Website Critique for

Through The Grapevine

Basically this is an excellent website, well-laid out. It’s just a bit fussy and fiddly, but that should be easy enough to fix. 

The very first thing which caught my eye was the fact that the whole left panel was taken up with quotes about wine. This was an awful waste of prime marketing real estate. And even worse: several of the quotes were about drunkenness and overindulgence. Not a good image at all! So the very first suggestion was to do away with that.

The second issue was that the banner was a moving image for about 15 seconds until it settled into the picture of vineyards pictured above. I liked the vineyard image very much, but I advised her to lose the moving images - they were too big and too distracting.

I suggested that she consider taking the words 'Through The Grapevine' off the banner (i.e the picture of the vineyard), seeing as she has it already at the very top of the screen. I think that space would be better used for a tag line, i.e. a quick benefit-rich slogan. Something like, “The finest tastes direct to your door.” Or, “Wine personal to you, straight to you”. They were only top-of-the-head suggestions - it would be worth playing around with that (with my help if she likes) until she gets the perfect tag-line.

On the right hand column I advised her that ‘recommendations’ shouldn’t have an apostrophe. I also wondered about taking the pictures out. They’re too small to be helpful/visible, and yet they’re distracting. The other suggestion would be to make them bigger. If she takes away the left panel she should have more room.

I suggested that she should, if possible, put more gaps between the different items, and maybe even a dividing line, to help the eye distinguish between the different items. (It’s all-too easy to get overwhelmed on a website, and the more we avoid that the better. And you need a lot of the things you have on it, so we can’t trim back too much, so we need to make the things that are there easier to see).

I really, really, liked the descriptions. Very enticing indeed. I don’t even drink and they make me want a glass! That is absolutely brilliant because the website visitor can’t smell the wine or even really see it, and certainly can’t taste it. So the words have to do the work, and I think that here they do it very well.

I also advised her to check for grammar stuff. The website says: Dom Perignon is one of the finest of all Champagnes and rated 'outstanding by Robert Parker. So she needs to close the inverted commas at the end of the word 'outstanding’. Details like this matter.

Also I suggested a quick explanation of who Robert Parker is. She's obviously using his credibility/expertise, but that’s no use unless people know who he is. So she should say something like: ‘by Robert Parker, head wine buyer for Harrods’ (Obviously filling in who he really is.) 

The main USP of this business is that it sells personalised wine, i.e. that the wine bottle label is printed especially for the client with their details/special occasion on it.

However ...

I for one did not know what 'personalised' meant in this context. Now, it's very true that I have led a sheltered life, but it's good practice not to assume knowledge on behalf of your website visitor. You don't want to toally patronise them of course, but using good writing it's very possible to inform without patronising.

I also found myself very confused by the buying process, and it’s a truism in marketing that a confused mind will not buy. I put quite a lot of effort into figuring it out, seeing as I’m doing this critique, but I still didn’t get it. If I was a genuine visitor I’d have been gone long since. So I suggested that she needs to take the visitor by the hand and lead them gently through the process. (As indeed, we all do.)

So, the main panel on the home page could say something like the following. I’m just making up the details as I don’t understand them, but they’d be easily changed to the right ones:

The Home Page:

Note that all the items in bold were bolded in the original - but that it turned out they were links. That wasn't clear at all. You need to make it totally clear what's a link and what's not.

We work with individuals and businesses to create unique, Personalised Wine Bottle Labels for corporate events and special occasions. Through the Grapevine uniquely serves its customers with top quality wines, an excellent design team and tailored branding and marketing.

We will personalise your chosen wine to suit any occasion ranging from Christmas, New Year, Birthday, Wedding, Baby Arrival, Christening, Corporate Day to simply honouring your favourite clients and much much more.

Our size range to choose from is 187ml Wines, 200ml Champagne, 750ml wine and Champagne Bottles.

We stock an exclusive range of Homeware Gift Items for the serious or fun-loving wine enthusiast!

Our carefully selected Wines are suitable for any private function, corporate event or for consumption in the luxury of your own home. Check out our Special Offers for great deals!

We are delighted to introduce our new range of exclusive food and wine Hampers available for the private and corporate sectors.

For the perfect gift, choose a Personalised Bottle of Wine for your hamper to give it that extra special touch!

WHAT I SUGGESTED:

If you’d like the best quality wine available in Ireland today, delivered straight to your door¹, you’ve come to the right place. And even better, if you’d like that wine to be labelled with your choice of beautiful personalised labels, than you’re definitely in the right place.² 

Our wine is carefully chosen by (who? More on this below)³ so that no matter what you choose you’ll be sure of the best quality and taste. You can, of course, choose from a [wide range of sizes of bottle]⁴. Check out our [special offers] too for even better value. 

And then you can then choose from a variety of classy and beautiful labels to put on the bottle. No matter if you’re organising a corporate or sporting event and need to make sure it’s properly branded, or celebrating the birth of a baby, or planning to romance your special one, or organising a wedding, we have the labels for you. See the page on [personalised wines]⁵ for all the information on this special option.  

We also stock an exclusive range of [Homeware Gift Items] for the serious or fun-loving wine enthusiast!  

Buying couldn’t be simpler.⁶ Just:   

1. Choose your wine from [here] or [here]. (link to wines page and special offers page) 
   
2. [Choose your label] (link to label page) 
   
3. [Add any gifts you want.] (link to hampers etc page) 
   
4. [Check-out.] (link to check-out page.) 

1. You are reassuring them that they're in the right place, and explaining very clearly to them what you're offering.
   
2. And in a very few words you're explaining to them the concept of personalised wine.
   
3. For wine, it's essential that whoever chooses it knows their business, and that the customer knows this. There was no 'About Me' page on this website and I think it's essential to have one. It should be well-written to be ostensibly about you, but in reality it's about why you’re the best person to buy their wine from. This is assuming you’re the wine-chooser. If not, just write it that you chose this wholesaler because they’re the best etc.
   
4. Instead of giving every size of bottle on the home page as you did originally, just offer a link to the different sizes.
   
5. Instead of making each possible occasion its own link, just list them as examples and then offer a link to the page. It's much neater.
   
6. Make the buying process very easy and step-by-step, and assure the visitor it's easy, and then prove to the visitor how easy it is.
   
   On this website the buying process was very complex. The form was asking for information such as their mobile numbers and fax numbers. (Do people even HAVE faxes any more?) It’s convention to put an asterix beside items that must be filled out, and have those items at the absolute minimum. People hate giving away information, so try to keep it to a minimum.
   
   Also the button under the form wasn't a button at all but plain text, so it wasn't clear that's what you pressed. It wasn't helped by the fact that it said 'Submit query' rather than 'Buy now' or 'Add to cart'.
   
   These issues would need to be resolved. 

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