
Website not converting – any ideas? - tmandarano
http://www.balsamicsauce.com/
======
patio11
I mostly sell software to businesses rather than selling balsamic sauce to
upper middle class women but, hey, if you want free advice:

1) Every e-commerce company ever will tell you to offer "Free shipping" even
if you have to build it into the price of the bottle. Your target customer
doesn't care about the difference between $15 and $20 but, oddly, she does
care about paying five whole dollars to ship something she could "just pick up
at the store."

2) You're currently selling authentic, which is better than selling nothing at
all, but authenticity is not the primary driver of the food purchasing
decisions of upper-income Americans. Some options which would complement
authenticity: exclusive ("not like the kind you get at the supermarket" /
(generally not explicit but heavily implied) "better than what the poor people
put on their caprece"), healthy (oh God is that a big one), decadent, social
conscience (produced by small family-owned farms rather than big evil
agribusiness) etc.

Yes, there's a bit of tension between someone wanting to use class
consciousness as conspicuous consumption, but meet your customer where she is
at -- and she is at Starbucks.

3) She doesn't care about your story. She cares about her story. Does this
make her better than the other moms of the PTA who buy $5 balsamic at the
supermarket? If so, lead with that, support with your story.

4) Get some photos of people on your site. Laura of Laura in the Kitchen, for
example, as she is a good stand-in for your customer's ideal self. Failing
that, if someone who is involved in actually making the balsamic has camera
appeal, use them instead.

5) Do some deep thoughts on where people are in the purchasing process when
they find you. If they're sure they want this, you don't put the "BUY OUR
STUFF" nearly front and center enough. If they're not, your current focus on
persuading them that you're the best balsamic makes more sense.

~~~
newobj
"upper middle class women" "moms of the PTA"

holy wtf dude?

~~~
patio11
Is that like "WTF, the primary market for this is not upper middle class
women" or "WTF, you are being very blunt about this." If the second, guilty as
charged. If the first, I'd very much like to hear who you think buys premium-
priced balsamic.

~~~
newobj
Let's focus on your "moms of the PTA" comment.

~~~
patio11
OK. Can you articulate why you object to me using those words, now that we're
in apparent agreement that the target customer is actually an upper middle-
class woman? I mean, I know why it would cause a few of my professors to
sputter, but their rationale for that isn't persuasive. Maybe yours is.

~~~
ktsmith
Your summary is my sister in law and her mommy group friends. They would
totally buy this stuff if they thought it would make them "better" than the
other women in the mommy group or if it were more socially conscious in some
way so it could be a talking/bragging point at the next mommy meeting.

------
tptacek
I think your website isn't converting because you sell a product that requires
a buyer who is going out of their way to find balsamic --- something US
customers buy in aisle 3 of Whole Foods --- and your packaging has none of the
signals that people who go out of their way for that use to gauge quality.

* Stop calling it "sauce". Cheese can be a high-quality premium product. "Cheese sauce" not so much.

* Stop calling it a "glaze" if it is in fact something you could call "vinegar". Nobody is shopping for "balsamic glaze". I'm left wondering if I know what the product actually is, which is death to an attempt to get me to buy it off a website.

* The plastic bottle is killing me. Safeway Supermarket balsamic looks like this: [http://tinyurl.com/kxyfumo](http://tinyurl.com/kxyfumo) \--- the "real" thing looks like this: [http://tinyurl.com/layjtkc](http://tinyurl.com/layjtkc)

If you want to see the acknowledged uncontested masters of premium food
product copywriting at work, you're in luck, because they too sell balsamic
vinegar over the Internet. Ladies & Gentlemen I give you the Versace of $40
bottles of black peppercorns, the Zegna of $30 jars of mustard: Zingerman's
Delicatessen in Ann Arbor:

[http://www.zingermans.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=V-MOD-1](http://www.zingermans.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=V-MOD-1)

Their balsamic comes with a _book_. (Juniper, "the most expensive wood".
Sheesh. Juniper is a weed.)

I'm guessing from the typos and grammar errors on your site that you're in
Italy. _Good_. Play that card for all its worth; use italian words to describe
your product. What's Italian for "glaze", "blend", "aged", "condiment",
"sweet", "syrup", and "grape"? Start branding.

