rev.iew.me

ZippyCart.com has 6 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on ZippyCart.com. Jump to review form?

1. 

   Carly gave it on 30th Jan 2010 and said:

   From your name, I assume you're selling online Shopping Carts.

   I land on the site.

   There's a lot of copy fighting for my attention. I didn't realise at first what the site did. To remidy this, move your tagline (find and compare ecommerce solutions in a zip) under your logo. I'd make this text - it'd be better for SEO.

   Too many options fight for my attention. What's the job I'm trying to complete? Compare shopping carts. So give me a big call to action, preferably above those links on the right, a nice button saying 'compare ecommerce solutions now' or similar. Remove that blue arrow or reword it and move it up to top. No need to repeat tag line on it. Too many words fail to grab attention. Make it bright if possible.

   Copy in the orange arrow could be text for SEO. Don't justify it; it makes me not even want to read it because it's not 'natural.'

   In fact, consider scrapping it... it's only repeating what you've already said. Too much text fighting for my attention and stopping me do my 'job' of comparing.

   The three buttons below don't straight away look any different - by this I mean I can't instantly work out why each option is different and you repeat the call to action on each 'find ecommerce solutions' it's almost like I could click any of them to do the same job. You also repeat shopping cart on them constantly - take this out. Jakob Nielson says that people only scan read the first 11 characters of anything. People on your site will *know* they're comparing shopping carts, so just have 'comparison chart', 'checklist' and 'statistics guide' on the buttons, with the explanations under.

   Tell you what, I'd also put the most popular option (or the one you want them to do) in the middle and give it a bit of spot light, light you're making the choice for the people. See this link. (See: reduce number of options to sell online)

   I could spend all day giving SEO tips too!

   I hope these help for now. I spend a lot of time doing this in the real world for my job and my pages always convert better!

   UPDATED 30 Jan 10:
   Additionally, check out price comparison websites (compare the market, go compare, etc) and see how THEY're doing it. Note the large call to actions? Hope these tips help.

   Using Firefox on Mac | Report This?

2. 

   Lilian gave it on 20th Jul 2009 and said:

   This website is a fantastic idea. Finding the correct e-commerce tools can be a complete time-waster when trying to meet an individual clients needs, and this sort of website provides a simple solution. However the execution is sub-par and sells the product short.

   If you value your business consider two things - hire a designer and hire a copywriter. Nonetheless, I'll outline the problems below and offer a few practical solutions.

   The design has too many intense colours, which cheapens the product and creates no clear focal point. Placing vibrant colours together (as done in the links on lime green background) also creates a common optical illusion where text appears to have a haze. These colours would sit better on a black background or would benefit from some desaturation.

   The aesthetic is very unprofessional. The shopping cart image is pixelated and sits choppily alongside the type. The model looks choppy and odd as she's been taken out of the context of the photograph (where her arm is out of focus). The rounded corners, glossy buttons, gradients and oversized icons clutter the design and clash. They don't sit within a grid system (as the centralised text above the three boxes shows) and appear ill-considered.

   The typography has no clear hierarchy. There are headers and subheaders in the same size, emboldened text as body text and a variety of colours to unnecessarily emphasize text.

   I'm not sure anyone has seriously used a marquee since '99. A fading AJAX effect would be much more contemporary, though it may not be entirely appropriate.

   These mish-mash of effects and imagery also create a massive problem in terms of the product not having a clear identity. There is nothing here which tells me this website is about comparing e-commerce tools. It only tells me I'm looking at something to do with shopping carts - most likely a plugin created as a project in a programming course. However, this confusion isn't caused by the aesthetic entirely, hence my next point.

   The amount of text is unnecessary. Over two thirds of that text doesn't warrant reading. I didn't understand the product fully until I scrolled under the fold (where traditionally all vital information is placed above the fold), where I read the paragraph starting "If you sell online, you need an eCommerce shopping cart solution[...]". A copywriter could condense the amount of words and convey the product concisely. Considering all users scan pages and decide if they want to stay within seconds, it's an incredibly important issue to consider.

