Planning for rest of 2009
Hello,
It’s been a little while since my last post … and there’s been a lot going on. So let me try to share a little of the more interesting odds and ends. Firstly, RedBubble has terrific supporters. This was evidenced by the support we received in the Webby awards where we came second to Flickr in the community category – and Flickr is over 100 times larger than RedBubble. We’ll be gunning for them next year.
Another category of supporters that we don’t often mention are the investors behind RedBubble. There are about 30 folks from the US, UK and Australia who’ve invested their hard earned cash to make RedBubble possible – and they’ve recently they injected more money into the business. This is terrific – as it allows us the capacity to continue to invest in building out the website (RedBubble can operate on existing resources, but our ability to build new functionality would be greatly diminished). And in this current economic climate it’s an enormously powerful vote of support. Thanks investors!
We’ve also spent quite a lot of time over the last month planning out the future. We’re guilty of being ambitious … with the consequence that we often bite of much more than we can chew. So the decision has been taken to start saying ‘no’ or ‘not now’ to a lot more ideas … so that we can concentrate on doing a better job at a smaller subset of things. We’re also guilty of trying to do too many things at once … and this makes it harder to progress any one initiative. So we’ll also try to focus on one idea at a time.
To this end, here’s the rough order of priority of work for the next ‘little while’.
1) Fix up all the obstacles that limit interaction. We make it hard to get started on the site, to find or join groups, to know how your entry is going in a challenge etc. We want to run a fine tooth comb over the site from the perspective of a ‘new member’ to make the site easier to engage with (old hands know how to work around these frustrations … but these things need to be fixed to enable RedBubble to grow and maintain vibrancy). Many ideas for improving interaction have been suggested in the feedback forum so this will be a great sources of specific initiatives as we improve the site.
2) Help empower folks to market their own work. We did some analysis of our e-mail marketing campaigns this week and one of the most powerful levers for improving sales is to assist folks to market their own work. RedBubble brings a lot of buyers to the site via search engine optimization but there’s enormous potential for artists on the site to contribute to sales. In the graph below there was one campaign where we encouraged folks to market their work with their friends – and it was almost an order of magnitude more successful than the other campaigns. The line that we’ll be advocating is that if you want to sell your work you’ll need to get active. We’ll help with advice, encouragement, tools et cetera … but you are the best salesperson of your work.
3) Localization of production for all products. This will help reduce shipping times, reduce our environmental foot print and generate more income for RedBubble so that we can continue investing in building out the site.
4) Improve the conversion rates on the key landing pages. Almost all external buyers don’t land on the homepage … they land deep in the site. We think that we can improve sales by directing these external buyers to dedicated and optimized landing pages.
5) Improve the structure of the site to promote for search engine traffic. Related to the idea above – we’re looking to boost sales on the site with more traffic from search engines.
6) Introduce a range of paper products (books, post cards, et cetera). Not much needs to be said here … fingers crossed we’ll have this ready by October … but it depends how we go with all the above initiatives.
There’s a long long list of things we’d like to do beyond this list of six … but one can’t do everything all at once.
Cheers,
P.S. Here’s a sneak preview of a new homepage design that we’re working on:
Juilee Pryor
looks great captain…. hang on everbody ..RB’s going galactic…. only one image on the homepage is going to cause a bit of grief though…. be nice to gets some variety on the tee shirt page as well…..but having said that… I have total faith in what ever it is that comes next….. bring it on…. :)
BackStage at RB replied
you’ll be able to scroll through a range of large images … and i think the plan is to have them also fading out after a number of seconds on the one image. The idea is to make a powerful statement right up the top that RedBubble is about art and creativity.
Andreas Koepke
Thanks for the status update. The next 6 months will certainly be an interesting phase in the growth of RedBubble. Will be good to see how it all unfolds and be along for the ride.
Tania Rose
yay!
Donna Adamski
Way cool RB…looks fab…looking forward to growing with you!! And more sales!! Yayyy!!! :)
Lara Luz
I hope as part of the new front page your looking at more/better categories for artwork etc.
Thanks for the update, the sideshow on the front I think will be a nicer way of presenting the works. That way nothing is off by the thumbnail cropping that’s currently in place.