~~~
corresation
_Safeway Supermarket balsamic looks like this_

It seems that the URL you used there had session information within it --
hopefully that didn't have any security ramifications.

~~~
tptacek
I don't have a Peapod account, so I imagine no.

------
bhauer
Some thoughts:

1\. Get a better hero photo. The JPEG artifacts were the very first thing that
caught my eye, even before I fully processed what the photo was of. The photo
is also too close-up. It's a caprese salad, but because it's so close to the
black beads of liquid, that context is lost. Consumers of balsamic use it in
context, not alone. The context is lost in this photo.

2\. Tune up spacing, padding, margins, line spacing. Some need to be tighter,
some more spacious. Right now things look unbalanced.

3\. Get a clearer brand logo. The logo is blurry and badly compressed.

4\. Keep all elements in your carousel the same height. Right now, the video
pushes content down.

5\. Messaging on the carousel moves around too much.

6\. Consider not even using a carousel. Single photo; single call to action.

7\. Use a web font. Right now, everything is using Arial on my Windows PC.

8\. Use properly-sized images. On
[http://www.balsamicsauce.com/pages/balsamic-
glaze](http://www.balsamicsauce.com/pages/balsamic-glaze) some images are
being scaled in the browser.

9\. Use JPGs for photos, not PNGs. PNGs should be use for the logo graphic and
iconography.

10\. Simplify the scripting on the page. Pet peeve: the site loads scripts
from what appear to be a dozen third-party domains.

I'm no expert, though, so take all of my advice for what it is: just some
random ideas from a total stranger.

~~~
tmandarano
What is the purpose of using JPGs instead of PNGs.

~~~
bchociej
For (almost all) photos, JPGs are smaller and therefore load quicker. Its
compression is much less noticeable in photographs, and therefore the size
savings are usually worth it.

For logos, text, geometric imagery, etc, you generally need the image to
remain relatively undistorted, so PNG is the way to go.

------
xxpor
My first impressions as a layman:

A. Have that yellow button be buy now, not read the story. Have the story on
the product page.

B. Way too many clicks to order, something like 5 pages to get to checkout. I
think it should be Home -> product -> checkout. There's a reason Amazon loves
it's one-click.

------
tnuc
Shipping kills it.

Sell it on Amazon etc. Tell people where they can buy it.

------
throwit1979
After my first click, my initial guess is that your links are broken.

e.g. The "Order Now" button on your first banner links to this page:
[http://www.balsamicsauce.com/collections/frontpage/products/...](http://www.balsamicsauce.com/collections/frontpage/products/balsamic-
sauce) which is a 404.

~~~
tmandarano
Yikes! Thank you.

------
regal
Just on the front page:

• White slide text against bright background photos is difficult and
unpleasant to read

• A small yellow "Order now" or "Read our story" button with ordinary black
text is easy to miss and not enticing to click on. Try CSS Button Generator
instead:
[http://www.cssbuttongenerator.com/](http://www.cssbuttongenerator.com/)

• Lots of things on homepage saying "Order now!" but I have no idea what it is
I'd be buying or why I ought to want to buy it

• Lots of emphasis on "Read our story" but I don't have any reason to want to
do this right now (maybe you're targeting only highly qualified leads who are
already brand fans?)

• The homepage itself is confusing - it looks more like a restaurant's page
designed to cater to people who are already deciding whether to dine there...
that is, a page that simply needs to create the right ambiance to get people
to take action offline. This design is not well suited to online commerce,
though. If you want better conversions, benchmark websites that already
convert - e.g., see Amazon.com; it tests religiously, and also sells food

Overall, if I'm hitting this website with no idea what it is, it's too
confusing (too much info / too hard to read / calls to action to buy something
or read something I know nothing about and do not yet want) and too generic-
looking for me to stay.

It seems like you went for style first - and the style, from a purely artistic
standpoint, is indeed very sleek and very nice.

It's just better at being pretty than it is at selling me anything. I might
suggest a redesign focused on hard, practical sales, and once you've figured
out what sells best in your niche, _then_ work on prettying things back up,
_without_ sacrificing what you've discovered makes the site convert.

