Pre-launch feedback

[EssentialTed]

Hey everyone, I am almost done building my very first Shopify store, and I'm SUPER excited about it. I'm planning on launching it March 1st, and I think it is close to ready. It's a dropshipping store with apparel, phone cases, face masks, etc. for Emergency Services Professionals, Medical Professionals, and member of the Military. 

I am aware that the product descriptions need work....working on that right now. Beyond that, please let me know if there is anything else I should adjust/add/remove before launching. I have tested all of the links, made a test purchase, made a refund, tested the subscription sign up, checked out desktop and mobile versions, added policies, made sure the social media links in the footer are working, etc. I feel like I've been pretty thorough, but this is all new for me, so I am sure that there is plenty that I haven't thought of. 

https://essentialteesstore.com/

p/w chiald

Any feedback or constructive criticisms you can offer would be appreciated.

[Dirk]

Hey, @EssentialTed 

One of the first things I noticed when landing on your store is that you are forced to enter in your email to subscribe. There isn't an option to close it out which is a major turn-off for visitors on your store. I would resolve that immediately so they can have the option to close it. 

The next thing I would consider is your store design. I recommend checking out our Shopify design articles to get inspiration and ideas on how to build a great looking webpage with Shopify. I cannot recommend the article Homepage Design 101 enough.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

[EssentialTed]

Hey Dirk,

Thanks for the feedback and for the extra resource!

[LuckyDanny]

Hey there, @EssentialTed!  

First of all, great start to the store! It’s always fun to see your hard work in action, and I’m sure you’re counting down the minutes until March 1 hits.

Let’s talk about what I found, starting with the first impression. I like your overall store concept. This is a great niche! That being said, I have some concerns here about your brand name. Essential Tees makes me think you’re only selling t-shirts. Additionally, I would clean up your pop-up a bit:

• Change the font to a serif font for a cleaner, more modern look
• Get a higher resolution image in there. This one is blurry.
• Take out the reCAPTCHA. If it becomes a problem, consider adding it. But for now, remove it.
• Take out the name field. After you launch, use form analytics to see if it’s necessary. My experience is that it’s not. 
• Change the timing of your pop-up. If someone is brand new to your site, they would be overwhelmed with this pop-up before even knowing your brand. I would delay it until they have engaged with your products.
• Change your CTA button color. The teal on the blue is hard to see. I would make it more dramatic, such as white on blue. 

Moving on, let’s go to the homepage:

• Again, the teal on blue is really hard to read. Since these are your brand colors, consider swapping the colors to be blue on teal instead. 
• Announcement bar: Replace this with your opening sale or deal, like free shipping. Link it to your collection.
• Hero image: Limit it to one rather than multiple. It can be distracting rather than helpful. Also, optimize the colors. It’s really hard to read, especially the main navigation. Again, I reiterate here that there’s a disconnect between your brand and the products you sell. No one sees a t-shirt until the fourth hero image.
  
• Free shipping: Why bury this?! Get that up on the announcement bar!! 
• You’re missing a huge opportunity here to feature your collections. You don’t need to go into a specific collection to showcase products, but I would still post a collection highlight under your hero image.
• The features for “We are essential!”, “Feature Collection - U.S. Air Force”, and “Essential Tees Gift Cards” feel out of place here. Leave it for now, but I would highly recommend using a heatmap to see clicks and scrolls on your homepage. Consider running a poll to see what your visitors are most interested in.
• Newsletter subscription: Reduce the spacing here. I would cut some of the padding and decrease the font size in the form itself. Also, change the font color to white for the text over the blue. 
• Remove the recent sale pop-up in the corner, or at least pause it until it’s more relevant. Again, if used the wrong way, it can make someone not want to buy from you.

