eCommerce Site Analysis: SportsmansGuide.com
Posted Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 by Mike Calabrese, in eCommerce Web Site Design
I used to look through copies of my father’s Sportsman’s Guide magazine each time it arrived at our door. The contents were very appealing to a growing boy - fishing, camping, camouflage, and all sorts of fun outdoor and survival gear. Now that I find myself immersed in the wonderful world of eCommerce, I like to browse the outdoor retailer’s website, SportsmansGuide.com. Except instead of shopping, I’m looking to analyze the site from the perspectives of design and marketing and the overall effectiveness of the site in guiding me towards a purchase. Here’s what I’ve learned…
The Home Page and Safe Shopping
When I get to the home page of SportsmansGuide.com, I feel safe and secure. I see a picture of a friendly-looking older man (the company’s founder) next to the caption “Our 31st Year” - this makes me feel like Sportsman’s Guide is a business I can trust. I scroll down further and find an “Internet Retailer Best of the Web 2006″ icon as well as the logo for a Verisign SSL certificate. Though these icons could be placed more prominently, I did find them and it made me feel like I was at a site that had gone above and beyond eCommerce standards to be recognized in such a light by Internet Retailer. A better placement for these icons would be in the footer, which seems to be loose and lacking in 3rd party assurances/in-house trust marks. The footer is usually a great spot for these icons - you can keep them all in one place, and they actually get more visibility than you might think because shoppers are used to looking for them there.
The Layout
While I feel safe shopping at Sportsman’s Guide, I am a bit confused with the layout, and definitely feel that it could benefit from being larger. Having no real background container, all the links seem to be floating in space; and, with so much content, especially on the home page, everything seems small and scrunched together. I’ve personally talked to site owners that have increased their conversion rates upwards of 20% just from making things “bigger”.
Category Pages
I start browsing the site and find my way to the watches section, through the main menu on the left column. I appreciate how the watches are presented in a clear manner with a nice image, the name of the watch, the price, and a link to learn more. I also love having the ability to sort through them by brand by choosing from a drop down list at the top of the screen. One thing that may confuse people here is that there is not a clear sense of what section you are in. You may say: “well that’s easy - you clicked ‘watches’ and now you’re in the watches section”. But when you’re browsing through a site at a million miles an hour, as most of us do, it’s nice to be reminded. This situation can easily be remedied by adding a nice header tag (h1) that makes what the section holds more prominent. The current heading is so small that it’s probably looked over more often than not.
The Product Page
I click through on one of the watches, and find myself at the product page for the Seiko Blackface Diver Watch. I see a couple of images and a nice description, which I like. It lets me know they’ve taken the time to present to me what they feel are the most important elements of the watch, and what I need to see/learn about in order to feel comfortable making a purchase. I absolutely love the product description - it starts out personal with a little joker, but doesn’t forget to list the important details that I want to know about the watch. The part of their product page that I don’t like is the buying part. For starters, it’s hidden all the way at the bottom of the page, out of initial view. The ‘add to cart’ button is so small and plain that it gets almost completely lost in the background. It’s actually the most basic, stock ‘add to cart’ button you can find! This is very surprising for a top internet retailer that puts millions and millions of dollars/year through their website.
The Checkout Process
After I find the ‘add to cart’ button, I add one Seiko Blackface Diver Watch to my cart, and I’m immediately thrown into the checkout process. As the layout switches from being centered to being floated to the left, I am initially thrown back by the inconsistency. Why keep your entire site centered and then move your shopping cart page over to the left?
The call-to-action buttons on this page suffer the same fate as the ‘add to cart’ button the product pages. Their small, plain in design, and nearly indistinguishable from one another. When I do proceed to the next step, I’m once again taken back to a centered layout. Going through the rest of the process, I still feel relatively secure, but am annoyed by all the extra offers presented to me along the way and by not being able to clearly know how to move to the next step.
