Ask HN: What's one change you'd make to up conversions on our startup's website?

[jimmygatz]

Hi,

I know this is my first post, so apologies if it seems I’m exploiting the HN community. I’ve been lurking for a while and it’s quickly become my favourite forum. I really enjoy the discussions here and I’ve learned a lot from them (I have 7 pages of notes taken from HN threads on everything from cold calling to resources for learning Python). I haven’t contributed because I don’t feel like I have the knowledge to add anything of value to the discussions. In any case If this thread is inappropriate please delete it and I apologize in advance for the inconvenience.

Now, for my question. I'm a University student in the UK, and with two friends I started a business called KitchPack selling packs of kitchenware and bedding to University students – delivering directly to their accommodation before they arrive. The idea is to save the hassle of having to lug everything from the other side of the country/world or the time and expense of buying it all upon arrival.

We launched last year at our University and sold out in 2 days. Since then, we’ve partnered with 32 Universities/Landlords across the UK. Each of our partners has their own affiliate website (e.g. www.kitchpack.co.uk/standrews) which they market to their students through contractually agreed upon channels (i.e. social media, welcome packs etc.) in exchange for a commission on each sale. In addition we also have a global website for people who aren’t with any of our partners to order.

As broke, non-technical students we’ve had to bootstrap the website on a £200 budget teaching ourselves HTML/CSS/PHP/JS to make it happen (we’re hooked on programming and have started learning Python). We’re proud of the result but we’re aware that it could be much better, and we’d really appreciate some brutal feedback from the knowledgeable folks on HN on what you’d change to make our website convert better.

Here’s a link to the global website:

www.kitchpack.co.uk

Thanks in advance for your time,

Jose

[Gustomaximus]

Firstly, this website is 90% there. My 10-odd year experience says you can tweak a bit more conversion but it's going to be minimal and I would spend time on distribution & marketing. Otherwise from my look-over;

First thing I noticed is no Google Analytics. Are you running some web analytics? If not this should be your first (and easy) update so you can monitor what is happening on-site.

Second I'd look to simplifying messaging. For example - you say 'Cosy bedding packs for students'. Why have 'for students'? There are lots of copy points like this that can be stripped and focused. Have a read through and see what you can remove.

Store/FAQ/Contact US - you can probably get rid of the headers saying what the page is. It just pushes content down with little benefit.

I tried the order process (York St John University) and it got stuck at 'order with paypal'. Should this be working? I tested from Australia so that may have an effect.

And take anything I said here with a grain of salt. A/B test changes. Opinion is never fact.

[joncalhoun]

I doubt there is a single thing that will drastically increase conversions, but here are a couple things I would try:

1. Retargetting with Perfect Audience[0]. The idea is that not everyone will buy from you when they first visit your site, but by showing them some ads after they do you increase the chances that they come back and buy something. These people are especially useful to target because they have shown interest in your product.

2. A/B Testing with Optimizely[1] or a PHP equivalent such as [2]. If you want to update your site to increase conversions, A/B testing is probably the best way to do it. Basically you just want to propose new changes, then test them alongside your current site to see which ones perform better, then go with that one. This one is tricky though, because without enough traffic to your site a/b testing is a lot less reliable.

[0] http://www.perfectaudience.com/ [1] https://www.optimizely.com/ [2] http://phpabtest.com/ - I haven't ever used this so you may want to do some research yourself.

[jimmygatz]

Thanks a lot for the response, I really appreciate it. PerfectAudience looks great, I've installed it and am reading about it now.

As for AB testing are there any good resources you can recommend to learn about it? We have no idea where to start with regards to what to test initially. I'm assuming "conversion funnel analysis" tools like Mixpanel should also guide our decision. Can you recommend any good resources to read about that also?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks again for your quick response.

[soneca]

I think you should focus on changes that will provide bigger gains. From joncalhoun comment I heavily endorse the retargeting sugestion, but I don't think you should worry so much about AB test for now. AB test depends on some heavy and constant traffic and a more predictable knowledge of your audience behavior. I think you are too early on it to gain a lot from AB testing.

Another sugestion is assortment and marketing. I think you already have very good channels and niche, but you might exepriment a little more.

Please, read all this presentation: http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2013-07-16-michael-dea...

For example, i would suggest you try the market for your product for imternational students. Exchange might need the exact same product, but you will have to validate it and validate the channels for it. This is an example of assortment, but you should really see the video above and develop your own ideas about to find new markets and scale a little more.

And from what I could see you are doing great. Very well done validation, distribution and website. I predict a lot of success for you.

[jimmygatz]

Cheers for your comment, I'll take a look at the presentation now and get back to you - looks interesting.

Thanks for the kind words too, we really appreciate it.

[griffinheart]

Fix the mobile version its incredibly broken. It seems when you scroll to the testimonials some js kicks in and reloads the web page.

On a side note, great to see more Portuguese entrepreneurs :) if you wanna expand to Japan give me a shout. While not being a student this is something i would've used after i rented my empty apartment here.

[jimmygatz]

Cheers for the heads-up, we'll fix that today.

Are you Portuguese yourself? We're definitely looking to expand internationally next year. Would be cool to get in touch.

[griffinheart]

Yes i am, check my email on my user profile.

[timhargis]

Best article I've read on this that's free.

http://conversionxl.com/13Ways-ConversionXL.pdf