Paul Louis Vil...
Looks great! :D
Juilee Pryor
it sounds great….is it going to be a kind of randomized slideshow? it’s allways an adventure…. and the new layout looks really neat and attractive…looks really cool..well doone
E.R. Bazor
I enjoy being a part of Redbubble as a group host! I think that making it easier for new members to get started and focusing on ways to boost sales is a wonderful use of your valuable time and resources. I hope that you are still going to Feature works on your new Home Page. I enjoy checking them out. Thanks for all your efforts!
Tracey Mac
LOVE the new homepage Look!! ;)
Scott Robinson
Any word on the T-shirt developments?
There`s been talk on a range of changes/improvements for the Rb T designer for a while now..
BackStage at RB replied
yep – that’s work we’ve already started and we do like to finish what we’ve started – we’ve been a little pre-occupied with some site performance problems in the last month and that’s probably the main reason why the updates haven’t already been completed
Darren Stones
Peter, any news on whether group members can submit suitably themed calendars to groups?
Will be good to see some new products.
Cheers.
jemimalovesbigted
Oooooh! Noice!
Rosina Lamberti
noice and noicer
Scott Robinson
Excellent.. Much appreciated Peter
Dana DiPasquale
love those ambiguous graphs….
Linda Syms
Thank you for the update sounds good to me.
Emma Wertheim
All sounds very exciting…!
bevanimage
Peter, this is all most exciting. In particular the marketing intiatives and extending the lines of products to include books. I look forward to seeing all these developments, and sincere thanks to you and all the RB people for such a wonderful site.
valzart
Woot lol! thxz sweetheARTzz such a joy on the Bubz lol!..;} happy hippy hugglez ..
Tama Blough
Not sure about the home page thing – looks good but people will click past a slide show after an image or two, and if anyone else is like me won’t scroll past what shows up instantly unless they absolutely have to. But it looks pretty good. Your plans sound okay, but I am still pining away horribly for sets.
MuscularTeeth
sounds great. RB has evolved so much since the start.
Sanne Thijs
I agree with Tama, i am also not sure about the homepage slidding idea. the special thing about redbubbles homepage have always been the 8selections. If you just make a slideshow it looks easy but changing he homepage qith theme’s of diffrent artwork every couple of houres proves how involved and caring redbubble is.
Sanne Thijs
oh en an other idea, how about making the imagescategorie in to 2 one for photograph and the rest as rest? just an idea.
Cathleen Taraw...
Thanks investors! You’ve picked the right people to get behind.
JUSTART
sounds great :)
Agnes McGuinness
Sounds interesting and exciting. Agnes xx
hardhhhat
Excellent news and thanks to the investors indeed. Keep up the great work the new home page looks great. If this helps me make more sales I am up for change – without change we end up stagnant.
Matt Simner
Love that there’s great focus on the user and the big items to drive traffic and sales. I agree these are great ‘bang for buck’ developments.
Also great news about the new capital. Getting investors to part with cash isn’t easy so that bodes well for RB and for us. Well done guys!
Glad the tee developments are still happening too :)
Cheryl DeLong
Yay about the books my only question is this: Say a buyer enters the site and decides to purchase a book will they be able to customize the book with works from various artists or does the artist control the content of their book?
BackStage at RB replied
Our thinking is that the buyer will be able to make their own book – as well as an artists being able to make a book.
ericseyes
I think you’ve got the right idea, slim down and focus on just a few things at a time, make them great and then move on.
Christopher E...
sounding good peter, and glad youre finally working on the search engines outside the site, they do help!
are you guys going to soon have the 2010 calendars ready? its about that time of year they need to be set up and printed and get out.
one thing to always remember, and that is the K.I.S.S. method, you can still keep things going, but, Keep It Simple Stupid (not calling you stupid, it’s the KISS method)
BackStage at RB replied
We’re planning on having them ready in early October … when calendar buying season really gets into swing.