Footer

• Make sure your social media links open in a new tab
• Bring your Contact and About Us pages down to the footer
• Speaking of your Contact page, add a welcome message that includes your email address. It’s a best practice to include your contact information in several places. Not everyone will think to look in one of your policy pages. For the form itself, you’ve done a great job at keeping it simple.
• For your About Us page, clean up some of the spacing (there’s a double line-break between paragraphs). Also, add your photo! You’ve done a great job to add in your own personal experience, and now you need to add in that photo. 
• Privacy Policy: You’ve done great at linking everything but your email address. Be sure to link it.
• Refund Policy: This is a huge red flag, and I would highly recommend reconsidering your policy. Visitors, even those who weren’t going to request a refund, may be scared to buy because there isn’t a safety net in case they do need to return it. Here’s some interesting research into it. Obviously, I can’t tell you how to run your business, but this would be something that would scare away customers. Also, link your email address.
• Shipping Policy: There are some formatting issues. I would make your headers larger to stand out more - they blend it right now. Link your email address. Also, rethink the answer to “My order should be here by now…” Though the policy itself to send a replacement order is okay, the rest won’t put any anxieties to ease. It may make your visitors think that this happens way more often and therefore can’t be trusted. Plus it is lost by the mail, is it insured? 
• Terms of Service: You’re missing everything for Section 20.

Main Navigation

• Your main navigation needs some direction. Your main goal is to sell a product, meaning you want your visitors to be able to make it to a product page within 3-5 clicks. 
• I would remove About Us and keep it in the footer. You can keep Contact on the main navigation for now, but use your heatmap and session recordings (which show you what happened during someone’s visit) to better understand if it’s being used.
• Instead of putting the collections as a drop-down under Shop, I would add them to the main navigation. 
• Speaking of your collections, it doesn’t make sense. Since you sell more than just t-shirts, it doesn’t make sense to include the Essential Tees Collection (which is...what?), Emergency Services, Medical, and Military. I think having the option to look at industry-level collections is fine, but you need to have some way to clearly list your other products. Maybe it’s Home | Shop All | Shop by product | Shop by profession. It doesn’t have to be that, but make it easier for someone to find that product they want to buy. 
• After launch, watch session recordings to better understand how people are moving around your store. It’ll help you improve that flow.

Collection Pages

• Remove the header image. It looks out of place and moves everything down. It’ll look fine (or better) without it. 
• Add in a filter. Though the layout looks fun, it’s hard to sort through. You may find that you want to update it for a more traditional look, but that can wait until after launch. Your traffic may like it. That being said, a filter is absolutely necessary. It’ll help them see what you have and find the products they want.

Product Pages

• Reiterate free shipping here, not a link to your shipping page.
• I’m on the Essential Tees Grayscale Short-sleeve Unisex T-shirt page. Be careful with your sizing - it’s almost in the right order, but the XS was put at the very end. It should be at the very front. 
• For the sale count-down, what sale? You have no indication that there is a sale going on. I would be very careful of using the count-down to generate sales.
• Add in a sizing chart and reviews!

Now, the things you are missing:

• A live chat! Instead of jumping to your rewards program, I would add in a live chat option. Make sure it has an auto invite feature that lets you set conditions to trigger a chat invite, such as someone who didn’t checkout within 2 minutes of adding a product to their cart. It lets you be proactive rather than reactive. Before adding in the rewards program, I would also do a little research after your launch to see if this is something your customers would be interested in. A poll would make it easier for you to find out. 
• Use UTM parameters with any and all of your campaigns, whether paid or not. As you launch and generate traffic, that will help you understand 1) your traffic and 2) your visitors. You’ll be able to filter heatmaps and session recordings by those UTM parameters to see which ones have been more successful and if you’re targeting the right audience. 

It sounds like a lot, but you’re already on the right track. Stepping back and getting yourself set up to understand what your visitors do once you launch will be invaluable to your business growth. Lucky Orange has heatmaps, session recordings and more with a free trial (no credit card needed) and plans that start at US $10/month.

I hope this helps! Good luck! Be sure to let us know how your launch goes! 

Cheers - Danny

[EssentialTed]

Hey Danny,

Thank you for taking a legit look at my site, and for the SUPER thorough assessment! That's a lot to digest, so it will take a while to implement all of your points, but this is exactly what I was looking for. I will sit down tonight and start making some changes. I appreciate you taking so much time to help.