   Here are my suggestions:
   - Include features for recent or popular articles on the front page, rather than masses of text explaining the product.
   - Use a tagline to convey the ethos of the product or company (as it is now, at first glance I see a shopping cart plugin as opposed to a comparison website - ensure that the user is able to identify this distinction IMMEDIATELY)
   - Delete all stock imagery and clip art as it looks cheap.
   - Use a grid system. There are several free templates online which make it easy to use a grid, both fully skinned and blank ones for custom styling.
   - Left align all text so that there is nothing centralised.

   If it were me, I would go to my local supermarket and photograph shopping carts using a nice digital SLR camera (owned, borrowed or rented). Consider shapes, angles, colours, lines, forms, composition, materials etc. A simple but lovely identity could spring from a little bit of critical thinking and initiative. However, don't simply follow my instruction as though I'm an art director - you will need to make the decision to either hire a designer or attempt to form an identity yourself.

   Here are some links which may help should you decide the latter:
   Colourlovers - a great resource for colour inspiration.
   The Well Styled colour scheme generator - creates colour schemes using theory as a basis
   Mark Boulton's on typography - a good read when considering type.
   Code Sucks CSS Layouts - blank templates for free use.
   Smashing Magazine on web typography - another web typography guide.
   I Love Typography on web type - you can't really learn enough about type.

   Using Firefox on Mac | Report This?

3. 

   goodwin gave it on 13th Jul 2009 and said:

   First impressions: quite snazzy, I suppose, but naff and tacky.

   Your logo: It looks like it was bashed together in a few seconds. The shopping cart symbol is blurred, and you can see where it joins the sharper underline - there's a difference in colour which could be cured by using a colour picker dropper thing on your graphics application. And Arial italic? At least use Helvetica, please. But both don't have 'proper' italics, just regular fonts that have been squished and slanted. It's a nice idea, just horribly-executed. If you don't want to spend any money, just use something along the lines of Museo (Sans) and re-draw that shopping trolley.

   I sort of assumed that this was a guide to those things which one wheels about in supermarkets. This is because you constantly use the 'shopping cart' metaphor - the logo is a bit misleading, perhaps, although what else would you use? Perhaps such terminology as 'ecommerce software' would clarify this.

   The navigation bar at the top is a bit awkward. The text in each button is squashed against the sides, and there's a comparatively dizzying amount of space above and below each label.

   The entirety of each button changes colour when hovered over. However, only a smaller area of each button is a link. This could be confusing for less savvy visitors who don't realise that the cursor needs to change for something to be proven to be clickable - the change in colour is misleading.

   The rollover background images take a while to load, appearing broken at first. Perhaps use CSS sprites?

   When I click on one of the tabs, the submenu on the resulting page could do with a little improvement. The rollover effect is unnecessarily ostentatious - it changes colour hugely, and is also underlined (the same applies to the footer). The options, with the |s separating them, are a little cramped.

   Moving on to the yellow box on the front page. I'm not sure why there's a line break in the middle of the title - it has a negative effect, I feel, making it awkwardly bottom-heavy.

   The picture of a smiling woman on the right - fortunately not out-of-place like on many websites, so well done for that, although elsewhere there do appear to be those clichéd random stock photos - is crazily chopped out, and she appears to be grinning into a levitating paving slab. I'd use an image that's been made for that sort of situation; one with a white background. Or, as others have suggested, keep it as it is.

   The marquee at the bottom shows a nice use of translucency and snazzy JavaScript. But why is it set in Verdana - unique among every element that makes up the website? And when the page is loading, there's a random flash of the unstyled content of the marquee, over all of the stuff below - sort of like I'm having a near death experience, only I've spent my life staring at your website and those memories are the only ones that I have.

   Plus, it's a marquee. Goodness me. They are, I believe, bad things - people can have seiziures. It's not even a particularly good marquee - could be worse, but the items turn an overly fierce and illegible orange on rollover; also, there is a moment when there's nothing being displayed, then the whole list comes round. I want a continuous loop, please.

