Hello everyone, I have been a lurker here for about five months. I wish I could post more but I don't have the knowledge that you guys have. I do however have a great respect for the people of this forum in comparison with other forums. People here seem generally more laid back and willing to help each other.
This is why I am asking for a little help from the posters here. I am finishing an IT degree and am going to make a presentation comparing web sites. I was thinking I would compare some AV sites and show the good and the bad. I would also like to talk about how forums such as this as well as AV Science, HomeTheareSpot etc, influence buyers.
For example, before I had never heard of Axiom but after being here for a few months and hearing about the great customer service I think that there is a good chance that Axiom will get my business when the time arrives. Also, you can't open a subwoofer thread without hearing about HSU or SVS.
So if you guys could give me examples of good and bad sites, ie. sites so bad they lost your business, examples of good and bad customer service and how these impact buyers purchases I would really appreciate it. If you can think of specific threads on this or other forums in regards to these topics that would be great.
Thank you all for reading this post.
Jeff
Well the Axiom website itself is definately one of the "good" ones. Well laid out. All the products are easy to find, all of them are well described, and include prices. (I HATE website which don't list msrp's!)
I think it's very interesting that many of the online only speaker companies such as Axiom, Ascend, Rocket, Hsu and SVS are promoted so much by the owners themselves. If it weren't for the very vocal owners of these products, I don't think any of these companies would sell 1/2 the product they do. It's quite amazing. FREE advertising for a business which already has low overhead by selling online/direct. More money is available to go into the products, and the owners pockets, while still being able to keep prices low. It's a business model I'm sure will start to spread to many more products. Buying direct from the manufacturer via the internet is the future of merchandise selling.
A site that I think is well laid out (especially considering the the number of forums they run) is http://www.hometheaterspot.com. I'm not particularly fond of the layout of avsforum.com, but if you can wade through it, there is a tremendous amount of info available there.
I absolutely agree with Spiffnme's point that the owners seem to be the best evangelizers for a given company on the net. Rocket owner's love their Rockets, Axiom owners their Axioms, etc...
Good Luck on the presentation.
MisoSoup!!! mmmmm, i like that stuff. Good vegan dish.
As for a good site, www.outlawaudio.com is also good.
B & W 's website is very fancy at www.bwsepakers.com, however, as spiff&me said earlier, well, they don't list their msrp. if they did, people would run away! their speakers are very, very expensive.
Forgive my questioning of your project, but if your going for an IT degree, shouldn't you focus your paper on the types of pages/servers/software rather than what would influence a buyer? That to me sounds much more like a psychology paper. Maybe the types of forum software, security, platforms they run on? Maybe I'm off base and I'm sorry if I am, but that seems to make more sense in an IT type environment. Content of the page is important, but that is left to the web designer rather than the guy who has to maintain what they run on, unless your goal is to be a web designer?
I do not like the Klipsch web site and always have trouble finding the right information on the Paradigm site (but it is pretty). The Axiom site is a great example of conveying information effectively. I like the PSB site. The Marantz site has horrible, technology-encrusted gobbledegook in the navigation. The Sound and Vision mag forums are a pretty good place for content, if not design. The Aperion Audio popups on S&V did them much more harm than good. Good luck with your project!
Yes DanTana your suggestions are correct in terms of focusing on the technical aspects of a site.
However, this presentation is for a course in Online marketing and as such, comparing websites and buyer behaviour was one of the topics.
Thanks for all of your help guys. Do you know of thread discussions where after reading it you were swayed one way or another in your buying decisions? Ie. The company was protrayed as so bad that you would never buy from them? Or they were protrayed as being so good that you would look to them next time?
Thanks again for your help. Please add more good and bad websites if you can think of some.
Thanks,
Jeff
In my case (I only read these forums), the Rockets were poo-poo'd so badly here that I would never consider them, despite never having heard them. (Mind you, I have heard Axioms, and they will be my next major purchase)
Does anyone have any other input? Good/bad sites? Mostly in regards to how they influenced buying decisions?
I know I hate sites without prices, as well as hard to navigate products. Any experience with things like that? Good/Bad?
I would really like to talk about how online word of mouth ie. boards like these, influence buyers.
Thanks!
In reply to:
MisoSoup!!! mmmmm, i like that stuff. Good vegan dish.
This is completely off-topic, but I just wanted to warn ravi_singh that miso soup is not always vegan. Bonito fish flakes are often used to flavor it.
ok, back to the topic...