Feedback needed...

The Renfro

Outsville.com
Silver Member
OK I have been back from the Open for a week... I talked to industry people all week and came back home with a plan to establish an online store for The Accu-Rack System and about 8 other products I have been working on over the last 2 years.... The Accu-Racks will be available at Outsville.com, AlexPagulayan.com and Accu-Stats.com in their store....

Until I work out the details with Jim Wych on Alex's site and Accu-Stats, Outsville will be the only distribution point for the racks.... I spoke with Jerry Forsyth about Outsville and he gave the thumbs up to offer my products for sale here while I am in fledgling mode and not established....

SO back to why this thread is here... Outsville.com is up and running but I am by no means a web designer nor do I currently have a budget to hire one... The site currently is still under construction and the store only works thru paypal... I should have my merchant account and portal to accept credit cards early this week...

I've been here long enough to know that most of us are not bashful in sharing our opinions so if you wouldn't mind checking out the site and giving me constructive criticism I would truly appreciate it... I know it's not even close to what I would consider slick or professional but I am learning as I go........

Thanks,
Chris
outsville.com
 
My thoughts

I have had a bit of experience in this I developed and managed Tim Scruggs website from 1995-2001 and I did the same for my current employers website during the same time frame.

Unfortunately I have been out of the website design business since, so keep that in mind as you review my comments.

My opinions/suggestions

Lose the surfing background on the store section. That is not doing anything for the site. And provide a way back to the main site from the store. Either have a text link to the main site or use the outsville graphic for a link back to it.

Currently both the home and picture link take you back to the online store, so a user is trapped.

As far as the main site, I understand that it is still under construction. I think though you should center the links. I have not looked at html source but I bet you used a table to structure them which is fine. Center your titles, they will look better.

I prefer clean background pages (fill colors only) because the pages load quicker, and look cleaner IMHO.

Test the sites functionality and look with as many browsers as you can. You would be surprised how some browsers display a site in comparison to others. Also if you can test your site using mobile devices, that is a huge market that you want to tap.

Counter and copyright info good to have. Consider putting a date stamp on the bottom of the page indicating when it was last updated that is important to the reader to see how current a site is in terms of content.

In future development you will want to consider adding user interactive sections. Start small, with a feed-back section to allow for comments by customers. A FAQ section would be useful for each product as well.
 
You should definitely consider having an ebay store in addition to your websites. You'll reach a MUCH bigger market that way.
 
havent been to the site yet just read your first post
but you should make it so anyone can click on outsville.com in your signature and link to the site
that link should be in all your posts
 
Blue text for the menu bar is hard to see on a blue background, especially since these links are not bold and the font size is smaller than the rest of the text.
 
I would have failed high school chemistry...if I'd taken it...so I stuck with PE and HomeEconomics for bachelors,

but I immediately understood that your use of the word "polyester" meant that it was a woven fabric instead of a solid -- dare I use the word -- plastic. I really like the idea of being able to iron out creases.

As far as the site:

As much as I admire your desire to help professional pool, it's a distraction. Save it for later; maybe a few sentences at the end of the Accu-Rack description. Put your products on the homepage...not your philanthropy.
 
Thanks to everyone for taking time to provide feedback... I am still making changes but I would have overlooked many things without other eyes and browsers looking in... I am looking into linking to ebay as suggested as well.. Hopefully my gank err bank will get my merchant account sorted out and I can start taking orders to test that section of the site......

And DD the video was unscripted and shot in one take... It will be replaced when I can get the time to have it done right... Likely DCC.. and I'll even add the word "solid" in front of the word plastic or maybe "sheet" after it..
 
Yes, the clarification will help a lot.

I actually like that it is unscripted. You had points that you wanted to make and you made them. Keep it concise and concentrate on the things that make it better than the competition. Don't mention the competition by name (I don't think you did), too often that sounds like petty insulting.

You are the inventor, you've spent more time thinking about this than anyone else, you are the expert. Remember that and be confident because of it.

The video is okay for a spur-of-the-moment type of video, but you do need to redo it. Having spent a lot of time around people who write, direct, produce and edit commercials, I'd make the following recommendations:

Use a tripod.

As a comparison for a how-to sales video, looking at the videos on www.edgeproinc.com. These videos sold me a knife sharpening system. Very much like you, the man in the video is the inventor. He is unscripted. The setup to shoot his video is not high end, but he has good sound (rent a mic, probably a very directional one, as the only sound necessary is you).

