In my previous post (which was posted 2 seconds before I started writing this post), I wrote about a fellow at work you quit to work on his start-up. The name of the venture his pupkart.com and as the name suggests, they sell pet supplies.
A quick google search for dog food online india shows pupkart.com in the first page of the search results, which is a good sign for a start-up!
So, pupkart.com is Gurgaon based and a look at the Main Menu shows that they've worked on building up their catalog for Dog& Cat supplies, while other growth areas are present in Birds, Fish & Small Pets sections.
Google's PageRank value & Alexa's traffic rank show that this is a very new site and there's not much data to talk about its' popularity on the interwebs. So if you'd like to know about the site from a human perspective, read on.
At first sight, its a very likable website.
The site is simple and I would rate the ease of navigation pretty high. The site loads very fast and I didn't come across any broken links.
I'm really not aware of the pet supplies brands available in India, and their half-heartedly written "About Us" page doesn't speak volumes about their products.
I like the fact they took the effort to put up good product images, but there's definitely scope for improvement. A quick search for a randomly picked product (Kiki Canaries Bird Food) shows amazon.in to have a much better (read: glossy) image. But its totally fine for visitors who know what they want.
The Refund & Return policy, Shipping & Delivery Policy, and Order Cancellation Policy links are basically the same content just copy pasted. The Terms & Conditions page is clearly copied with a "Find & Replace" on the name. Either they're a very "less talk more walk" kinda duo, or content writing is not their strongest suit. Of course, this doesn't matter to 99.9% of the visitors, but I'm a bit of a hard-ass that way.
There's no "XYZ days free returns policy" displayed anywhere, suggesting that such a policy is not in place. A quick read through their Refund & Return policy (or the Shipping & Delivery policy, or the Order Cancellation policy :p ), reveals that they're not very big on refunds. They'll only refund your money if you cancel it before shipment. If you don't like what you got, it can only be replaced. Meh.
Navigation : 5 on 5
There one main menu which leads to products for that pet type. The dropdown menus work flawlessly smooth and don't do anything unusual or crappy. Even when you go one level deeper inside the navigation tree, the side menu on the left doesn't get cluttered with the various "filters". A "price range" filter might be a useful feature for visitors who know what they're looking for and are on a budget. But to be fair, the site doesn't have a bazillion products under each category and so the filters might not even be required at this stage.
A quick google search for dog food online india shows pupkart.com in the first page of the search results, which is a good sign for a start-up!
So, pupkart.com is Gurgaon based and a look at the Main Menu shows that they've worked on building up their catalog for Dog& Cat supplies, while other growth areas are present in Birds, Fish & Small Pets sections.
Google's PageRank value & Alexa's traffic rank show that this is a very new site and there's not much data to talk about its' popularity on the interwebs. So if you'd like to know about the site from a human perspective, read on.
Aesthetics : 3 on 5
At first sight, its a very likable website.
The site is simple and I would rate the ease of navigation pretty high. The site loads very fast and I didn't come across any broken links.
I'm really not aware of the pet supplies brands available in India, and their half-heartedly written "About Us" page doesn't speak volumes about their products.
I like the fact they took the effort to put up good product images, but there's definitely scope for improvement. A quick search for a randomly picked product (Kiki Canaries Bird Food) shows amazon.in to have a much better (read: glossy) image. But its totally fine for visitors who know what they want.
The Refund & Return policy, Shipping & Delivery Policy, and Order Cancellation Policy links are basically the same content just copy pasted. The Terms & Conditions page is clearly copied with a "Find & Replace" on the name. Either they're a very "less talk more walk" kinda duo, or content writing is not their strongest suit. Of course, this doesn't matter to 99.9% of the visitors, but I'm a bit of a hard-ass that way.
There's no "XYZ days free returns policy" displayed anywhere, suggesting that such a policy is not in place. A quick read through their Refund & Return policy (or the Shipping & Delivery policy, or the Order Cancellation policy :p ), reveals that they're not very big on refunds. They'll only refund your money if you cancel it before shipment. If you don't like what you got, it can only be replaced. Meh.
