We Are Happy Customers - AprilCherrie Interviewed Us
11 Dec 2007
Finally i got the answer from Gary.... from my previous post... lots of people very curious about RM1 for 1 piece of nice cloth... hmm... will tell you all more about it later.... Now let's see what Gary reply... hmm..
AprilCherrie.com
How did you come out of an idea to start with PotatoCream.com?
I have a commercial partner, Fiona. She is very active with online shopping. Well, as she always said, “i love shopping ma. Lazy people shop online lu.' Out of point, opps. By the way, she suggested we sell clothes online de. I told her that i am also interested and i can contribute my intellectual properties (web development la). Without thinking further, we started a website after 2 weeks.
While developing the website, it takes us a very long time to brainstorm for a domain name that we both like. Fiona suggested Potato as she really loves potatoes (funny girl). But Potato-Something-something, or something-something-potato are all taken, until.. i thought of Cream. PotatoCream.com. Kewl!! So, that's it. Potato Cream. Hahaha.. A proud brand name is born.
At first, the website is only a normal website with photos and detail of each stocks (a few stocks only). Then, our business started growing day after day. We did not even do any marketing to the website until the 2nd week. Then, it takes off from there and started growing rapidly. As more customers come to our website, we develop more features one by one - making the site more usable - Eg, order form la, newsletter la, categories la, currency la, etc. Haha..
Fiona intercepted : Love online shopping ma, dunno la.. hahaha..
what AprilCherrie think:
war.. like that also can -_-... like so easy can start up a new e-commerce site.. phew... i wan start one also can?
What do you think about your own website Potatoes.com?
My website is PotatoCream.com, not Potatoes.com la. Typo, wei...
I think PotatoCream.com is very cool. See :
a. Potato Cream dot com - so easy to remember. Cheh...
b. Potato Cream name - so cute and adorable - best in Singapore and JB, sometimes KL also.. Cheh..
c. Our website is also very cute and friendly. I personally like it. Pink layout is quite smooth and attractive to buyers, not really viewers or critics. Some people told me to change the layout, some hinted me to do so, while others insisted for our website to stay pink. Too many comments already, i need to stand for my decision and stay pink. (My wife, sis, and Fiona like pink very much too by the way, hehe, what else should i say?).
How people hinted you wo? (Gary added this. opps)
They normally started like this : Have you ever considered changing your website?
Gary : In what way?
They : Do you think the colors are too young?
Gary : Young? Good, right?
They : Maybe too young
Gary : What color do you suggest? (with a smiley)
They : Dont know? Maybe something else? You are the web master, you should decide on that.
Gary : ...
d. Google Ranking :
i. Malaysian ladies fashion (1st Page)
ii. Brunei ladies fashion (No 1)
iii. Labuan ladies fashion (No 1)
iv. Potato Cream (1st page - Not no 1 - haha)
v. Ladies Fashion (No where to be seen)
vi. Asia ladies fashion (No where to be seen too, haha)
vii. Chicken Wing (not related la..)
Dated : 11 Dec 2007
Fiona intercepted again (with force) : Very good. Improving everyday.. Hehe..
What AprilCherrie Think:
hahaha.. sorry sorry... cause i myself LOVE POTATOES... that's why.. kekekeke... sorry sorry.. will keep that in mind... actually i think.. maybe you should try to revamp your website... in terms of the layout and the design.. maybe you should make it more lady like... :) since is a Lady Fashion site right... ^^
How do I know if the cloth fit me or not.. since this is an online shopping website?
Ya, this is very important. We all want to know the size and the specific measurement before we know whether it fits us. True, true, true... But sometimes we also received many orders from clients who are not interested in the sizes and measurements too. Dunno why and how - But it works.
Maybe they trust Potato Cream lu (Quoted from : Cherrie - she always talk in this manner). Haha..
Fiona : Serious bah. Actually hor, sizes are all stated at the website. Eg, XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, Free (means between S and M). A few of the clothes are even provided with specific measurements. Well, nothing is perfectly identical.