Dress at the neat end of how your probable customers dress. If in doubt, a collared golf shirt in a solid medium-dark color with a simple logo, tucked in to black slacks always works.

Make sure the entire area in the shot is clean. You don't want people distracted with trying to figure out what magazine is open in the background (got that from a shoot that a friend had to fix).

I'd suggest having a couple of cases with the product in them. You have obviously put effort into the container and simply describing how it can be used falls way short of the quality of your work. Have one case with it in the pocket and another with it hanging from the lanyard. Have one demo that you never move and never open (you want the product as it is sold ingrained in customer's minds).

Finally, short and precise is much better than long and full of filler.

Good luck, hope I didn't come off as too much of a ***** earlier.

dld

dld,

I'm very glad you came back and expanded on your observations...

What started out as an aside turned into a pretty good critique of what I need to do going forward with the next video...

While I have a huge appreciation of cheerleaders (especially in short skirts), that's not what I need... umm wait cheerleaders... short skirts... ummm... errrr...

Seriously thank you for your input.... I'll see what we can do at DCC =)

Thanks,
Chris
 
I am looking into linking to ebay as suggested as well.

Cool. I absolutely promise you that this will generate a LOT more sales than selling only through your own site. At the risk of telling you stuff that you already know, I can say that using ebay will open up a huge (global) market to you. ...Honestly, all over the world, when people want to buy a fairly low-cost item such as a racking template, at least half of them will search ebay even before googling.

Anyway, please post in this thread and let us know when your product can be purchased through ebay. I for one will put my money where my mouth is and buy one that same day. :)
 
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I finally figured out how to link my store to ebay... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110974371157.. Will throw the other options beside the complete set up later tonight

Still working out the merchant account and credit card portal for the store at www.outsville.com

Thanks to everyone with suggestions so far... Keep them coming...

This has been an adventure in learning new tricks for an old dog =)
Currently searching for "Accu-Racks" on ebay brings up no hits.

I'll try again tomorrow...
 
Just ordered the nine/ten combination. Looking forward to giving them a try! :grin-square:
 
Something to consider as the Holiday season approaches.

Have you considered doing a stocking stuffer bundle?

A tube of Accu-Racks (3 templates), a 5 pack of your TechDud Tips and a couple of pieces of your new chalk etc. All for around $50 shipped. I"ll bet it would make a lot of pool players happy this holiday season.

Just a thought.
 
Something to consider as the Holiday season approaches.

Have you considered doing a stocking stuffer bundle?

A tube of Accu-Racks (3 templates), a 5 pack of your TechDud Tips and a couple of pieces of your new chalk etc. All for around $50 shipped. I"ll bet it would make a lot of pool players happy this holiday season.

Just a thought.

Haha Rufus if the chalk was out of R&D that would be a great idea... I moved the COR Tester ahead of the chalk after interest in it at the Open so it's been seeing more attention.... Had to have the COR tests to know if the new tip was what I wanted so now I have to take the tester from crude and functional to something that will stand up to use in repair shops and pro shops or home use.... I am looking at adding a durometer station to the tester and maybe even a digital scale as addons.... The BreakSmith is moving along slowly as well.... The main section is complete and now I have to come up with a telescopic rod system to allow for use on different sizes of tables... Let me know when you are coming back thru here and maybe we will have time for dinner......
 
Don't say the site is under construction. All web sites are under constant construction at all times or they would not be dynamic.

Just add a section at the bottom as to when the site was last updated. Make it easily visible.

Site counters are somewhat useless, however they can serve to draw the eye when placed near the page update info.

Make sure each page has the name of the page. Normal formatting is that the first page is called the web site name, in this case Outsville.com or just Outsville. Other pages would then be named, i.e. Store - Outsville.com, Tech Dud - Outsville.com.

The big thing this helps with is when you are going from your site to another site and back, it's a quick way to see that one has moved from one site to another.

This is all an opinion of course. It's the way we do our sites for the University I work at.
 
Polyester is either a thermoplastic or thermoset....

Instead being formed directly into sheets it is pulled into fibers that can then be woven to create textiles.

http://www.swicofil.com/pes.html

Second heading is Properties... Should explain why the templates can be hand washed and ironed......

But it's still a plastic. You said on your video that "it's not plastic; it's polyester." It's a plastic, regardless of whether its a thermoset or thermoplastic, which are both under the umbrella of plastic.

I see this has already been addressed.

Freddie <~~~ well, you guys know what I do
 
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