Overall, SportsmansGuide.com is full of rich, personal content that helps to engage shoppers and gives them what they’re looking for in a product. They do a solid job of making shoppers feel safe on their site with a nice mixture of third party assurances and in-house trust icons. Where they are really lacking is in their design. Not only does it looked dated in general, but the size of the fonts used and the size of the layout make things seem too crowded and can confuse the shoppers, taking away from the user experience. Sportsman’s Guide, if you’re reading this, keep up the great content and awesome products, but I think it’s time for a redesign 
Tim Says:
I have always like this site.
First of all, I remember flipping through their catalogs on cold winter nights dreaming of spring and summer.
Now, however, I love showing this site to customers who become enamored with beautiful, but inefficient, designs.
It’s fun to see their mouths drop when you tell them this site is consistently one the highest converting web site and a monster in terms of traffic and sales.
For that reason, I hope they keep their current design
Mike Says:
The line between a beautiful design and an functional website is very fine, lean one way or the other and you’re risking a pleasurable user experience for at least some of your visitors.
It may be a monster in terms of traffic because it’s got a ton of great content and is frequently updated; and a high converting site because of it has unique products at great prices - its catalog doesn’t hurt either
That being said, I still feel very strongly that it’s time for a redesign because of the design looks like it was made in 1996, the layout is confusing, and the checkout process can use a serious makeover.
Thanks for checking out my post!
tim Says:
Mike -
There are things that could be improved on the site, but if I were to do a re-design, I would definitely leave a bit of the cheese in there.
I think it works for their target market.
I remember being humbled by a master eBay marketer who has sold well over $30 million in diamonds on that marketplace.
I tried to get him to change his template to one that looked very professional and if I say myself, elegant.
All he would agree to was a test.
His CHEESY template with waving American flags and obnoxious YOU SAVE 70%!!! banners kicked out butt. It was wasn’t even close.
He knew his customers better than we did and he knew they associated elegant with over-priced and cheesy with a great deal.
He was a master at triggering their buy impulse.
Tim
Jon Payne Says:
This site is way too overwhelming for me guys. Too much going on. I’m a fan of lots of content, but its got to be organized and laid out in an effective way.
I think its one of those cases where “if you emphasize everything, you are emphasizing nothing”. Case and point being the bold red font for pricing. If that’s used on 1-2 items it gets my attention… but being used on every single item as a markdown price I simply tune it out. My eye has no clue what I should look at - what is most important?
A good rule I like to follow for conversions is to stand 10-15 feet from your screen, such that the type is too small to read. Then, ask “what’s important here”. If you can’t identify 1-2 items than there may be a lack of focus. This is probably more true for lead-generation sites though than e-commerce sites, where there isn’t as clearly one singular goal but rather many.
Admittedly, I just gave this a brief look and nothing in depth. I did also notice though an annoying pop-up on my first visit that was not there the second time around. Note it wasn’t just a popup, but indeed an annoying one.
Bernard Says:
I must admit, the sportman’s guide site looks really cheesy to me - there is just too much red everywhere, and that pop-up add at the beginning is very annoying - I never ever read any one of those ads. It feels very spammy.
It’s really amazing that this site converts so well, and it might indicate that if you offer great products at a good price, and you have some brand recognition, you could have a cheesy site and still make a lot of money.
With regards to the trust of the site. I have been thinking a lot about this, and I have started to believe that a srong brand it the only way to really build trust in your online shop. If I recognise a brand, I know that the shop is a serious business, and they won’t defraud me. Unfortunately this means spending on marketing before you have a trusted shop.
Claire Says:
Great post, Mike!
I dont think its shocking that this is a conversion monster - if you pre-qualify your leads by letting them browse in a paper catalog prior to finding your site, of course your conversion rates will be better. Content is also probably a big driver.
And I completely agree that cheesy is working for them - who would buy ammo and hunting knives on a posh site?