CardroomSupply.com were rather quick in signing up through ReviewMe to have me review their site. I think that's rather flattering. Perhaps they think by getting in quick, I'm going to be nicer to them in my review? Unfortunately, I am immune to such flattery, and will be treating them exactly the same as every other site - objectively.

CardroomSupply.com is an online store that sells poker tables and poker chip sets - highly competitive luxury products if ever I saw them.



Visually, the site is rather indistinct and cluttered. It's unfortunate, because Poker is the kind of theme designers dream of - strong imagery, pre-defined icons, bold colours. Think of the bright lights of Las Vegas, a city built on poker (among other things), or any one of the myriad of online gambling sites, or even of a few buddies having a game at home and you'll see what I mean. Poker has imagery oozing from every pore.

And on that note, the site scores badly. When you're selling luxury goods, you're selling a lifestyle choice, yet the site includes no lifestyle shots at all. If I'm thinking about splashing out a few hundred or a few thousand dollars on a poker table, you're going to need to get me thinking about what having a poker table will be like for me.

Assuming the site aims to sell to a consumer market (and it looks that way to me), that means including at least one shot of people playing poker at home, and having a great time. I'm more likely to buy if I can visualise myself using the table and playing poker with my friends than I am if I'm thinking only about the price or the colour. The design needs to get the prospective customer excited about the product and their life with the product.

The other quick point I wanted to mention about the design is the product imagery. It's not bad, but it is very inconsistent. It makes it look like the images have been grabbed from lots of different places, and the company hasn't taken their own. There's only one shot per product in most cases, too. Product photography is again very important - with big-ticket luxury items you want to leave no doubt in the customer's mind about what they're buying - in this case, I want to see a good, clear photo of the whole table, plus detail shots of the legs, the dealer station - even the drinks holders potentially. I've not found evidence to support this, so this is purely my own opinion, but I believe that consistent product imagery increase the trust a user has in a site - it contributes to a feeling of professionalism.

The products themselves look pretty good, from what I can see. There's a wide range of tables, which is always good, and plenty of colour options in most cases. I'd be tempted to add a search option to allow the users to narrow down tables to those in their price range. I'd also add a "Most Popular" list. There are also customisable tables, and I'd be tempted to make a little more of that - perhaps put them in their own section? The chips are also quite interesting and I'd be very tempted to find a way to offer customisable chips.



With any site, trust is incredibly important and this site has not done too badly with that. There's a phone number nice and prominent - a big plus (though I would add opening times to the "Contact Us" page - nothing worse than calling to find nobody there to answer). The checkout is handled by a third party, which I would normally recommend avoiding at all costs, but the third party is Yahoo, which is a well-known brand and consequently probably improves the trust factor with customers. The "About Us" page could do with more information and maybe a photo or two (founder and warehouse are usually a good combination).

One major problem that I think needs rectifying quickly is the lack of anything unique. There's nothing to draw me back to this specific site if I decide to buy - nothing that separates these tables or this company from any other. Free delivery is ok, but not unique. The site badly needs something to help it stand out from the rest.

Finally - and probably the most important thing to fix (which also could solve the uniqueness issue) - the site has absolutely no interesting content. Where is the "Beginner's Guide to Poker"? Where is the "10 Steps to Becoming a Poker Millionaire"? Where is the link bait? Poker is a topic on which you could write indefinitely, and something that will always attract readers. The addition of eBooks (a free guide to poker when you buy any product?) and a blog, if properly marketed, would increase exposure and links immensely, and as a result sales.



All in all, I've probably sounded more negative than I meant to about CardroomSupply.com. It's got potential (and I've seen far far worse sites through the years), but needs attention.

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