Tell me what you think of. . .

“this website. www.beyondoutside.com

It's a small place located very close to where I live. I met the owner several years back when he came to my counter here at work and I got my son Steve Jr his first job there at the beyond bikes side. If it had bigger sales, I could work there. I went and spoke with him today. I see room for improvement. What do you think?”

“cheezus, don't all talk at once!”

“sorry. we only do politics and non-backpacking threads on this site . . .”

“i hate libbies”

“Prices are pretty good. Selection is pretty limited.

How's that?”

“The selection is limited, but if it is a small place, I suppose one would expect that. I have been looking at day packs with a hydration bladder and they offer one for under $40. I'm thinking it might be worth a try.
There is always room for improvement, and you have a lot of expertise to offer.”

“I talked to them about their limited selection, and other brands that it would be good to look into carrying. I also talked about a Scout discount as A-16 has one. These things are "under consideration". If any of you do buy anything there, please say that I sent you. I would really like to work in a place that fits what I love.”

“I think you need to take it, as you do need to improve, where do I need to send the tickets to, as moving here would be a big improvement for you too.”

“What did Libbie Dole ever do to CB?”

“Looks promising. Lots of competition out there though. I wish them the best.

There prices aren't bad and shipping costs seem reasonable. I would be interested in knowing how much they actually keep in stock or if they drop ship most of their orders.

One major outdoor company, for example, has lots of our items in their catalog, but they don't stock any of it. We regularly drop ship $6.00 items (retail) that cost $8.00 to ship and wholesale for about $3.00 or $4.00. Not sure how they stay in business.”

“damn republicans.....”

“My son tells me they drop ship some things, but for the most part what they have on their website they do carry in their warehouse. They told me yesterday that they are just picking up go-lite. I don't have anymore info than that. They will give you more info on the phone.”

“I browsed the site for a while. They seem to have pretty good prices, but they do need more variety.”

“i will pass on what i am hearing. keep telling me more.”

“I am actually going back into the store tomorrow afternoon to drop off my application and I plan to give them a list of your comments on their website and products, yes I will be leaving out names, it will just be a generic list. So if you could all keep the comments coming I would really appreciate it.

www.beyondoutside.com

For those of you who bike, here is their bike website.

www.beyondbikes.com”

““I am actually going back into the store tomorrow afternoon to drop off my application and I plan to give them a list of your comments on their website and products, yes I will be leaving out names, it will just be a generic list. So if you could all keep the comments coming I would really appreciate it.

www.beyondoutside.com

For those of you who bike, here is their bike website.

www.beyondbikes.com””

“Nice site.....let me know”

“I'm jsut gettin ginot biking, so I am checking them out :)”

“i need comments to feed to them XL. i want, no NEED, to improve their sales so that they have to hire me. read the thread from the start and tell me what they need to do.”

“you are going to love their bikes!”

“Neither site looks inviting to me... they are both kind of busy. If I was vulnerable to migraines I'd run...”

“So it looks cluttered then?

Name an outdoor website that you like for it's looks. That will show them what to shoot for.
last edited: 7/23/07 7:13:51 PM”

“shameless bump”

“I like the looks of Moosejaw for the pictures of all the hiker babes. Never bought anything from them.”

“Moosejaw is great! I've ordered from them. Very fast shipping too.”

“i was just wondering, pics of hiker babes huh? so can you order them? LOL!”

“and they ain't CHEAP either...a collection of TT's most babealicious hiker chicks (One of THEM will handle the handsome debonair guys)......

So, what am I bid for the most racy, off the trail around the campfire pics I have?....”

“silly boyo. do me a favor and go back to the beginning.

put the pics on for free.”

“....a list of your comments on their website and products..... - Pammy

Have you lost your mind? ;-)”

“yes, and it's too little to be out on it's own. if you find it, please send it back.”

“the web site looks very busy and cluttered. It gives me the impression that its Cabela's.

You go to knives, and it takes four jumps before you see a knife, and then its only one brand at a time. The knives should be in categories also, like lockback, folders/pocket knives, camp knives, hunting knives, fixed blade.

No backpacks are listed on the home page menu, but if you go to packs they are listed in categories like external and internal frame, not by brand.

Under sleeping bags, it says list 15 per page, but all you get is 4 per page. I don't see how to get to the second page. Oops, maybe there are just 4 bags under down sleeping bags.

Watches are by brand, like knives. The categories could be altimiter watch, chronometer, field watch, dress watch, multifeature watch, heart monitor watch, etc.
last edited: 7/25/07 11:57:38 AM”

“bob, those are absolutely the kind of comments i need!

and yes, that's all the bags they have. they really need to build their inventory, which of course won't happen without an increase in sales. i also need them to get a lot more hits on their site, i want them to know it was me when i walk in the door with my appie.”

“www.campmor.com is at least as cluttered, but it looks easier to use and is more inviting.

http://www.llbean.com/?feat=gn has a crisp look

http://www.moosejaw.com/moosejaw/default.asp?s_id=0& is a fun site, others have copied their emails which are entertaining.

I wonder how beyond outdoors would work if it was simply spread out more across the screen and/or didn't have the dark contrasting background?”

“Also on beyond, I couldn't find a way to search by brand and product category. That's a nice function to have.”

“You guys are GREAT, THIS IS PERFECT!


OK, I have to get up and take my kid out to play and hike. See ya later!!!”

“Total amateur built site.

1. The design is poor. It looks like the "designer" discovered the layer style and filter menus in Photoshop and decided to bevel and drop shadow everything.

2. Inexcusable overuse of graphical text. Maybe 10% of the copy is native HTML text. What's worse is that they didn't even bother to use ALT tags on anything, not even on key navigation.

This causes a host of problems. Such as making it impossible for users with visual challenges to surf the site using a screen reader or to even increase font sizes with their browser. In addition, Search Engine Optimization become very difficult because the engines place the highest value on visible text on the page. No html native text, no ALT tags = nothing to read and a very poor ranking. Good luck getting found.

I did a google search on "san diego outdoor gear" and "san diego backpacking gear" They don't appear on the first five pages. On the web that's the same as not existing.

3. Information architecture is poor as pointed out by Idaho Bob.

4. The coding uses wasteful practices such as hard coding javascript and CSS on each page. Pull those suckers out and link to JS and CSS files instead. Maintenance will be easier and pages will be lighter.


On the bright side, at least they are on the web. Hopefully they didn't spend much on the site and they are making money with it. That way they can budget some cash for a much needed rebuild.”

“At the very least they need to put ALT tags on the images.

It's a band-aid fix but it's got to start somewhere.

~Edit~
Oh yeah, good luck.
last edited: 7/25/07 1:09:16 PM”

“you guys are awesome!”

“ummmmm hpm, what?”

“yeah...Hpm....you got subtitles for that? (LOL)”

“HTML is so simple. I did my web pages in Notebook.”

“See that's the problem SS. Not to belittle your effort but HTML is pretty easy. Anyone can bang out a page.
It takes a quite a bit more to do ecommerce effectively.
last edited: 7/25/07 7:20:30 PM”

“True, but then I'm smart enough not to do ecommerce. ;-)”

“lol
and that made all the difference.”

“well this should make both of you feel smart, because i am here nodding my head and smiling and going uh huh, yeah, uh huh, yeah.

just go shop boyos, i hear that their prices are decent, LOL!”

“;-)”

“hey windigrrl, you could have posted it here”