I’d like your opinions on my new online children’s bookshop!

[DaisyTellingTales]

I’ve just started an online children’s bookshop - tellingtalesshop.com. I’d really welcome some opinions and feedback from mums, if you could take a minute to let me know what you think of it - what’s missing, what could be better, what might make you want to come back? That would be a real help!

My aim is to curate beautiful books - old and new, that you might not find readily on Amazon or in other bookstores.

I look forward to hearing what you think! As a way of saying thanks here is a 20% discount code that is valid until October 31st 2016, if you see something you fancy - 20MUMSNET

Daisy

The website looks lovely - clear/simple and easy to navigate. The books also looked lovely, and I hope you do well (though too young for me to be interested as my youngest is in P3!)

I did wonder if you could mix up order the books are listed in - in a few of the categories, the same books appear first as in 'all books' which makes it seem like you carry fewer books than you actually do.

However the one thing that would put me off ordering is that in the 'Delivery and Returns' section you don't list any delivery information. Even saying what service you use, how long it typically takes, and the average delivery cost for 1 book would be helpful. I live in an area which quite a few online sites just don't deliver to, so always check the Delivery section out before 'wasting' time browsing.

I'm not a mum yet (19 weeks pregnant with my first) but I've had a look at the website anyway as books will no doubt be as important a thing in my children's lives as they are in mine!

I love the clean, open presentation of the website. It's very easy to navigate. One particular feature that charmed me was being able to view a few sections of different pages to see the quality of the artwork in the books. The prices are obvious too which is really useful, I hate it when websites hide the prices in some obscure corner.

The only thing I wonder whether it would be useful to implement would be if you roll the mouse over the 'books' button would be a drop down menu to show the different categories there. If you click it then it could still take you to the main books menu with the categories at the head of the page too.

Good luck with your new venture! I will undoubtedly be back to purchase some books from you in the future.

Your stock looks interesting and quirky. How much is delivery? Do you deliver outside the UK?

I think your gift wrapping fee is quite steep at £3 per item!

I'd probably see me using your site as a site for suggesting /reviewing unusual books rather than buying them, sorry. A quick check of the Book Depository brought up the book I was interested in cheaper and with free delivery worldwide. Sorry - just my honest feedback. Best of luck with it though.

Thank you northcoastmum, LottieL and ThatsNotAKnifeThatsASpoon for your comments, they are all really helpful! We'll definitely be making some changes off the back of them!

LottieL - Good Luck with the baby!

This is wonderful! I only just glanced but had to come back to say that. I'm so sick of trawling through Amazon looking for special and interesting looking books. I'm heading back to browse a little more now but make sure you advertise and get your SEO right.

Thanks DollyBarton - SEO and advertising are definitely something I need to work on - if you have any tips let me know!

We have a lot of new books going on today - so there might be something that catches your eye!

Thank you for the comments.

I'd say take a good look at Google packages (Adwords). Also a bit of reading up on SEO and how it works is always useful. There's millions of tutorials online and books about how to do SEO. It's the simple things but important things like making sure your headings are optimised, you have good ALT text and metadata descriptions. And that your text reflects the right keywords and is relevant. Spend some time reading the information Google provides to customers, it will stand to you forever.

Thanks for the advice DollyBarton! Will do!

I think you need to ensure you have search inside on all your books (I looked at Zoology for my DD but ended up going to Amazon to flick through a couple of pages). I also think you need to find a way to stop people just using you as a good suggestion for books and then going to get discount and free delivery at Amazon. Could you do a book club where you get money off or a free book when you buy 5 books.... that kind of thing. Lovely site though, I love discovering new books for my children!

I've just stumbled on this thread and can't resist the opportunity to browse some lovely books !

Nice clean site, and looks good on my phone as well - some of the images are small as you'd expect but you can zoom in.

I had a look on the about page to find out more, and I think you could expand a bit here. Currently it's about you and why you started the business, but you could explain a bit more about what types of books you have, what ages they suit etc. You could pinch some of the text from your first blog post, perhaps.

On the main list, all the books are shown in alphabetical order by title - listed with the publisher underneath rather than the author, which I found somewhat unexpected. I don't know how easy it would be to do, but sorting by author, or most recently added ( you mention adding some recent ones, but if I'd been on the site before there's no easy way to find those) would be useful.

Totty has a good point about Amazon - you cant compete on price so make sure you are competing on something else - and that the reader knows it.

It's a lovely site with some gorgeous books, but unfortunately too young for us!

Meant to add - good luck!

Not a mum but you know we aunties, sisters, friends, cousins, god parents , do actually buy books too for all children in our lives. Just saying

It's helpful to have a picture of at least one page, if I'm buying from your baby book section I don't know from cover and description of its just a picture book, or one word per page and intresting pictures or full on story. If I'm buying it as a gift to new parent who may not have skills or knowledge of how to read to newborn just picture book can be difficult.

It's helpful if I know rough age range for the book as again no pages to judge. Is it under 2s 3-5 or something much more complex. Your books under emotions for example imagine you would buy for specific reason would put me off buying it wasn't clear.

Also I'd like to know if book was freely available in Uk or you shipped it in especially. Ditto helpful to have publishing date is it brand new is it vintage? Is it re print of classic?

Hi Tottyandmarchpane1 and StillSmallVoiceOfQualms

Thank you for much for your comments - they are so helpful!
I will definitely be putting these suggestions into action.

It's so lovely of you both to take the time to comment and I hope you might come back and see the changes and maybe buy something - perhaps as a gift StillSmallVoicesOfQualms!

Lovely website! I couldn't find a search function however? That could be worth considering.

I didn't read your op quite right and Google telling tales instead of the actual address IYSWIM- it comes up with a children's literary site that I spent a while looking at thinking 'where the hell are the books?!'

I think the site is nicely laid out and easy to navigate. I picked up on the same thing as the pp though, that when you click on the different catagories the same books come up first on several ones (so the same book is in the first three ofLittle Learners and nature Lovers) so it looks like your selection is limited. I would also like to be able to see a couple of pages.

At the bottom of the page it asks for your e mail address- you need to say what it's for! E mails? newsletter? Blog? Setting up an account? I filled it in and it said to go to my e mail, I did then had to click a link to 'confirm my subscription' - you need to be clearer what exactly this is. Most places just have a ' if you want to receive our newsletter add your e mail here'.

Hi Akire, Bubblebloodypop and NickyEds

Thank you so much for your comments!

I hope the website doesn't look like it is for mums only - my intention is for anyone who wants to buy a children's book to love the website and feel it is for them.

We are definitely going to be putting pictures of the insides of the book onto the site.

Thanks again for your time.

Gorgeous site! Really enchanting :) I notice you have a subscription option at the bottom - make the most of this. With an email list you open up a huge new opportunity to connect with your customers and make more sales.

Perhaps offer a free incentive to sign up - something like 'sign up and get our 'top 10 books every child should own' - or anything along those lines!

Good luck with it :) x

Hi Collywobbles

Thank you for your feedback - sorry for the delayed response (half-term madness!)

Thank you also for your newsletter suggestion - it's definitely something I need to sort out and think about!

Daisy