Back to Gary : Ya, we cant guarantee 100% identical due to many reasons. Some monitors are brighter ma, while others are dimmer. Hard to tell you which monitor has the right colors or brightness wo.. So i suggest you try to buy 1 or 2 items from us first. Try out our services first. If our services are good and our material is good, buy more, and then more and then even more, and then you know la...
If the material is totally unsatisfactory, we will change it for you according to our terms and conditions. So dun worry so much. Be happy and keep steady. Come and think about it, this is the reason why we can sell the clothes cheaper than the shops to you. Less cost (no shop + no cash on delivery), Less admin works (means less staff + less payroll + less time spent on testing this and that). Good news for you lu : Cheaper and nicer + send to your doorstep wo + sometimes you might even have a chance to meet the handsome postman ler = You earned ar
What AprilCherrie Think:
what if normally i wear M, and when i get the cloth which is M... but the cutting is too big.. how arr? in this scenario.. can i change it to a smaller size?
What do you think that you have but your competitor don't have?
Our competitors have everything we have. From internet broadband, websites, clothes from Korea / Hong Kong, Taiwan, ready stocks and pre order stocks and more, except :
a. We have honesty that only a few competitors have
b. We have patience that only a few competitors have
c. We enjoy selling fashionable ladies designs online, and making peanut profits out of each
d. We are Christians business partners and only a few competitors have
e. The names of the business shareholders are Gary and Fiona, which not many competitors have (is there any by coincidence?)
f. We are PotatoCream.com - Who would mix Potato with Cream on their clothes? Only we dream to do that.
Fiona : We dare to dream. Is this consider an answer?
Gary : Yes, good answer, indeed. We are young and energetic. We will do anything we can to dream on. We take risk and more risks. We are cheerful, friendly and trustworthy. Cute and adorable too. We look forward to enhance our services and system in order to bring convenience to our clients.
What AprilCherrie Think:
hmm hmm.. what should i say arr? hmm... young and energetic.. so cute kan the answer.. hehehehe
Is there any reason for PotatoCream.com to be navigating like this? Do you think there's some enhancement that you need to be done?
It was not navigated like this before. We have attempted a few navigation methods before it was finalized as the current stage. One size does not fit it all. Someone people like it this way while others like it that way. There is really no way to suit everyone's navigation habits. Sob Sob..
For instance, we started with one full page of images and products. A few visitors first commented that it was very well done over our competitor's site because they have a very very super fast broadband. Whereas, others complained that it is one of the worst design ever created. We later created categories at the side to attract visitors to navigate directly to the categories they truly desired. with just one click away - Default : Dress category.
Then these visitors started commenting again. They thought the front page should be showing more items than just the dresses. While others praised us for the great work. They probably could not imagine the amount of works and time we put in for the test, and so the comments keep going on.
So, we decided to let our agents vote for the best navigation methods. This is the best choice we have ever made. Our agents has statistically shown us that most buyers are not normally critics and critics are not normally buyers - true fact. True buyers are only interested in a few things :
a. Do you have enough items to attract me to buy
b. I wanna see everything you have now and instantly now
c. I am looking forward to buy something now - Show me what you have now.
Ya, The keyword is “everything' and “now'.
One week after the vote, we changed the navigation to what it is now. Orders just keep increasing at a steady rate from then onwards.
My advice is : Critics are not normally right. Do not take their craps and end up with more unnecessary works. Do your own analysis and check it with the targeted end users (buyers not visitors)
Whether there are more enhancements needed? My answer would be yes and of course. Changes and enhancement are the only unchanged elements. In order to survive, we need to keep changing to fit in the changing system. Opps, a bit too serious here. I meant keep changing la.. (sound better huh?)
We have a few enhancement pending in our list
a. Shopping Cart
b. Integrated Database - Transaction & Stocks
c. Membership (With offers)
d. Referral Program
e. And of course - redesign the website - make it cuter
What AprilCherrie Think:
Actually compare to what I saw first time... they did improved a lot... previously.. they didn't have the “previous' and “next' button when you viewing the product it self... as what I think... there's few more things that they should look into it.