   "3 Ways to Find a Cart". Arial Italic again, and it's an image - if you go to the trouble of using an image (as with your logo, currently set in a standard ubiquitous typeface), it seems an good idea to use a non-standard font rather than one that could just be called up using old-fashioned CSS.

   The three options are nicely-presented, I suppose, but the buttons at the bottom are all the same, yet lead to different pages. There's the issue of only some of the button being clickable, again. The text seems crammed in. I'd get rid of the button, and make the whole box clickable with a subtle hover effect.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

4. 

   cityflux gave it on 12th Jul 2009 and said:

   Hey, I'm Bryce. I told you I'd review your site yesterday, so here it is.

   First Impression

   If you would rather that I be totally honest with you, I first see your site as one of those extremely annoying popup sites. You know what I mean? Like Vera said, it looks amateurish. This is a website that I really wouldn’t want to enter. But there are some good things, too. 2/8

   Design and Style

   One of the major components of an eCommerce, and the first thing I always look at, is the color scheme. This is where you had some good ideas. You used a color scheme of three basic colors: blue, green, and orange. I like this because it works well with the plain white background and black text. This brings me to my next point. Thank you for using an easy-to-read font! You don’t know how many sites I have been to that use a font size of 10 or less. 7/8

   Logo

   The whole cart idea with your logo, yes, I like it. There is one thing that bugs me, though. The line below the “ZippyCart” is a slightly darker orange than the bottom of the actual cart. I see this with the “3 Ways to Find a Cart” also. 4/8

   Welcome Message

   The use of a happy soccer mom figure is one thing that makes your site look somewhat professional. I’m not saying that’s the ‘only’ thing. Again, a minor thing that is also one of my pet peeves is the way the woman’s picture is set on the page. Around the edges, I can see the individual pixels. It’s just not smooth. A suggestion is to just smooth the image around the edges. 5/8

   Page Layout

   The way you organized the information on the page is one more thing that ups the professionalism of the site. Everything is very symmetrical and clean. I can easily navigate my way through each page with no trouble at all. Good job with that. 6/8

   Content

   Now I’m not going to comment that much on your actual content because Vera has pretty much summed it all up. Yes, you do have a lot pages, but I see that you’re not repeating anything you’ve already stated in any other pages. It is, though, kind of hard to get through. 4/8

   My score: 28/48 | Rev.iew.me score: 2.5/5

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

5. waynekp gave it on 11th Jul 2009 and said:

   I like that the design of this site is simple. It is easy to see where you are attempting to draw our eyes, but I think that there is far too much text in an attempt to explain things to the reader.

   It is obvious that a lot of effort went into making this site, and from a high level viewpoint, it almost resembles a 1950's newspaper ad. That sort of styling is actually quite attractive, but I think that the obnoxious green colour is a bit much. Especially when paired with the woman who is shopping with her credit card in hand and you can easily tell that she was cut out of another picture.

   In looking at your site, I can't help but wonder if there would be enough interest in carts to devote a whole site to it. I understand that many sites use them, but I think that it is such an overlooked part of the process that I don't see people spending much time on choosing the right one, and taking the choice that seriously.

   Towards the bottom of the page, in the "Our Most Popular Carts" section, the area that is devoted to each of the most popular carts is not well defined. The comments about each tend to blend together.

   I also understand that at least for blogs, social media can be a huge source of traffic. I don't see the point in including or maintaining pages on Twitter, Stumble, or any of the other sites for a commercial site, about shopping carts of all things.

   My most overwhelming emotion from this site is a resounding "meh". I suspect that is because I don't have a commercial site and don't see the need of an entire site devoted to carts. From my viewpoint a site devoted to knitting needles, curtain rods or choosing the right brand of Q-tip would be just as interesting.

   Using MSIE on Windows | Report This?

6. 

   Vera gave it on 11th Jul 2009 and said:

   I don't normally review e-commerce sites, because I tend to get enough of doing these at work. However, I dislike rude statements like your first "review" (more like, gratuitous display of obnoxiousness, really).

