I'm 8-months pregnant. When I went to create a baby registry I was pretty disappointed with what was out there (I ended up using Amazon Universal Wishlist). I found myself with some time on my hands waiting for baby, and decided that I'd build a better baby registry. I partnered with a great designer I met on forrst.com, and this is the result.
Looks great, and as someone with four young children I would say that it's a winner concept for the niche. Targeting a specific niche is a very worthwhile pursuit, especially given that advertisers focused on new and upcoming parents are some of the most desperate to make contact.
I'm a ruby on rails developer and I'm 5 months pregnant.
Today I created a baby registry and it was a nightmare. I ended up using the amazon.com universal wishlist. It's a bookmarklet that lets you add any product on the web to an amazon wishlist. Unlike a registry, your friends and family "reserve" an item instead of actually buying it from the specific store that has the registry.
My idea is to create a new website "baby registry anywhere" (terrible name) where you can add and reserve items similar to the universal wishlist. I think it would also be cool to be able to add more than one link for an item, so your friends/family could choose where to purchase it.
I could probably code a minimal, launchable version in a week (or 5 Fridays). In the past I've hired designers for projects but I'd love to work with someone as partners on this.
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I had a kind of overwhelming response and clicked with one designer via text chat and we went forward. In retrospect, I've spent way more than 5 days on this.
From my POV, I waited until I was sure that the designs were what I was going to go forward with (this took about 4-5 weeks, maybe 2-3 iterations of different pages and colors). Then I proposed a % of revenue for x amount of time and it was accepted.
The project has moved slower than if I'd hired a designer (for example Lindsey is currently defending her thesis at school and is 100% focused on that). But I maybe always had the trump card by being like "We need to launch before I have a baby".
Overall I think I got lucky and I'm not sure what advice I'd give. Forrst is like HN for (hungry) designers though.
Thanks for the advise. I too think that partnership with a designer is a great thing. Things keep changing and you need more design help when you are iterating through ideas.
Great site and thanks for the background info. As a developer, I'm always in need of good design. I love the site design and the story of how you found the designer. I hadn't heard of Forrst. If anyone has a spare invite to kick my way, I applied for membership.
Happy to send invites. Just email me at Kyle
At forrst .com
I'm still in awe at how well this turned out. Huge kudos to you both. And, made me realize: Clearly we need to do a better job keeping tabs on awesome collabs like this. I'm certain there must be more.
We should team up or something... I made this baby names website a couple years ago when my wife and I were looking for baby names. I didn't like the sites out there too much and made this to help search. (since then I've been so busy with the kids and main job that I have neglected my baby names site).
Yeah, I did the same thing. The babynamewizard was a neat ooh, aah, tech demo, but (as of early 2008 when it was literally nothing more than a dynamically updating prefix-based stacked line graph) useless for actually helping choose a name. My contribution to the genre, with the goal of being helpful in choosing a name, was:
http://nametrends.net
Nice job! I agree about the uselessness of baby name wizard. You did a great job making it more interesting. Are you having any luck getting visitors or higher in organic search?
In Jul. 08 got links from Freakonomics and Kottke which led to a little burst. Ongoing organic traffic (I essentially haven't update the site except to keep the data fresh each year) seems to be about 1M page views/year. Squarely in the no profit/hobby territory, but enough that I do keep updating the data.
They are back in the other game, too (lenguajero.com). See this blog post, which happens to be called "back in the game": http://aflanagan.com/back-in-the-game/.
Quote: "Instead of building something complicated that was based on our free community (i.e. a freemium service), I decided to write two guides about something I know about, and something our users care about, learning Spanish slang."
I was baffled at first, because I didn't understand what a 'baby registry' is (despite the fact that I have two kids). Had to google it :) and now I understand. We have similar tradition for weddings, but not for babies. I wish you all the best.
Looks great - wish it had been available when we registered. We had a lot of frustrations with the BRU registry process. Some suggestions:
1. Have generic options for clothing, since there is a huge turnover in baby clothes at most retailers (BRU doesn't even offer pictures for most clothes on the website) - size and item type (3 month onesie, newborn footy pjs, etc.)