riverotter
3) Localization of production for all products. This is the most important point, speaking from my own perspective. I would have a much easier time (in terms of my own personal values) marketing and promoting my work locally (and more widely) knowing that the carbon footprint is less. This has been one of my ongoing dilemmas with redbubble and the fantastic site that it is (YOU ROCK!!!!). Yet, living where I do, it’s becomes almost hypocritical of me to promote my work locally when redbubble is based out of Australia. Rock on! And, thanks for all you do …
mingtees
Great about the new paper products, and localized production. Also helping us to market our own work – but what’s up with t shirts? Thumbs with transparency still have that ugly grey underlay. Still those ugly product views are difficult to market. What’s up with all over printing, hoodies, organics, limited editions, new shirt colors? All of this stuff has been kicking around and on deck for well over a year. Also, giclee printing and fine art paper printss was mentioned awhile ago, any update on that? Thanks -
BackStage at RB replied
We’re already started an initiative to replace all the current previews – and to update the products. So before we get right into to executing this plan we will finish the things that we’ve started. The other print options will depend on how quickly we get through this list … ironically, we actually do a giclee print at the moment – the ‘poster’ is a giclee print. We just need to include more paper options.
solareclips~Ju...
Looks like you are all still on the right track!! Good to know all that is going on. Thank you for keeping us informed Peter!! Keep on keepin on!
AnaCBStudio
Thanks for the news Peter!
nodakami
I share all of Emily’s comments above about Localization of production.
Are there plans about prints being produced in Europe ?
BackStage at RB replied
Just the UK at the moment.
Waleska Luker
Very interesting, thanks for the news, but the picture of the dog looks huge. Was it really intended to be a Macro?
Mukesh Srivastava
Looks good!!!!
Martin Jones
Marvelous, looks like Redbubble’s going from strength to strength!
Earhart Chappe...
as some go by color, word , or the left to right, it gives alot to appease the eye.no matter what language, color prefernce or key word, there is a healthy snack there for all who enter red bubble—chappel
Svetlana Sewell
Sounds and looks great!
Rosalie Scanlon
Sounds like you have a big job ahead of you. Looking forward to an even better RB.
mingtees
Thanks much Peter – Great news about updating products and replacing previews. Looking forward to have better images to market, ought to help sales a lot.
Jessica Walker
Honestly, I don’t care for that layout at all. It looks too complicated, too busy. Too extensive. The way it’s set right now is very easy to navigate, all the settings are right there and they take you to separate pages. I don’t see why we need everything to be right there on the home page, it really complicates things. It doesn’t look very organized. Also what about the daily home page features? It looks like you plan to change it so just one image can be up there at a time… I really don’t care for that either. I love the way the home page features work, with the 6 different images. It gives 6 people at once, a chance to have their work in the spotlight and it makes the home page always very diverse looking. Sorry, but it’s important for me to voice my opinion. I wish you guys would stop trying to change everything and at least leave the home page alone. It’s absolutely perfect the way it is. Pretty, attractive, professional looking, simple, organized and easy to navigate. That’s all you need.
BackStage at RB replied
The new homepage is designed for a new visitor – to explain the site to them. We will still rotate a range of images across the homepage – in fact I think we’ll end up giving more images some air time on the homepage.
Jessica Walker
- pardon me, I mean the 8 features, not 6.
scenefordummies
personally i like the homepage how it is now, and would not like to see these changes to it. i have dial up and with a homepage like that it would take forever to load, therefore i would probably come on a lot less, plus it looks too busy to me.
Matt Adamik
The new hompage looks like a re-work o Flickr… I think they way I now looks so much better!
Peter Horsman
Yeah, I gotta say the new homepage design isn’t doing much for me either. What’s so wrong with the current one that a new one needs to be put in? Just looks like there’s a bit too much going on the new one
BackStage at RB replied
The current homepage does a very poor job of explaining RedBubble to a brand new user. Get one of your friends to checkout the current home page and ask them what they think the site is about.
John Hooton
It looks like your boys have got some new toys, but frankly I’m not sure that it’s the right toy. It may be slick software but is it really that great or are you just a bit in adept at using it at the moment? All this stuff can seem great and clever to start with, but don’t be blinded by the technology, you are always the best designers. And no matter how good it is, it will not design pages for you. Lead, don’t follow and think what you are really trying to do, Don’t lose the original functionality and purpose.
