promo code is worth placing so prominently on the front page.
Other than that, looks great. Embedding seems like a smarter way to get connected with your audience than a stand-alone store. Best of luck!
Another piece of feedback - if you click on the 'Request beta access' button accidentally without entering anything, it returns the thank you page (https://www.shoplocket.com/beta-thanks). There should be an error message.
Comments
Just one piece of feedback on http://shoplocket.com/ - the thing I went looking for straight away was the demo of the actual widget, with an actual product in it (even if it wasn't something I could actually check out with) - I couldn't find a demo linked from the homepage, which I think is a missed opportunity.
I'll blog about this later this week, but you'd be surprised how unalike geeks and customers are on this one. Geeks perceive value from playing with software. Many customers perceive negative value from having to interact with software.
At the risk of stating the obvious, no HNer will ever buy ShopLocket, for somewhat hyperbolic values of "no". Optimizing for the trialing preferences of HNers, who consume many free trials but pay for fairly little in general (and near nothing in terms of hosted shopping carts for non-technical sell-atoms businesses), is directly against your interests for optimizing the first use experience of people who trial very little software but have a hair-on-fire problem in their non-technical sell-atoms business.
There's a related sell-the-sizzle-not-the-steak issue where someone is not buying the particular CSS/JS of the shopping cart but rather the ability to improve their life by selling things online. You do not necessarily need to show them a shopping cart to tell that story.
Again, further comments later this week at length.
Corroborates a piece posted a few days ago on HN: http://al3x.net/2012/02/29/how-not-to-sell-software-in-2012....
Point #2 on the list: "Don’t make it hard for me to try your software. If I can’t play with a trial version or sandbox immediately, I’m moving on."
Another piece of constructive criticism: promotional codes. I can't find the article now, but it argued lucidly that promotional codes are an obstacle to user sign-up: they prompt people away from the page to search for a discount/benefit instead of engaging a user immediately in the service. If the Shoplocket author is lurking about - might be worth setting up A/B testing to figure out whether the Beta Promo code is worth placing so prominently on the front page.
Other than that, looks great. Embedding seems like a smarter way to get connected with your audience than a stand-alone store. Best of luck!
Great feedback. We'll definitely look at posting one ASAP! :)
Another piece of feedback - if you click on the 'Request beta access' button accidentally without entering anything, it returns the thank you page (https://www.shoplocket.com/beta-thanks). There should be an error message.
Otherwise, it's a pretty interface. Gluck!