Navigation : 5 on 5
There one main menu which leads to products for that pet type. The dropdown menus work flawlessly smooth and don't do anything unusual or crappy. Even when you go one level deeper inside the navigation tree, the side menu on the left doesn't get cluttered with the various "filters". A "price range" filter might be a useful feature for visitors who know what they're looking for and are on a budget. But to be fair, the site doesn't have a bazillion products under each category and so the filters might not even be required at this stage.
The search bar works just fine - quickly spitting out very relevant searches based on your search terms.
Cart & Checkout : 3 on 5
Once a purchase decision is made, the seller should ensure there are no glitches or clutter in the path from the cart to the "Proceed To Payment" button. They've done well in this effort by having a 4 steps process (the fourth step being the actual actual transaction, which happens on CCAvenue's payment gateway page). So this leaves 3 quick steps on the website - all of which are very short and not at all a headache to fill out.
The 3rd step is where you choose whether you want to pay online or choose the Cash On Delivery option. C.O.D costs Rs.50/- extra.
An excellent point to be noted is that they are not charging a shipping fee. At all! Even if you're buying something that costs less than Rs.100/-. Big brownie points there!
There's just one glitch if I choose the Online Payment option. It takes you to the CCAvenue's (archaic & ugly in my opinion) secure payment gateway page where you carry out the transaction. The glitch I caught was when I clicked back from the payment page - my cart had zero items. The cookie with my cart item seemed to have cleared. This happened repeatedly.
I also noticed that if I checkout as a guest user, my email and shipping address are 'remembered' for only a few minutes (probably an hour). When I visited the site again after an hour, I had to type my email, address once again even though I had not closed the tab.
Social & Support : 4 on 5
pupkart.com is present on Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus. I didn't expect their pages to be very active. But I did see that they're shared dog-related content across all the social media platforms.
All they need now is to create engagement by bringing together animal lovers, animal care centers etc and they'll have a good community.
They very clearly display a phone number & support mail id (unlike some other stalwarts in the e-commerce scene). If I had a doubt regarding a product/process, I don't have to navigate away from the current page to look for help. This is one more obstacle removed on the path to "Proceed To Payment".
If you have reached this far, please do tell me what you felt about the post. I'd love any kind of feedback on my writing, on the criteria of review, and suggestions, advice or corrections.
Please do leave comments!
Once a purchase decision is made, the seller should ensure there are no glitches or clutter in the path from the cart to the "Proceed To Payment" button. They've done well in this effort by having a 4 steps process (the fourth step being the actual actual transaction, which happens on CCAvenue's payment gateway page). So this leaves 3 quick steps on the website - all of which are very short and not at all a headache to fill out.
The 3rd step is where you choose whether you want to pay online or choose the Cash On Delivery option. C.O.D costs Rs.50/- extra.
An excellent point to be noted is that they are not charging a shipping fee. At all! Even if you're buying something that costs less than Rs.100/-. Big brownie points there!
There's just one glitch if I choose the Online Payment option. It takes you to the CCAvenue's (archaic & ugly in my opinion) secure payment gateway page where you carry out the transaction. The glitch I caught was when I clicked back from the payment page - my cart had zero items. The cookie with my cart item seemed to have cleared. This happened repeatedly.
I also noticed that if I checkout as a guest user, my email and shipping address are 'remembered' for only a few minutes (probably an hour). When I visited the site again after an hour, I had to type my email, address once again even though I had not closed the tab.
Social & Support : 4 on 5
pupkart.com is present on Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus. I didn't expect their pages to be very active. But I did see that they're shared dog-related content across all the social media platforms.
All they need now is to create engagement by bringing together animal lovers, animal care centers etc and they'll have a good community.
They very clearly display a phone number & support mail id (unlike some other stalwarts in the e-commerce scene). If I had a doubt regarding a product/process, I don't have to navigate away from the current page to look for help. This is one more obstacle removed on the path to "Proceed To Payment".
If you have reached this far, please do tell me what you felt about the post. I'd love any kind of feedback on my writing, on the criteria of review, and suggestions, advice or corrections.
Please do leave comments!
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