New HairBoutique.com Store

WOW. Karen and Jeff I want to congratulate you on the incredible change in the HairBoutique.com's Marketplace. The difference is stunning and very professional looking. I was stunned when I saw it, but in a good way. Keep up the good work. First the new messageboards, now the new Marketplace, what's next?

Kandy

Karen,

You & Jeff are the bombs. Love the new store. :-)

Hi Traci,

I guess it is a matter of taste but I really didn't like the way the products/vendors were listed down the side in the old Marketplace because it looked really cluttered and very confusing. I personally prefer the new dropdown menus because they are so easy IMO to use quickly.

Go to the front page of the HairBoutique.com Marketplace & look at the bottom...there are "Featured boutiques". Evita Perroni's the 1st icon. Click on that icon & it takes you right into the entire Evita P section. Phyto is the 2nd icon. Same thing. Click & go into Phyto.

Karen & Jeff might want to consider putting instructions by the icons for people who don't know how to click on them but other than that, how much more prominent could they make those icons & links? They might offend people if they put directions on how to use standard drop down features so that is a tough call.

The new store appears to be organized exactly like the old store was around either Product Name (Phyto, Conair etcs) or by Product Type (Shampoo, Conditioners).

FYI - Phyto 7 is listed under "Conditioners". There is also a search box where you can type in products or descriptions like Phyto 7 or Conditioners if they don't want to use the drop down menus or don't want to scroll.

The giant list you refer to every time the page loads is actually isolated into the drop down boxes. So you really don't even have to see those lists of products if you don't want to. Only if you select the entire list. There actually is all the new info for each category contained in the dropdowns.

It is my understandind that there are currently over 3,000 different products in the HB store. I have heard that by the end of the year there is expected to be over 5,000. It would be impossible for Karen & Jeff to list 5,000 product or vendor names on the side of the store like they did before.

Jeff and Karen could possibly consider putting a big note at the top of the Marketplace by the dropdown box section that tells people how to use the dropdowns in case they don't know how to click on the down arrow or how to scroll through the lists.

Yes you can and should click on the product names in the drop down list.

One other thought is that Karen & Jeff put a "How To Use The Store" section with a link onthe front page that explains how to use the Search & Product or Type menus. That might be a good compromise???

Jana

Dear SuperGrover & Jana,

Thank you both for taking the time to review and comment on the new HairBoutique.com Marketplace. As always, we do appreciate feedback and constructive comments that will help us make things better, if possible.

SuperGrover...Jeff and I printed out your comments and Jeff is looking into some ways that he might improve the new store to incorporate some of the items that you mentioned were confusing.

One possible idea that Jeff is looking into is to move the "Best Seller" products that always display at the very top of each individual page to the side of the page....so as to alleviate any confusion that people might still be on the same page...as you mentioned. We may also look at concealing them and then allowing people to click on a "Best Seller" link to see the products if they wish. Some of our vendor contracts require that we display their products a certain way so this may or may not work.

We also liked Jana's suggestion that we include a "How To Use The Store" link to offer people detailed steps on how to search or shop. It never hurts to have instructions, even if they are hidden in a link to avoid adding info that others might find annoying or redundant. The only bad part about Jana's good suggestion is that Jeff has already volunteered me to write it. :-)

SG...yes, some people did prefer the full visible list of all the vendors & products on the old version of the store but Jana is right, we have plans to increase the product offerings from the current 3,000 to the 5,000 range by the end of 2003. We were actually running out of room along the edges in the old store front page for that very reason. So Jana, you are right about room considerations.

Vendors are like kids. You can't show preference or else they get a little upset. So we either have to display ALL or them or organize them into menus so that they all display the same way. I know it may sound a little unusual but that's retail. :-(

Yes Jana, the new store is in fact organized by Product Vendor (Phyto, Conair, Evita Peroni, France Luxe) or by Product Type (shampoo, blow dryers, accessories...etc). They are organized into the dropdown boxes at the top. Jeff is considering a way to address SuperGrover's comment that the dropdowns cause confusion. We thought the Search Field would help but as SuperGrover mentioned, it is hard to figure if you click on the products in the dropdown...so we need to rethink this.

Although we do have the vendor icons at the bottom for Evita Peroni (we will eventually offer everything that Evita Peroni carries from the complete line of their hundreds of hair accessories to their other fashion accessories) and Phyto, France Luxe and Prawduct....it may not be obvious to click on the icons to go into their individual storefronts. We are brainstorming on that as well.

The reason that the HB store was changed was because we were running out of room but also due to the fact that we had ongoing requests from our consumer and vendor adviser board members to make the store less complicated and less cluttered. They are constantly pushing us to offer a better experience from shopping to posting messages to visiting the front page. Yes, it can be painful sometimes but we know it makes us better in the long run.

We did have both consumers and vendors test the new store before we released it and make a whole slew of comments and change request. However, there are always things that get missed in the process of bringing in changes.

Jeff and I know that change can be difficult sometimes and we apologize to anyone that has had problems as a result. I can say that we sincerely are trying to make the Store and the entire site faster, more efficient and more friendly.

If anyone has any other constructive comments, please feel free to email me at shelton@hairboutique or to Jeff at hines@hairboutique.com or post here on this board.

So again....thanks to SuperGrover & Jana for taking the time to comment in detail to help us. We do appreciate it very much.

Best wishes,
Karen

Hi Jana and Karen.

I just sent Karen a bmail to this effect, but just to clarify for everyone:

I opened the Marketplace with Internet Explorer, which I almost never use, and it looks terrific.
Does anyone else have problems viewing the Marketplace with Netscape? Or perhaps it is a Macintosh Netscape problem?
Or maybe my computer is just old.
I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only person who's having trouble.

Sorry about the confusion. I agree with you Jana, it would be silly to spell out how to use drop down menus. It is very obvious if your browser is working correctly.

The new Marketplace does look terrific, now that I see it correctly! Very impressive.
Traci

Karen Shelton wrote: Hi Traci, Thank you so much for your BMail. I appreciate it very much. I forwarded it to Jeff and he is going to investigate the Netscape ve IE issue. We need to make sure that everyone can see it. Thank you for all your help. Best wishes, Karen

After investigating... It appears this is only a problem in Netscape 4.x and works fine in all IE & NS 6+. Fortunately we rarely see a NS 4.x user.