2. Offer some suggested items / basic lists to get people started, or consider more social aspects to let people give feedback on other people's lists - there seems to be a big market for this kind of info (see: baby bargain books). This might be a way to keep users engaged after they are done with their own list.
3. Have options for non-purchased gifts or other items to be added, like home-cooked meals or babysitting - lots of people wanted to offer these kinds of things
4. Have options for monetary donations - this is how a lot of cultures work (red envelopes for chinese, etc.) and it would be great to support it in one place
5. Provide links to sign up for store registries to get all the freebies they provide for signing up - lots of people love this kind of thing. This is also a competitive point to consider - the discount stores provide to "complete" your registry was a good way to get a discount on the high-ticket items.
6. Consider ways to offer future gifts - diaper subscriptions or clothes for older babies that could arrive in the future so you don't have to worry about storing it and remembering it 6 months later.
Very professional, I would say. Even though as a Dutchman I'm not really familiar with the concept, I immediatly understood what you are offering. The call to action couldn't be more straightforward and the "works with.." section does exactly what it needs to do. The safety pin is a nice touch.
Also, I can appreciate what you've done and why: I'm an allround developer, so when my wife and I were looking for a name for my oldest child, I quickly decided to build a name site myself. It's online in two languages: in Dutch as http://www.zeevannamen.nl and in English as http://www.valleyofnames.com.
I'd be happy to have a banner pointing to you site, if you wish? Maybe we can cooperate in other ways as well. Let me know if you have any thoughts on that.
We recently experienced similar frustration with the lack of a good universal registry mechanism for babies. While this makes sense, in the same way that most stores try to keep all registries internal, from a consumer standpoint it remains quite lacking.
I think it's great. Color scheme and style are very appealing and appropriate. The one awkward point for me is the "plus any other online store" tag after the noteworthy logos. It seems a little too much like an add-on. Maybe something a little bigger (to draw attention to the fact that your service is universal), with text suggesting, "BabyList registry works with any online retailer!" and then have an "including:" or "featured" listing over your images?
Seems very, very promising.
It's simple, it's easy to use and looks both nice and cute (as in, not some website from 10 years ago without a single retouch); in a twitter'ish way, if you know what I mean.
I have a question about the logos, as this is a subject I myself always fear when creating a new side project:
Is it safe to have other companies' logos on ones site (as listed on yours), or is it possible to face infrightment allegations? Thinking about issuing a .us based project, I'm a bit afraid of somebody suing me for something like that.
I completely agree with this. Even with the text add-on that box initially made me think only those retailers were included.
The first thing I did was try it out at an off-brand online store. It worked great and I was "surprised and delighted" (to us a term that may be familiar to HNers).
I love the site, although I am certainly not your market (male, don't want kids).
However, a month ago someone posted an almost identical concept to HN. I think it was for wedding registries though.
Overall, great concept, attractive website, and a real need.
My only criticism relates to it being fairly obvious. What hacker hasn't bought a wedding/baby gift and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a registry for any store?" My point is, I'm sure this has been tried hundreds of times. So you have to ask yourself, "Why didn't those become mainstream, despite solving an obvious need?" and figure out how yours will execute differently. I really don't know the answer, but it has a lot to do with the ease of saying "I'm registered at Bed Bath & Beyond" (which everyone knows) over, "I'm registered with a new universal registry, which shows you what you can get at any online store, it's Babyli.st BABYLI.ST"
I'd really love to know your thoughts, because this same problem applies to a lot of different ideas where large brick & mortar stores still reign king, despite obvious inefficiencies.
I hear you. I think the one thing that makes this different is that I'm not going after the universal wishlist market, just the baby registry market. When you go to create a baby registry you're not like "oh, i need a wishlist of items for the baby".
I'm just starting to market this with people in the pregnancy/baby space, and so far they seem to think this is a totally original idea made just for them.
One facet that I really like is the brand names listed. Not even for credibility, but for integration. I know that baby car-seat I saw at IKEA is probably available since the IKEA logo is there. Great job with doing this!