1. their main page is too crowded... it make me feel that they want to show everything to the customer in one page, which make the page too long
2. should have included more information about the product, so that customer will know more about the product before they purchase
3. should show variety of photos
4. what's the usage of Return ID?
5. when customer view the product in its own product page, sidebar should show all the other categories on the left.
When will be the next face lift for the site?
This alone i cant be sure, as we are already piled with lots of enhancement list. Each will take up heaps of our time and efforts. Slow and steady is the only key to success. Dont rush. Even though we have been rushing over many things at the same time, it is hard to focus on the right thing at times. We learnt to do it slowly.
In addition, we have been involved heavily in the church activities for the celebration of the Great Christmas. We definitely are too hectic to divert our attention to speak of enhancement and face lift at this stage. I would say probably not in December this year.
Why are you so bad? Cause there's a section in your page showing those cloth that are sold OUT?
Bad mer? Hahaha.. Better than batman ma.
a. When our clothes are sold out, we showed it out. In case some clients are interested in the sold out items, they may attempt to pre order the same items from us - not guarantee though.
b. Beside, they can see how many good stocks we have sold. Haha..
c. Beside and beside, it tells our buyers to act quicker before the stocks are sold out soon also mer
d. Also, we enjoy hearing the sound “Sold Out', so we created it there to remind us of the resounding joy. Hahha.. Quite funny huh.. Just joking la..
What AprilCherrie Think:
war.. like this still consider not bad arr... -_-' imagine when you look at those cloth.. you like it so much and you cant buy it... omg... the feeling is soooo... omg.. Fiona dont you think so?
Is there any constant date for new products?
Fiona : Almost every week.. If peak season almost everyday
Gary : Well, that's true. We have new stocks from time to time. We can hardly imagine how soon it would be available but we have an average record of having new stocks every week.
We enjoy buying stocks here and there too. That's why we cant really tell when we are buying again. To know more about our new arrivals - Sign up our newsletter (we often use that to inform our clients of the new arrivals). In fact, most of our existing and repeated clients check out our websites on a daily basis. Isn't that cool? I would say Kewwwl. :-D Haha
I realize there's not much choices of size for most of the dresses... did you do that on purpose? I mean... err.. why there's no S? I actually saw XXXL... .
Fiona : Our items are mostly free size.
Gary : The answer is i have no idea. That's what we got from our suppliers and that's what you got from us. We are trying to source for clothes with more sizes too. Wait for our good news.
What AprilCherrie Think:
really sad Kan.. when i see those nice cloth that dont have my size... want buy also cannot -_-'
How do you inform your customer that there's new stock?
Fiona : We will send them a newsletter to our website subscribers.
Gary : There are many ways of doing it.
a. I can open my mouth and tell my friends and relatives about the new stocks
b. Or, i can email my friends of the new stocks
c. Fiona said newsletter wo...
d. Or, we can MSN, YM, Gchat our friends
e. Or, we padded their shoulders and tell them to buy
f. Worse, we force them to buy in order to stay as our friends (not working at all - plan B then)
g. Even worse, we tell them not to buy our clothes (reversed psychology - not working too - plan C then)
h. Worst, we close our website down so that they will miss our stocks and keep calling our mobile phone : Come on, please.. Show me the new stocks (You know it would not work - plan D then)
i. Best, when a frequent visitor sees the new stocks from our site, he started telling everyone from his mum, neighbours, policeman, tax office, Chinese embassy, moon and even aliens about it. That's how it is spread.
Come and enjoy shopping with us.
PotatoCream.com :-)
What AprilCherrie Think:
i think hor.. if can have a new stock section will be better.. at least i no need go trough everything to find the new stock.. -_-'
that's all for the interview.. hehehehe.. ok... now i can really start shop around d... hopefully they have new nice cloth... then i can keekeke. shop shop shop... pray pray.. please the cloth that i like please don't out of stock can?.. please.
Read more : Our Happy Clients.
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