How not to design a landing page: Tazo Tea
tazo.com
tazo.com
They also have excellent testimonials by having a large chain such as Starbucks serve their teas. Tea is generally an instant gratification purchase, and not something you'd wait 2 days to arrive over the internet. (Yes, perhaps there is an opportunity for a Zappos of tea, but internet retailing is not a core competency of Tazo)
If you're ordering tea from the internet, it's probably specialty and not something you can pick up from one of the hundreds of coffee shops you can find within a few miles of where ever you live. Hence if you are 'really really obscure hipster tea' then you need a good landing page, Tazo does not.
In the world of people who buy tea Tazo has the #1 ranking in terms of 'google for tea' (aka. starbucks). Designing a proper landing page and website will add almost nothing to their bottom line where as changing their packaging would have a much bigger impact, or sweetening the deal for distributors so the local mom and pop coffee shop is more likely to carry Tazo. People often forget that 98% of purchases are made offline. No one is going to order Tazo tea from the internet, nor will they decide to order Tazo tea the next time they are at the coffee shop because of a landing page. Therefore from the perspective of their bottom line their landing page is as good as it needs to be.
Also it appears that their 'landing page' is: http://www.facebook.com/tazo?v=info and not tazo.com
Remember, Tazo is owned by Starbucks, which designs HTML5-featured sites around the iPad. They’re no stranger to a forward-thinking web presence.
The more players involved with a product, the harder it is to make radical changes.
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Bzzt. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
Anything worth doing (and websites, in case you did not notice the last 15 years of history, are definitely worth doing) is worth doing properly. Tazo is definitely not doing this properly. The site is actively annoying and well-nigh unto impossible to navigate.
Where do you get this crazy attitude that the web is not relevant to sales? Have you been locked in a Wal-Mart with no access to the Internet since 1990?
If this is so why don't you create an awesome landing page that converts really well for tazo tea, get some SEO going, open up an account at shopify and then sell tazo tea on the internet? Perhaps you're not doing this because it would not generate the sales worth having the site? Prove me wrong, be a millionaire by selling tea on the internet because it converts so well.
The far more useful question, and the one I thought was in play, was: is the web relevant to the possible sales they could glean if they used the net effectively?
As for why I don't do it myself? Dammit, Jim, I'm an opera singer, not a tea entrepreneur!
The actual site is pretty engaging, informative - and involves some interesting navigation widgets.
Fixing the landing page is a no-brainer.
Quick, call the company police!
In chrome, you get nothing but a tiny bit of text with no option to continue to the main site.
In firefox and IE, you get a browser notification that the site is trying to open up a popup window.
The redirect is one where the back button doesn't work; to me that's one of the most incompetent web design flaws: Send people away from your main page and then not give them a way to get back. It's bad enough they demand you have Flash (do all iPhone/iPad users drink coffee?)
I've seen similar "Please enable JavaScript in your browser" pages without a path back to the main page as well. Idiocy.
I think you are missing the fleitz's point. From his post:
"It ok for Tazo to have a crappy landing page"
They are omnipresent in meatspace. I'd say they overspent on the website. They could have gone with a one-pager that said something like "We're Tazo Tea. You can find us everywhere. Go buy some."
He wasn't saying that is OK their site is non-functioning but that they really don't even need a website.
Public: Your website doesn't work
Tazo: We are so awesome! Want to ride on my giraffe? It's made out of MONEY!
At the very least, they're wasting a large portion of their investment in building a website.
Imagine if a tech startup created a physical bi-fold brochure, but then glued it shut. It doesn't matter a whole lot because it isn't mission critical for a tech startup, but it sure is a stupid thing to do.
ETA: Mind, this looks like a neglected old-school ASP site that hasn't been touched in years.
Mind, a site in a popup is a batshit insane/silly concept.
Does any of their packaging include the website address. Does Facebook link to the website? If either of these is true then they are using it as part of their marketing strategy. I don't expect much from a tea company, just an image with their product range and possibly a list of suppliers along with the usual boiler-plate and statutory obligations.
Are they a public company, trying to win investment?
I didn't notice their landing page linking to a Facebook page which at least says that they didn't tell the person in charge of the website that Facebook is their main online contact point.
Is this how marketing is supposed to work?
It Just Doesn't Matter. (Why have a website at all? No idea. They wanted one, did a bad job, didn't see it affect their sales, and just left it. Or something.)
Stop doing that. It's obnoxious and makes you come across as a smug asshole. HN guidelines say, "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation."
same market, but different approach
Maybe not...
Now, how am I supposed to know this information, if my pop-up blocker has already blocked this page? :P
This reminds me an old joke where one person writes a letter to his friend saying "Please write me back if you are not getting this letter". :)