FYI - I just received an invitation to a baby shower with a reference to www.amazingregistry.com. Your site looks much more pleasant than theirs, and you have a more narrow focus... but since their URL ended up on a real baby shower invitation, I'd say they are your competition.
>since their URL ended up on a real baby shower invitation
Sounds like there's an angle there for promotion - printable invitations, email invite list that tracks responses, free printed snail mail invites (team up with a print house that would take that opportunity) ...?
I agree with at least one thing bdclimber14 seems to be implying. babyli.st is a 'cute' domain name, but I think it is an extremely poor choice for domain names you want people to remember. How are you supposed to pronounce that to someone? Baby - lee - dot - ess - tee ? (I know, that's terrible -- I can't come up with something better). I still think it is true, for better or for worse, that for businesses the best choice is still a good .com domain (or if you can't get a good one, a .net domain is a not-as-good second choice).
Unfortunately for you, babylist.com is taken -- but babylist.net is available. I know it can be hard to find an available domain in the .com realm that closely matches what you want, but I still think it is important. I think those business domains which have succeeded despite having a .(something-other-than-com) domain name have done so despite that disadvantage.
That's a good point but to be fair anyone who is using a baby register is far more likely to post it to their facebook page, or email it to family members (who are most likely already on facebook), rather than spell it out directly. If you're visiting the new family personally you're not the target for a register anyway, necessarily (as you've got direct access to the source).
Also, natgordon - great site. If it was useful outside of the US I'd point several friends to it immediately.
I just tried to buy babylist.net and it's taken :)
So there are 2 groups of people.
1. registrants (people having babies) - branding here is important and the name could bite me. Let me know if you have any suggestions for other names.
2. people buying the registrant gifts - BabyList doesn't even have search which is a default wishlist/registry feature. I think giving someone a pretty url slug and letting them email it/share it/link to it, is not going to be a problem.
Try thinking of a baby shower concept/activity that participants have an emotional connection to. Usually the concept is a slightly slang term meaning there's a higher chance of the domain being available.
If it were a wedding registry, I would suggest maybe HitchedList? It would be better than WeddingList since it's less general. Obviously this doesn't help directly, but maybe will inspire some ideas!
I think the best startup names are those that relate to a market's pathos.
The url really doesn't matter. The name does, and it's great.
My advice would be to use the proper spelling ('Babylist') in general - especially in your html titles - and in no time you'll be #1 for the term, regardless of spelling:
"People" will Google "babylist". Remember that the vast majority of the people using the web have no idea what a browser is, much less a URL. Even when they have a URL, that ubiquitous google box is the place it gets put.
1. there's caution, and then there's 'thinking small'
2. the owner of the domain is a single-location brick and mortar retailer, with no e-commerce. that would inform my thought process, were in in the OP's shoes
Thanks. That's how I'm doing all the branding on the site now. I'm not appearing in google yet, but I'm paying for ads with one of their $100 off coupons.
Ironically, I'm writing a blog now about how to pick a good domain.
I disagree about .net domains, especially for a market of mothers; traditionally, they aren't hackers like the creator here :)
It's not even the domain name quality that I'm questioning-it's the convenience of stopping by a brick & mortar store with an exact item to pick up. I know you're thinking "the internet much more convenient, but not if its a process you're not used to.
It's the same root cause as to why people send files back and forth via email - it's so engrained in people, that its the status quo.
So the real challenge here I think is breaking that social norm that retail giants have cemented in us.
It hasn't been done well. The one company that has been dong this is myregistry.com. If you've ever used that service you know it's just begging for a better-designed competitor.
I was really going to implement this when I got married a few months ago but couldn't find an elegant way to confirm when a guest had purchased a gift. Sending an e-mail is OK but it's not 100% accurate. This can lead to duplicate gifts which are a big pain.
MyRegistry has done this, the big thing they haven't done it price comparison, and their design is absolutely begging for someone to do it better. We were on HN a few days ago, and hoping to do just that. We let users price compare while also integrating with traditional registries (registrystop). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2136619
Alta Vista had a great search engine in the 90's. Google could have easily said "search is obvious, it's been done." Obviously this is a very extreme example, but almost every business will have some aspect that's "been done."