   = First Impression =
   ------------------------------------
   Extremely amateurish. The layout looks as if you had payed an overeager computer science student, who had little to no experience with webdesign. The colors are decent, nothing too blinding, however the finishing touches make the whole effort disastrous. If I weren't reviewing you, I wouldn't consider giving you a second choice.

   = Presentation =
   --------------------------------
   Unlike most designers (i.e. artistically inclined people), I LOVE corporate layouts. Unfortunately I can't really design one, to save my life, but that never stopped me from wishing for one.

   The general idea, that your layout's based on, is a good one. Not too "exotic", but not too plain (color-wise) either. What makes it a rather sub-par layout, however, is the lack of attention's payed to the details. It reminds me of an eager college colleague. He was so eager to use 434507 predefined buttons, with such and such effect, that such and such software/site provided. What he didn't stop to think of, however, was : how good would it look.

   Let's take things, stepwise. The first thing I notice is the lime green background for the introduction. It's incredibly blinding and contains way too much text. You should have a BRIEF, catchy phrase, which is supposed to make your visitors look more into what you offer. Don't start with some "you poor technology challenged customer" type of introduction. Your clients want to get your products easily, as fast as possible.
   Next, looking at the image, I'm horrified to see, that it's on par with my image extraction skills. I'm terrible at it, have no patience for details, and as such things turn out terrible. It's the same in your case: the edges are jagged, and the right hand of the lady looks incredibly odd, being blurry like that.

   Here's my suggestion: instead of extracting the picture, just keep it as it is. Perhaps add a small lime green-ish tint to it, but not necessarily. Ideally choose a photo that has ONE focal point, while the rest of it is somewhat blurry. Not so much that it will cause people to squint at things, but enough to enhance the focal point.
   Here are a few pictures that illustrate my idea. To see larger versions, you'll need an account on stockxchng:
   http://www.sxc.hu/photo/92297
   http://www.sxc.hu/photo/77335
   http://www.sxc.hu/photo/36322

   Using such images, will help you out with choosing the background as well. Instead of having to think of a color/combination of colors, you should simply overlay a semitransparent rectangle where your brief introduction will be.

   Next, I rather like the darker green stripe at the bottom of the lime box. I'd suggest you make it higher and add some static text there. Marquee text was fashionable in the mid '90s! NO ONE uses them these days! Furthermore, they're annoying! Having to follow the letters as they move.
   If you absolutely MUST have some sort of animation, I suggest you choose something like a slideshow promotion. This could also replace your introductory text. Your site title is suggestive enough.
   Here are a few examples:
   http://sandbox.leigeber.com/javascript-slideshow/
   http://slideshow.triptracker.net/ (click on the link that says "to see the script in action")
   http://www.phatfusion.net/imagemenu/index.htm (not really a slideshow, but an interesting effect)

   Next, I get the text "3 Ways to Find a Cart" thrown in my face. As a lazy customer trying to get to my cart quickly, I'm rather disappointed. I would prefer seeing something like "we'll find your cart in no time" instead.
   Having three large icons with little text there, is a very good idea though. Unfortunately, there's too little padding at the edges. Also, the text seems rather bad quality. Perhaps you should create the image with text incorporated, and have it anti-aliased. The buttons at the bottom though, those are incredibly badly done. First of all, I can see the exact line where the light orange turns to a much darker shade. Second, the text is way too long. You should center the text and leave at least 10-15px on either side of its edges.

   Looking up, I see your menu tabs. I really like tabs, rounded ones, more so. Yours however have merely been tossed there carelessly. Some of the menu text is way too long, so it looks as if it can barely fit into the tab. Plus the color is not contrasting enough, so it's rather difficult to read it. You should have chosen white instead of black. Also, your regular text is black. Your links should have a different color, to help differentiate them easier.
   Instead of using equal tabs, I'd suggest you make tabs which adjust their width in accordance to the text inside them. Here are some examples:
   http://www.exploding-boy.com/images/cssmenus/menus.html
   http://www.alvit.de/css-showcase/

   Moving towards the bottom of the page, I see that you chose some incredibly large twitter, digg, stumble etc buttons. Sure, giving your customers tools to help them and you grow is great... but it shouldn't take up THAT much focus.

