E-Cig websites look, well, pretty bad...
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LOL... Guitar God Todd is a long running joke among musicians. His eBay auctions are a riot. The whole thing started out as a joke about people selling fake vintage instruments on eBay and sort of escalated from there. Whenever people start discussing bad website design, Todd and his girlfriend, Myrtle, always serve as prime examples of what NOT to do.
As long as they gave me proper addresses, phone #s and the like I'd order from a site that looks like a myspace page. But "sketchy" looking websites have been mentioned to me as a reason for why people haven't given e-cigs a shot yet.
And even the quite high budget supplier (I guess) have sometimes horrid websites. For exemple I just hate Totally Wicked it's hell on hearth to navigate on there !
I like Tasty Vapor it's simple and class. VaporBomb too.
I like Tasty Vapor it's simple and class. VaporBomb too.
Most, but not all, of the ecig web sites I've visited, appear to be made from online templates, and are very difficult to navigate. I just ordered a REO: REO's Mods | Home of the REO PV It is a great product, but the web site makes it almost impossible to navigate, place an order, and provides little useful information.....
I was going to start a thread about this - but found its already being discussed, so i thought id bring it back up. (im probably going to rant...be warned)
The poor branding and haphazard imagery and layouts reflect poorly not only on the companies involved, but on the industry in general. I showed a coworker (also a smoker) a few juice sites as i explained what i was smoking...and you can see the look in his face turn from "hmm...whats this all about?" to...."you gave your credit card to that place? are you nuts?" This is the perception alot of people have when considering jumping into e-cigs.
The people that don't care what a site looks like, or what the brand means are either unaware of a brands influence..or in the extreme minority among people. There are endless stats about the benefits of proper branding/design to both the user, and the retailer.
The argument that good design means the prices of things goes up is flat out false. If branding is done right, exposure increases, trust increases, and loyalty increases, as such - sales increase, revenue goes up, bulk orders get cheaper, and prices should stay the same - or decrease potentially (if all things remain equal).
Add to that the familial feel to many of the companies (seriously - every company exists on ECF! its one big family), and the die hard users of the product and you have built in marketing; If you choose to leverage it that is. Smokers have friends that are smokers...(though i have no stats to prove this)...one facebook message about the wicked juice they just got and you just tripled your exposure. Its a self generating market if you dont only relegate to ECF. But I'm off track with marketing nonsense.
Freedom Smoke USA is a good example. They are famous for their candor, and amazing service (to which i can attest), yet anyone that went to their site wouldn't get that AT ALL. They've positioned the brand as something that [to me] doesn't match what they are. This is one example (and i apologize to David/Pam for singling them out - ive only ordered from a handful of retailers which i can judge whether their brand was indicitive of the experience i had with them) but almost all ecig brands are like this, strike some of the companies that aim to be a "luxury" brand. (luxury is always easy -simple, black, script font usually. Presto! Luxury in a box!)
So, why are the companies presenting themselves this way? I figure...
1. Lack of understanding about the value of design/branding (you make more money with a good brand!)
2. It costs too much! (Its an investment and second, it can be done amazingly cheaply if you know what you are doing.)
3. Assuming that design and branding is something only large companies can do. (this perception kills me)
4. Short sighted thinking ("we already have a 35% profit margin - why do we need to change anything?")
5. Its very easy to setup a store (osCommerce, magento, and yahoo are all free! $5/month hosting will get you a store), so everyone with some freetime is trying to start one. Because most are new and still trying to get the basics down (inventory, prciing, shipping, etc), design simply gets relegated to a "we'll fix it later"
That last reason is crucial to why design is so important. If a user cant tell the difference between a retailer thats been in business for 5 years, and one that opened last night, something is wrong.
That's all very high level branding/design. Once you get into the nitty gritty of site hierarchies, usability testing, accessibility concerns, user experience etc its assumed you have a suitable brand to build off. Because if you don't, all that fine tuned website goodness goes right out the window because users dont take you seriously.
Now, i admit that my opinion of this is bias at best because I am a designer. But in my mind, any company could hire a decent freelancer to create and execute a brand (web and otherwise) on the cheap. The trick is being able to identify good and bad design which few people seem adept at.
Rant complete. Id really like to hear some of the suppliers chime in on this topic though because its been bugging me since i first started with ecigs (which i grant is only a couple months ago)
The poor branding and haphazard imagery and layouts reflect poorly not only on the companies involved, but on the industry in general. I showed a coworker (also a smoker) a few juice sites as i explained what i was smoking...and you can see the look in his face turn from "hmm...whats this all about?" to...."you gave your credit card to that place? are you nuts?" This is the perception alot of people have when considering jumping into e-cigs.
The people that don't care what a site looks like, or what the brand means are either unaware of a brands influence..or in the extreme minority among people. There are endless stats about the benefits of proper branding/design to both the user, and the retailer.
The argument that good design means the prices of things goes up is flat out false. If branding is done right, exposure increases, trust increases, and loyalty increases, as such - sales increase, revenue goes up, bulk orders get cheaper, and prices should stay the same - or decrease potentially (if all things remain equal).
Add to that the familial feel to many of the companies (seriously - every company exists on ECF! its one big family), and the die hard users of the product and you have built in marketing; If you choose to leverage it that is. Smokers have friends that are smokers...(though i have no stats to prove this)...one facebook message about the wicked juice they just got and you just tripled your exposure. Its a self generating market if you dont only relegate to ECF. But I'm off track with marketing nonsense.
Freedom Smoke USA is a good example. They are famous for their candor, and amazing service (to which i can attest), yet anyone that went to their site wouldn't get that AT ALL. They've positioned the brand as something that [to me] doesn't match what they are. This is one example (and i apologize to David/Pam for singling them out - ive only ordered from a handful of retailers which i can judge whether their brand was indicitive of the experience i had with them) but almost all ecig brands are like this, strike some of the companies that aim to be a "luxury" brand. (luxury is always easy -simple, black, script font usually. Presto! Luxury in a box!)
So, why are the companies presenting themselves this way? I figure...
1. Lack of understanding about the value of design/branding (you make more money with a good brand!)
2. It costs too much! (Its an investment and second, it can be done amazingly cheaply if you know what you are doing.)
3. Assuming that design and branding is something only large companies can do. (this perception kills me)
4. Short sighted thinking ("we already have a 35% profit margin - why do we need to change anything?")
5. Its very easy to setup a store (osCommerce, magento, and yahoo are all free! $5/month hosting will get you a store), so everyone with some freetime is trying to start one. Because most are new and still trying to get the basics down (inventory, prciing, shipping, etc), design simply gets relegated to a "we'll fix it later"
That last reason is crucial to why design is so important. If a user cant tell the difference between a retailer thats been in business for 5 years, and one that opened last night, something is wrong.
That's all very high level branding/design. Once you get into the nitty gritty of site hierarchies, usability testing, accessibility concerns, user experience etc its assumed you have a suitable brand to build off. Because if you don't, all that fine tuned website goodness goes right out the window because users dont take you seriously.
Now, i admit that my opinion of this is bias at best because I am a designer. But in my mind, any company could hire a decent freelancer to create and execute a brand (web and otherwise) on the cheap. The trick is being able to identify good and bad design which few people seem adept at.
Rant complete. Id really like to hear some of the suppliers chime in on this topic though because its been bugging me since i first started with ecigs (which i grant is only a couple months ago)
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