In fact, as an entrepreneur, you almost always want it to have been done before. It is much easier to say "Amazon wish lists specifically for expectant parents" than it is to try to define a totally new market.
Start-ups are created and thrive in those pockets of inefficiency that large corporations leave in their wake. The best entrepreneurs use that as leverage rather than shying away from it.
I don't agree with this meme. Alta Vista had a terrible search engine in the 90s and so did everyone else. The need for better search was obvious and regularly called for at the time.
Somebody already posted this on your suggestion forum, but I do like the idea of allowing people an option to offer item suggestions. Expand that idea by also allowing people to alternately "buy" something like a gift card (redeemable credit) for the moms; this would be helpful for the people out there who want to buy a gift, but who don't necessarily want to swoon over baby items. (e.g. Target gift card)
This is a great idea, and looks very nice! Several of my friends are pregnant right now, and they are all registered at multiple places. This would be very convenient.
If I'm buying a gift for a friend, do I need to know their mailing address in order to have it shipped to them? It would be amazing if this took care of that for me.
They can add their address to their babylist. The list itself has no privacy controls so I'm not sure if people will enter it. And there's no integration b/t the address they entered on the site and online stores.
Excellent idea and very nice execution! The design is great, plus it's incredibly easy to signup and share your registry. You're definitely on to something here.
In terms of suggestions, I'd suggest you tweak your index page a bit. When I landed there, I was most interested in seeing what one of these registries looked like. I assumed that clicking the image of John and Jane's Baby List would show me an example, but it's not currently linked. To actually find an example, you have to think a bit and either find the text link under your Create button or realize that the Showcase link is what you're looking for.
Also, the Vendors page needs a bit of work. I'm sure that's number 7273 on your priority list, but I don't think it'll be very successful in engaging vendors as is.
Thanks for the concrete feedback. Great, great, great.
I put up the vendors page after I saw a vendor create a list of their products with a description "create your baby registry on this site to register for our store". At least I can contact them once we have something engaging to tell them.
I'd add Babies R Us and buybuy Baby logos to the site. Granted you say it works for all online retailers, those are 2 huge ones that together prob own a good % of the market.
once all the referral cash starts flowing you can just buy it :)
In the mean time work out a way to ensure as few people as possible have to verbally pass the domain on, think about tools which enable you to let the interested party notify their friends that this is their list; easy things like publishing to facebook, twitter, email, etc.
(some of these may have been done, sorry if they are - I didn't take the time to look it over to thoroughly).
>once all the referral cash starts flowing you can just buy it :)
Looking at the company I think you might have to pay a hefty whack to get that domain.
I'm going to guess that they didn't have anyone there who knew what to do with your request, was it a money offer. I think I'd make a modest money offer (no more than a couple of hundred GBP) - people generally know what to do with an offer of money.
Make it very clear that you want to buy babylist.com name only, that you're not competing directly with them and are based in the US.
I don't think you want a huge offer as this will ring a bell saying "ooh, I better check with someone if I can get more ...".
Great design - looks really good at first impression. One thing I would suggest is an About page. Something explaining your frustrations and why you created the company. I think the fact that you were pregnant at the time puts a really personal touch to other pregnant women.
Great execution and slick-looking site. Referral programs make this an easy product to monetize.
On the marketing front, one way to pitch it is that a decentralized registry makes life easier for your friends, too. I am so sick of having to pay top dollar for gifts just to get them off of a registry, when better deals can be had elsewhere for the same products. How many extra dollars have gone to Bed, Bath & Beyond instead of Amazon simply for that reason?
Minor CSS/HTML quibble - on the example list when you switch between "Show unpurchased items" and "Show purchased items" views the browser scrollbar makes the main content jump. Minor issue - otherwise I love the look and feel.
As everyone else has said, it's a really nice looking site and a great idea.
How stable are the product links you use? Do you do any type of periodic validation?
If I click on a link to view a product, it might be nice to open that window inside a frame (or modern equivalent) with a babyli.st "reserve" button at the top.
>> How stable are the product links you use? Do you do any type of periodic validation?
Right now no.
