ContentMixi.com: All your Online Design Needs Met

One of my classmates (Sundeep Tibrewal) at B-School (ISB-Hyderabad) is doing exactly what every MBA program wants most of its alumni to do - He is working his way up as an entrepreneur. The new website www.contentmixi.com that his team has built is an online marketplace (on the lines of eBay, Amazon etc)for digital products like Web Design templates, Logos etc. The site leverages the Web 2.0 principles like user provided content etc, in a very smart manner.

Sundeep and his team have taken the usage of Web 2.0 principles to another level, by coming up with a contest for bloggers (To Go To The Contentmixi.com Contest Website Click Here). The contest aims at inviting users to write reviews of the Beta version of the contentmixi.com website on their blogs, and thus results in being a rich source of feedback directly from the user community at virtually no cost [Discounting of course the prize money to be paid out to the contest winners :-)]. Also, the appearing of reviews of the website on multiple blogs, would mean savings of a lot of advertising dollars/rupees. I would also like to state that this contest is a good supplement, to the other efforts being made by Sundeep in advertising his new venture e.g. The Dec 2009 edition of "Digit"-the No.1 Technical Magazine in India, carries an article about www.contentmixi.com
Only possible drawback of this contest is that, some bloggers might highlight only the good aspects of the website, with the hope that it would increase their chances of winning the contest. It would defeat the very purpose of gathering feedback, to further improve and enhance the website. Hopefully, Sundeep and his team at www.contentmixi.com would not face too much of this issue. With that, I move on to list some of my views about www.contentmixi.com, in the next few paragraphs.

I would like to start off on a positive and encouraging note, by praising Sundeep and his team for all their hardwork in coming up with a great website. I find the website to be comprehensive and exhaustive in terms of covering the entire breadth of digital products like Web Design Templates, Logos etc. It is also highly commendable to see the website managing to attract a huge number of high quality user provided content, at the Beta trial stage itself, and goes far to prove the potential of the website to be a one-stop treasure trove of digital content/products. I would also like to congratulate the team which designed the website, for managing to keep the website in a shape which cannot be called too colourful or gaudy, despite the nature of the products being sold and bought on the website.


I would like to list below in a bulletized format, my feedback to make the final version of the website even better than what the current (Beta) version is. Note that some of this might be something which Sundeep and his team would already be working on, and my apologies in advance to them for the same.

--> Feedback on Business Related Aspects:-
*I know that a picture is equal to "N" number of words. However, the website needs to have more of relevant text to be added, which highlights benefits of using www.contentmixi.com. e.g. add references to the article about www.contentmixi.com in "Digit" magazine.

*Online financial transactions is based on the amount of trust that the users have about your website. Highlight upfront, the security measures implemented by your website, to safeguard the money of both sellers and buyers.

*Given the nature of business in which the prospective buyers and sellers are involved, I very strongly believe that you should expand the portfolio of things to be bought/sold in your online marketplace to include design services e.g. a prospective buyer can put up his requirements for a digital product on www.contentmixi.com, and invite sellers to submit quotes for designing of the product.

*Study established online marketplaces like eBay thoroughly, and adopt all good practices from them.

*Needless to say: Initiate process of getting website a higher priority in Google searches etc.

*To attract sellers:-
(a)The points about how sellers can make money (and a forecast of how much and how soon) via the website, should be shown in bold, with a larger font, highlighted, and stated clearly on the Home Page itself.
(b)Get sellers who have already provided content, to comment on the value they see themselves getting through .
(c)Conduct contests inviting users to provide content such that they could win prize money(in addition to proceeds from sales of their products in the online marketplace). Get some prospective corporate buyers in the SMB space, to sponsor the prize money.

*To attract buyers:-
(a)Highlight the specific advantages to various user communities who are prospective buyers e.g. savings earned in terms of time and cost through ready-to-use logos, web design templates etc.
(b)Announce attractive discounts, special offers to early adopters.
(c)Put in place some sort of a priority scheme based on number of views of a product etc, to dynamically change the order in which products are displayed on the website. Maybe you can look at this i.e Point (c), one year or more from now.

Feedback On Some User Interface Related Aspects:-

-->The top row of tabs on the Home Page(Web Templates, Logos, Content, E-Book, Illustration, etc): When you take the mouse to click on them, the "hand" symbol does not get displayed just before the clicking activity
--> Maintain uniformity across the website in using terms/words
e.g. 1> The top row of tabs on the Home Page says "Web Templates", and the lower row of tabs says "Website Templates"
e.g. 2> The usage of capital and small letters also needs to be uniform all across the webpage. The word "Templates" starts with "T" in some places, and with "t" in other places.
--> The Tab "Illustration" shows no content, when clicked upon.
--> Take care of spelling and grammar, to ensure that the website has a thoroughly professional look. e.g. In my view the top row of tabs should have "E-BOOKS", "ILLUSTRATIONS" etc.
--> The "Product Categories", "Win Prizes" etc sections of Home Page, can be moved upwards. That way users can see the same, without having to scroll down.

Hope my suggestions add some value to Sundeep and his team. Wishing Sundeep and his team, all the best with respect to www.contentmixi.com