------
blueprint
You should also submit your question to

[http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/](http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/)

and

[http://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneur](http://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneur)

------
newobj
You never actually mention the size of the bottles. So, $15 for what? Okay if
I look at the image maybe I see 7.95 fl oz? Maybe 2.95 fl oz? 235 ml. How big
is that? How big is that bottle I usually buy at Trader Joe's for $4? e.g. am
I paying a 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x premium for this balsamic? How much different does
nice balsamic really have in the taste anywhere? These are all my questions as
a low-end balsamic buyer.

~~~
tmandarano
Ah, thank you! I can't believe we're missing this. We'll add it.

------
jtchang
How about giving out small packets of it for free or price of shipping?
Collect e-mails and then convert them from there.

------
cocoflunchy
You need a big call to action button on the front page that says 'Order Now' !
Right now it is not even immediately apparent that you are selling the
product. It could very well be a recipe website or something...

Also [http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/](http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/)

~~~
no_l0gic
Hah - [http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/](http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/) was
the first thing that came to mind when I loaded up the site - nice!

Some other points:

\- The main image in your carousel, the zoomed in tomatoes and mozzarella, is
poorly pixelated and makes the site look unprofessional

\- You use the phrase "Our Balsamic" in several places - maybe it's just me
but this is painful: Balsamic is an adjective* - please oh please finish that
sentence for me - your balsamic what? * [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/balsamic](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/balsamic)

\- Some of your giant carousel's elements are very attractive looking, but the
whole thing is much wider than the rest of the site and throws the whole look
off - removing the carousel entirely, working some of the most appealing
images into the site in a more tasteful way (really you already do this, and
you have all of those elements in triplicate from the top navbar to the
carousel to the bottom quad of linked images) and making the whole page fit in
a single no-scrollbars-on-common-resolutions layout would be far better and
not make me want to leave the site as soon as I arrive...

------
mechanical_fish
I've read occasional copies of _Cooks Illustrated_ and know only enough about
balsamic vinegar to realize that I've probably never tasted the real thing.

I might be part of your target market!

Unfortunately, what I, clueless aspiring foodie, have read about balsamic
vinegar is that the real thing costs $50 or $100 a bottle and up, so if I see
a bottle with the word "balsamic" on it, but it doesn't cost as much as that,
and it doesn't look like the ones I see on websites like this one that I just
googled up:

[http://whatscookingamerica.net/balsamic.htm](http://whatscookingamerica.net/balsamic.htm)

... I am seized with the deep and unreasoning fear that I'm being ripped off.

Yeah, I know it's not the same product. But that does not make me feel better!

And, you know, if I want to buy something that _looks_ like balsamic and that
has a _nifty label_ that uses _words_ like "tradizionale", I don't need to
click a button, I can just walk over to my cupboard and take out one of the
three bottles I already own. (Two of them were gifts.) They taste... pretty
good? I guess? I wouldn't know! In my more cynical moments I suspect that at
least one of them was lovingly designed in the traditional chem labs of
Northern New Jersey.

If I ever bother to fix this situation, my plan is to find someplace where I
can actually _taste_ a range of vinegars and decide if I believe that the
difference matters.

Or maybe I can get to culinary heaven faster with the help of the right
website. What might help me to click your buy button? Consider this phrase on
the site I just linked to:

"If a company produces a "traditional" balsamic vinegar, they will also
produce a less expensive, but high quality vinegar as well. This is the same
vinegar with the same heritage but not aged as long. You can have confidence
in purchasing these balsamic vinegars."

Clever. By a staggering coincidence, the page this quote appears on has some
links to Amazon where you can buy $100 bottles of vinegar (sales rank: 238543
in their category)... next to some links to Amazon where you can buy some $13
bottles of vinegar (sales rank: 5842).

Do what these folks did. Add some super-premium balsamic to the product line.
Put it in some kind of classic bulb-shaped bottle with an "authentically
wooden" cork and wax. Get the one that bears the official seal of the guild
and that has been blessed by the Vatican and what have you. Whatever makes it
look more real to somebody like me who knows nothing. Put it on your website
wrapped in golden paper with a nicely printed Guide To Your New Vinegar and a
gaudy price like $150 for 3 ounces.