>> If I click on a link to view a product, it might be nice to open that window inside a frame (or modern equivalent) with a babyli.st "reserve" button at the top.
Usually, in the about, I find "we" to be better than "I". I did that, I did this, I'm the founder, I'm the developer, I contacted xyz, I hope you like it..
"We" would sound more professional.. Just to be clear, I'm not saying you should remove that friendly tone which I find great, especially for that kind of website. However, I'm not sure if it is worth it to put so much emphasis on you as you are not the goal of the website..
We were looking for "bleh". Thanks to xyz designer who join our team and help us create this [etc.].
My 5 cents, good luck :)
(I know it's kind of ironic that I suggest being more professional when I can hardly speak English correctly, but anyway..)
I'm sorry I don't have time to go through your app more, but here some things that occurred to me (I have 17 month old and 3 yr old, so just out of your target):
1) Try to collect data and offer up suggestions
2) Try to get a good Facebook presence. (etsy.com). Your target market lives on Facebook now.
3) Can you email your registry?
Wow, yea it does. Although I will say that this site has a much better gift registry. Is Born Yet has a much better notification system / baby integration. You and those guys should team up and make an awesome baby site!
One quick note would be that the logo is linking to babyli.st/index when it could really just link to babyli.st. That way I don't have to click the Back button twice. :)
That makes sense. It does that because if you're logged in and have a baby registry i just redirect you there. By clicking the logo you can get to the landing page.
I didn't read through all the posts here on HN to see if this was already report (though I did do a quick search), but there is an issue with the "View By Store".
If I look at the example registry and goto purchased items, there is 1 purchased at "etsy.com". If expand "View By Store" and uncheck "etsy", the item disappears as intended. However, if I uncheck "Amazon" and then recheck "Amazon", new items show up that weren't originally there. I'm assuming they're from the "All Items" list even though I'm still under "Purchased".
As others have said, I'm not in your target market, but I think the site is very well down.
I think there's also a usability issue with this control. I would imagine a common use case is "Show me all the items at Store X, since that's convenient for me to drop by." Unfortunately, instead of selecting Store X, I have to deselect all the other stores. On the demo registry, that's 5 clicks where one should do.
One thought I have is when clicking to create a list you ask me to sign up... I haven't used your product yet and am not sure if I want to sign up yet. Is there anyway you could allow people to create the list first and thus be committed and then get their email?
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[ 25.2 ms ] story [ 966 ms ] threadI'd love any feedback, suggestions etc.
Congratulations on seeing it through.
Are you a member, or did you browse the work posted and contact someone directly? Would love to hear more about that process.
I had the idea for the site and posted it (http://forrst.com/posts/Any_designers_interested_on_collabor... but I don't think this link will work if you're not logged in)
This is what I wrote:
Hey,
I'm a ruby on rails developer and I'm 5 months pregnant.
Today I created a baby registry and it was a nightmare. I ended up using the amazon.com universal wishlist. It's a bookmarklet that lets you add any product on the web to an amazon wishlist. Unlike a registry, your friends and family "reserve" an item instead of actually buying it from the specific store that has the registry.
My idea is to create a new website "baby registry anywhere" (terrible name) where you can add and reserve items similar to the universal wishlist. I think it would also be cool to be able to add more than one link for an item, so your friends/family could choose where to purchase it.
I could probably code a minimal, launchable version in a week (or 5 Fridays). In the past I've hired designers for projects but I'd love to work with someone as partners on this.
---
I had a kind of overwhelming response and clicked with one designer via text chat and we went forward. In retrospect, I've spent way more than 5 days on this.
-from Gödel, Escher, Bach
Sorry, I am being curious because most of us hackers are in the same boat when it comes to design.
The project has moved slower than if I'd hired a designer (for example Lindsey is currently defending her thesis at school and is 100% focused on that). But I maybe always had the trump card by being like "We need to launch before I have a baby".
Overall I think I got lucky and I'm not sure what advice I'd give. Forrst is like HN for (hungry) designers though.
Congrats on the launch! The app looks awesome.
