Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

I'm inclined to agree with Phil. Your new website has quite a few critical problems. My immediate impression is that you used a blog template. The layout is busy and confusing, and there is no common structure across the site. Probably the most pressing issue is the navigation. The links in the navigation list are not intuitive and the ordering is confusing.

Take a look at https://www.winechateau.com. It's not perfect, but it is clear, organized and easy to navigate. The navigation options make sense and I feel like I know where I'm going. More importantly, it make me feel comfortable buying wine from them because the website looks professional and the do a good job of establishing their credibility.

I don't know what your budget looks like, but at a minimum, you need to improve the navigation and structure. If you're interested in some specific recommendations, I run a website called Concept Feedback where you can get advice from experts in usability (see https://www.conceptfeedback.com/account/select-expert-plan/). They would be able to help you put together a more complete action plan.

Good luck!

Andrew

I would like to give my view from the perspective of a visitor.

1. I would like to see a standard navigation bar where you have "Home", "About Us", "Product", "Special Offer", "FAQs" & "Contact". It is quite difficult to navigate around without a main navigation. I see you have a breadcrumb but it is still not enough.

2. On your homepage, I would like to know which are your best sellers and latest addition of wines. If these are too early for a new site, may be a recommended wine to stir up the curiosity of the visitors.

3. If the wine is not available, it would be nice to inform the visitors "Coming Soon" or disable the page. It is not so visitors friendly to have a blank page. We might think it was our connection or loading problem and were waiting for the page to load.

4. If you are selling "Red Wine" and want to cross sell on the same page, add in a section called "You may be interested in these product" immediately after the Red Wine listing. Currently, the word "White Wine" is just added after the red wine image, it is not prominent enough. Amazon is good at doing this, have a look at their site.

Hope the above helps.

Ok, finally I found your "Top Sellers" located at the left hand bottom corner. The grey text against dark plum background is not visibly clear, you may like to change the text to white color.

Then make the banner bigger and add it on the homepage too. Put the banner beside the video since there is a space there.

3 quick comments & considerations:

1) Simplify the left nav. Why use a drop-down select list for primary navigation? Just list the options in a traditional manner.

2) Is the site exclusively promoting Georgian wines? Appears that way on Home Page. The breadcrumbs make me wonder if you are selling wine in other regions too.
Breadcrumb example: Home>Countries>Georgian Wines>Red Wine

Which leads me to my 3rd thought...
3) Branding - Does "Geo" in GeoWines refer to Georgia or "Geo" as is the other meanings? e.g. geographic.

Continue to adjust & evolve the site!
Good luck!

- Mark