I’m sure you don’t remember (I even had to go back and check), but on August 25th I wrote about a brand new, fully-integrated social eCommerce site called Shopntella. The site had been announced for the first time that day, and while it was still undergoing private beta tests, was scheduled to become public in September. At that point, I signed up for a sneak peek of the site (read the post for more details about that disappointing process), which only just arrived yesterday. Note: fifty-six (56!) days later. Clearly, the site did not become public in September as we were told. So far, Shopntella is 0 for 2 in my book.
I will now take you through my sneak peek process:
1. It is really nice to be able to create a profile by linking a Facebook or Twitter account because it saves entering all the boring personal information over and over. I was asked to confirm that I was permitting Shopntella to access my Facebook information.
2. Shopntella still appears to be in beta mode.
3. The video on the Shopntella homepage is helpful. And it’s only 1:19, so I didn’t get bored.
4. After watching how easy it was to get an array of products for the search “digital camera” in the introduction video mentioned above, I decided to try out a few queries of my own.
- First, I tried “projector” because I’m currently in the market since the color wheel recently exploded in our trusty InFocus. I was highly disappointed by the top results, none of which included a projector. Instead, I was given a computer/projector stand (in black AND white), a ceiling mount, a bulb, and a SAGEMAX protection plan to name a few.
- After the first dismal failure, I decided to try something more simple: “tablet.” I assumed that with the recent announcements of new tablets from Samsung, Sony, and others plus the wide array of traditional tablet choices that this would surely yield good results. Yet again, I was foiled. The top 12 results (first page) included eleven versions of the iPad 2 and one original iPad. It was not until I went to the second page of results that I found alternative Sony and Acer products.
- Finally, I tried “digital camera” because what I had seen on the video before led me to beleive that Shopntella would provide an unbiased picture of the best products available (based on expert opinions and user reviews). Wrong again. This time, 9 of the first 12 results were Nikon, while the other 3 were a brand called Sea & Sea, which I have never heard of. It seems unlikely to me that this Sea & Sea brand would rank higher than a well-known camera brand (like Canon, Kodak, or Olympus), or even another Nikon camera.
- I didn’t have the patience (or good faith) to try another search, so I’ll move on.
5. I went back to the homepage to see what other features are available. I decided to check out the Q&A section, which is sorted by broad and specific categories. I was a little bit shocked to see a category for projectors when my search didn’t yield any legitimate results, so I started there. I found two questions from users that asked generic questions about specific products listed. And there, right in front of me, were five specific projectors, which left me wondering how I could have messed up something so simple as a search bar. When I clicked on one of the projectors listed, I was taken to a page that looked very similar to what came up when I did my search for “projector,” except this time there were actual projectors in the search results. And this time, the results included a wide range of brands, including Epson, Mitsubishi, Optoma, Acer, etc. (See the screenshot below: the graph indicates where each individual result falls on a spectrum of expert opinions and user reviews.)
At this point, I’m going to take a break from Shopntella for the moment and come back to it when I am not quite so frustrated. If you signed up for a sneak peek of the site, I hope you have been able to take a look at it. Please let me know if you’ve had better, worse, or similar results with it so far. I won’t lose hope in it just yet, so stay tuned for more updates about the new site that still has the potential to be big.
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