   All in all, your site has the basic looks of a business look. Unfortunately, the lack of appropriate finishing touches will make you lose quite a bit of clients.
   Check out some professional e-commerce templates:
   http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/25/35-free-high-quality-e-commerce-templates/
   http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/templates/tecommerce1.html
   http://www.ecommerce-template.net/

   What you need, is to impress your visitors, enough to want to check out your carts.

   = Content =
   ----------------------------
   I've been here a bit over an hour and am already itching to leave. You have way too much text. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE to read blogs, useful tips articles etc. But assuming I'm looking for a cart, I expect to be offered at least 2-3 such carts. Maybe also with a ticked list of features. Try to sell me stuff!

   Oh I see that down on the right you have a list of popular shopping carts. Unfortunately, the logos being mostly text based, with not memorable shape/style... I rather thought it was another bout of reading for me.

   I originally planned to go through your pages... however you seem to have a lot, and you have way too many descriptions. I'm bored and tired. Here's the deal: I want to find things out fast and efficiently. So make me short lists. Don't try to tell me some fairytale. Also, why exactly does the guide section have so many sub pages? Instead of trying to explain everything from top to bottom, just choose some brief statements and leave it to the client to decide if he/she wants more. If so, they can contact you.

   I like the stars rating for the shopping cart types, also the front page of the rating section. However, I'm not too keen on the mile long descriptions you have for each shopping cart. Try to have everything in brief table format. Most customers have no idea what to do, don't confuse them even more with technical details. Maybe have some brief demos on how the checkout is completed, how payment is managed. In pictures, of course, with one or two arrows pointing out key sections.

   I'd incorporate the reviews section, into the rating one. Keep your opinions as primary, but also provide a few links with customer opinions. Not too many, or you'll bore and confuse the customer.

   The comparison table is an interesting idea. I'm not too keen on how it takes up every single pixel of the layout. Lack of adequate padding makes things difficult to read properly.

   Oh... the about me page, baffles me. So you're just like a wikipedia for shopping carts? You don't expect any money? Hm... well then maybe the comments regarding the flashiness are not that necessary...
   In any case, you still have way too much writing. You need to synthesize it a lot more.

   Your shopping cart checklist baffles me to no end. Isn't there supposed to be a table that says if a shopping cart does or doesn't have a feature? Because I can only see a list of features and a buy button for all shopping carts...

   = Coding =
   -------------------------
   Well... considering that your content is very badly organized, I'm not sure why I'm still reviewing this section too. But eh, let's see how well you can code. Oh, by the way I don't validate. I just check how semantic a coding is.

   Your table cells (td tags) are full of inline style attributes. Why aren't you using css classes, from an external stylesheet for that?
   Also, I see that the first thing before your logo are two line breaks(br tags). Use css padding for that spacing.

   Menus, should be defined as HTML lists, instead of divs. Check out listamatic for examples. http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/

   CSS... well, learning it, would be a good start. You have a lot of invalid code in there. It seems to me as if you didn't quite know where to start and just threw some CSS-looking stuff together.

   Score: 1.5/5

   I like the general idea... however it took me almost 2 hours to get to it. I thought you were trying to SELL me a cart.
   You should organize your data more efficiently, and present it in a less stuffy way. You'll bore people to death before they even reach the page describing the idea shopping cart.

   Your layout's unprofessional, you can't code, and your content's disorganized. Your idea is the first I've seen of this kind. So it would be a pity not to exploit it better.

   Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

Write Your Own Review

Leave your feedback for ZippyCart.com below, and remember - the longer your review, the more points you receive. Don't forget to look at things like style/design, content, coding and originality as they will all help to improve the quality of your review.

You have to be logged in to write a review.

Site copyright © 2008—10 Jem Turner. Designed by Jacky Gilbertson © 2008.
About ⋅ Terms of Use ⋅ Site Map ⋅ Help ⋅ Contact ⋅ Points Charter