BackStage at RB replied
We’re pretty aware and focused on the bigger picture … and that’s what’s driving the thinking behind the plan for the next ‘little while’. I wish we did have a ‘new toy’ ... the reality is that we’ll focusing most of our efforts on fixing up the ‘old toy’.
Robert Knapman
Not having read everyone’s comments I’d like to say something on behalf of the writers who are a significantpart of the soul of this site. Its been said and asked for a lot so this is not necessarily new – but how can RB honour its writers more – can you find a way to get the writers out there as much as the visual artists?
BackStage at RB replied
It’s a tricky one … as part of the work we do on paper products I’d like to have a book option. I think the book option will probably be optimised for poetry and short stories than very large amounts of text. We’re also open to other suggestions – particularly those that don’t require a lot of ‘tech work’.
Morgana Creely
I agree with Jessica Walker. I think the current home page is 1000% better than the proposed new design. The current one is clean, ease on the eye and to navigate and I really like regular updating of the multiple images. I am definitely not a slide show fan, especially one that big. As far as I’m concerned, the current home page is perfect as it is.
sadeyedartist
I don’t like the way it looks at all. Isn’t this an art site? Art should be the main event. One image will never ever show what RB really is or is about. I think the current homepage is significantly better at representing RedBubble.
BackStage at RB replied
I disagree … I think one very large image is much more powerful than a number of smaller users. But we’ll launch a test version of the new page and measure how people respond to it.
dimsim
kiss .. ain’t broke, etc .. 2c
Shoaib .
here are some thing you guys could do to improve: drag and drop for art and writing (instead of one at a time or move to the top)
- have an option to add a community feed into your regular feed.
- have an option where you can have all group messages checked off as read, as people can come back a week later and have 50 messages from groups
- i think the most important thing would be to change the way the time stamps work on this site. as time goes on you get less information about when the work was posted. and then after a month theres no record at all. i think because of that theres 9 million – i got a feature in this group on this day journal posts because people want to remember when they got their honors. just some suggestions i think will help improve this site… great job guys keep up the awesome work
BackStage at RB replied
Thanks for the suggestions. Drag and drop is tricky … it will take quite a lot of work for us to get it working for all browsers. We’ll do it … but not for a while. You do have the ability to add the community feed now – just favourite the community user. We will make it easier to mark off group messages as read … and your last suggestion is also a good one … I’ll need to think about how we can do this.
lollipoppins
I like the homepage. But like many others, I’m not liking the sliding image thing. People just aren’t going to look through it! ...I like the 6 themed images. :(
BackStage at RB replied
I don’t agree … I think people will look through them and one large image is very powerful … more powerful than eight small ones. With these sort of things we’ll look to test them to see how they’re received.
Veronica Schultz
I’m not sure having just the one image is a good idea. Even if it’s a slide show, if the first two images (which is all anyone’s going to look at) aren’t to a visitor’s liking, they’re not going to look at anything else on the site. It doesn’t matter how powerful an image is if the person looking at it doesn’t like it.
BackStage at RB replied
Our view is to test this and actually see what people do … my suspicion is that people will be happy to click around.
Mary Campbell
I like the old home page but do not oppose changing it if the results are thought thru about who will be logging in, and looking. Right now it’s hard to find individual artists, I hope that is improved. I know RB want’s to brand itself all well and good, but artist’s want the people they direct to the site to find their work not their competions. So if you want to artists to push and sell more that’s an important consideration. If I’m marketing to my “buyers”, I’m more concerned with them finding me. Searching for people by their names, and or usernames would be important addition.
Another point, loading times are getting slower and slower on RB. With all the changes done it doesn’t appear that much thought was given to the average user/buyer who may have with slower machines then RB designers. Today the activity pages have things loading up repetatively that take forever if the artist has a large site with lots of pictures. You need ways to segrate the work so only portions necessary load up. Or keep things in memory, instead of loading them with each transaction. It’s important to consider performance and security in this redesign and not just for high end machines.
Good luck with the changes. I hope it works out.
RiSH :
I like the arrow thing on the home page with bigger image. Now we need the images to slideshow after say 5 seconds.