Then write some copy that goes like this: "We welcome you to try our super-
product, the greatest balsamic vinegar ever made, an elixir that reduced Mario
Batali to tears... though, lest you become overwhelmed by the force of its
flavor, we encourage you to taste it only one drop at a time via an authentic
Venetian glass eyedropper that we also sell on this website. But... let's get
real. The farmers who make this stuff do not eat it every day. They prefer to
sell it to hedge fund managers. Moreover, they are wise, and they have been
doing this for hundreds of years, so they know how to make a blend of less-
expensive vinegars from the same growers that provides _almost_ as great a
taste, but inexpensively enough that they can enjoy it every day. And now _you
too_ can enjoy it every day in glaze form for only $20 a bottle."

I believe they call this "anchoring". ;)

(Incidentally, I do have fun writing anecdotes, but need I point out that I'm
only one person, I've never visited your website until today, and I don't buy
vinegar over the internet? Test with your actual audience.)

------
tmandarano
Bounce rates continues to rise. To fight it, I've tried to simplify the site
and have even removed the blog from the main page and moved it to a tab in the
header. Mistake? Good idea?

~~~
stfu
Where is your traffic coming from? Unless you have super specific keyword
driven adwords / organic results this looks like a very specific niche and I
would expect quite high bounce rates.

~~~
tehwebguy
Exactly what I was going to ask.

Consider reaching out to some cooking / DIY bloggers that fit your target and
sending them a bottle to try.

------
nathas
I can't read the hero text for my life. The white on those pictures is KILLING
me.

[http://i.imgur.com/UoD5gTv.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/UoD5gTv.jpg)

------
no-brainer
Here are some great tactics that will help increase conversion... just
published this actually.

How Mad Libs Help Conversion:

[http://blog.sweetiq.com/2013/07/drive-more-conversions-
with-...](http://blog.sweetiq.com/2013/07/drive-more-conversions-with-mad-lib-
style-forms/)

------
o0-0o
No one calls it Balsamic Glaze in the US. We call it Balsamic Dressing.

~~~
newobj
Never heard anyone call it Balsamic Dressing in my life. (US)

------
waivej
I hope this is useful...

General - site is overcrowded with too many photos and too much "stuff".

Suggestions:

1) Put a large bright "Order Today" button in the top right corner. Everything
is secondary to this button.

2) Tone down everything.

3) Too many photos and screaming words without substance makes the product
seem more about marketing than quality.

4) Don't underestimate the "quaintness" factor. The best site I've seen
selling a similar product had a "terrible" website but sweet text.

Home:

\- "Hero" slides have too many photos and text on top is hard to read.
Simplify drastically. The photos are also zoomed too far in. It's like talking
to someone that stands too close.

\- Don't say "join our family" for ordering.

\- Don't reuse photos like the raspberry one.

\- Add some whitespace between hero slideshow and the logo.

\- Logo bigger?

\- Row of boxes: Our story, our balsamic, how to use... The text is repeated
twice (and is the same links at the top and footer). Perhaps the text could be
better.

\- Do you really need a "cart" and "my account" link in the top right?

\- Useful links in the footer are just the same links again.

\- The Purchase links in the footer are nice. I would also consider moving the
shopping cart block up a little.

\- Join our family seems nice, but it confuses me. The text below the box
makes more sense "signup to get the latest recipes, exclusive offers, special
gifts and more..." Could this be trimmed down and more specific?

Our Story

\- The photo at the top is pretty but turns me off. I don't get warm feelings
until "A Family Collaboration"... Perhaps take everything out above it.

\- How about a photo of people...not a stock photo, but one that looks like a
real family photo.

About Our Balsamic \- Too many fonts, colors and photos...and reuse of the
same photos again. \- The text seems pretty good... but perhaps tell us more
about what makes a balsamic good.

Recipe Blog

\- How about just "recipes"

\- I like this page but it confuses me. Could it include more text on each
recipe or perhaps a little less before I click?

\- The recipes look great!

\- The photos seem a little overpowering

Order

\- I don't like this page at all. I don't know where to click and I assume I
can somehow order here.

\- Could the menu bar link at the top just link to the actual order page?

Actual Order Page

\- Love the top part... put too much text further down. Perhaps use some of
this text on other pages? I got this far. I want to order something... Don't
make me read more text... Let's complete the sale and move on.

\- I don't like the photo of 16 bottles. Can we just have a second "add to
cart" button or a quantity discount at the top?

Other Ideas

\- FAQ page? What is Balsamic? Why does aging make it better? Can I tour the
farm? I'm not a chef, will it be OK to use on regular food?

