Tricounty Liquidators is a website driven by another company who sells this portal to various regionaly exclusive areas. The client pays 90 per month to the hosts to update the backend - but does not allow them to submit this site to search engines (ie. has robot.txt and meta tags with noindex and nofollow)

Can you please review this website and let them know what needs to be changed in order to be a more effective ecommerce site?

http://www.tricountyliquidators.com

These folks could use the help. Thanks.

<Mod edit to comply with Site Review Rule #1 - Masterpeace>

At a minimum set up a dummy account so reviewers can quickly check out the basic functions of the site.

Unfortunately, that won't help with users, who will have to go through the signup. That is where properly conducted user testing, a task list, observation and analysis comes in.

You might find people don't use the site the way you think they should. Or find some procedure is unnecessarily difficult. Or layout difference which seem superficial, but make sense for those trying to actually use the site.

For example, should I sign in, enter all my data only to find how unusable the wishlist feature is? Someone sets up a wishlist, and I want to see it and maybe get something for them. How to I tell if they are a member on the site first? Liquidation implies limited supply and time sensitivity ...how does that work with a wishlist function???

And do reviewers have the time to run down a list of twenty or fifty different items after spending the time to go through a signup procedure?

Hi. I am only a newbie so please be aware of this .. Overall a good site. Just a couple of things niggled at me.

Ok .. the items at the top got my attention fast so that is good .. but I only found the information about the company down the right hand side when i scrolled down and the scroll caught my eye's attention .. otherwise I probably would never have seen this and i have to be honest unless i know a little bit about the company I am dealing with I tend not to deal with a new company.

So perhaps this could be moved a bit so it is more easily seeable. It also says something about their website and what you will find their so maybe it really does need to be a bit more prominent.

The other thing I found when i went and looked at some of the products is that it looks like they only have 2 borders around them. After putting on my glasses and starring hard I realised that pictures had a raised (buttonised) effect .. but maybe this needs to be bit more refined so that it is visible to the naked eye. It shows up fine where the product is sitting on a grey background but where it is sitting on a white background which is then on another white background it just sort of disappears on the top and left hand side. I originally wondered whethered it hadn't been bordered properly.

Overall a good site though. Keep up the good work.

Hi,

It's a nice site with what looks like really good deals (I haven't comparison shopped yet), but I do find it a little busy. With the redish graphic at the top left, the sunset on the right and the two redish bars, there's no one thing for my eye to go to. I keep bouncing around the page. And those grey buttons on the left just don't go with the reds and golds on the rest of the page. That's just too much flat gray on the page.

They need to use colors and design to guide the eye, and visitor, where they want them to go. If they want the three items at the top to be seen first, the I would change the colors of the redish bars to something that would draw my eye and fram the items.

They also let you select a language, which seems nice, but some of the translation software out there can make a site look like a joke because the translations are so off. They need to have someone who speaks these languages check out just how accurate it is.

I would also either get rid of the row of links for the personal organizer, since you have a link to the personal organizer at the top, or move them to be below the links at the top. I find that having a row of links at the top, another row a little further down and a column of links on the right a little bit of link overkill.

And submit the site to search engines. I don't care what a site is about, it must be submitted to search engines.

Have Fun,
Jeff

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I took the previous advise and created a user called:

username: demo@adept-solutions.net
password: webpro

So that people who would like to try the additional features can do so. :) Thank you so much for the feedback I have gotten so far. It's been great! Thanks.

Checked out the organizer toolbar, using the login. It isn't clear how a wishlist works, how others peruse the wishlist (do I give out my own login). What happens when the item is out of stock? Hopefully it will drop off the list. I have a similar reaction to the other functions.

I can't see the toolbar as being more than a distraction.

The site gives me the impression it wants to be a portal. I think things like horescopes and organizers are distractions from shopping. There may be options which focus the site rather than dilute it. For example, horescopes dilute -- gift suggestions based on horescope is somewhat more focussed. The site should try to find and design around its focus.