I'm still in awe at how well this turned out. Huge kudos to you both. And, made me realize: Clearly we need to do a better job keeping tabs on awesome collabs like this. I'm certain there must be more.
http://www.babynameclusters.com/ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=370745
Kudos!
Quote: "Instead of building something complicated that was based on our free community (i.e. a freemium service), I decided to write two guides about something I know about, and something our users care about, learning Spanish slang."
I was baffled at first, because I didn't understand what a 'baby registry' is (despite the fact that I have two kids). Had to google it :) and now I understand. We have similar tradition for weddings, but not for babies. I wish you all the best.
1. Have generic options for clothing, since there is a huge turnover in baby clothes at most retailers (BRU doesn't even offer pictures for most clothes on the website) - size and item type (3 month onesie, newborn footy pjs, etc.)
2. Offer some suggested items / basic lists to get people started, or consider more social aspects to let people give feedback on other people's lists - there seems to be a big market for this kind of info (see: baby bargain books). This might be a way to keep users engaged after they are done with their own list.
3. Have options for non-purchased gifts or other items to be added, like home-cooked meals or babysitting - lots of people wanted to offer these kinds of things
4. Have options for monetary donations - this is how a lot of cultures work (red envelopes for chinese, etc.) and it would be great to support it in one place
5. Provide links to sign up for store registries to get all the freebies they provide for signing up - lots of people love this kind of thing. This is also a competitive point to consider - the discount stores provide to "complete" your registry was a good way to get a discount on the high-ticket items.
6. Consider ways to offer future gifts - diaper subscriptions or clothes for older babies that could arrive in the future so you don't have to worry about storing it and remembering it 6 months later.
Also, I can appreciate what you've done and why: I'm an allround developer, so when my wife and I were looking for a name for my oldest child, I quickly decided to build a name site myself. It's online in two languages: in Dutch as http://www.zeevannamen.nl and in English as http://www.valleyofnames.com.
I'd be happy to have a banner pointing to you site, if you wish? Maybe we can cooperate in other ways as well. Let me know if you have any thoughts on that.
The real question is why, how could this site execute differently?
I think it's great. Color scheme and style are very appealing and appropriate. The one awkward point for me is the "plus any other online store" tag after the noteworthy logos. It seems a little too much like an add-on. Maybe something a little bigger (to draw attention to the fact that your service is universal), with text suggesting, "BabyList registry works with any online retailer!" and then have an "including:" or "featured" listing over your images?
Just my two cents.
I have a question about the logos, as this is a subject I myself always fear when creating a new side project: Is it safe to have other companies' logos on ones site (as listed on yours), or is it possible to face infrightment allegations? Thinking about issuing a .us based project, I'm a bit afraid of somebody suing me for something like that.
Thanks, and congratulations!
The first thing I did was try it out at an off-brand online store. It worked great and I was "surprised and delighted" (to us a term that may be familiar to HNers).
Great job!
However, a month ago someone posted an almost identical concept to HN. I think it was for wedding registries though.
Overall, great concept, attractive website, and a real need.
My only criticism relates to it being fairly obvious. What hacker hasn't bought a wedding/baby gift and thought "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a registry for any store?" My point is, I'm sure this has been tried hundreds of times. So you have to ask yourself, "Why didn't those become mainstream, despite solving an obvious need?" and figure out how yours will execute differently. I really don't know the answer, but it has a lot to do with the ease of saying "I'm registered at Bed Bath & Beyond" (which everyone knows) over, "I'm registered with a new universal registry, which shows you what you can get at any online store, it's Babyli.st BABYLI.ST"
I'd really love to know your thoughts, because this same problem applies to a lot of different ideas where large brick & mortar stores still reign king, despite obvious inefficiencies.
I'm just starting to market this with people in the pregnancy/baby space, and so far they seem to think this is a totally original idea made just for them.
Sounds like there's an angle there for promotion - printable invitations, email invite list that tracks responses, free printed snail mail invites (team up with a print house that would take that opportunity) ...?
Unfortunately for you, babylist.com is taken -- but babylist.net is available. I know it can be hard to find an available domain in the .com realm that closely matches what you want, but I still think it is important. I think those business domains which have succeeded despite having a .(something-other-than-com) domain name have done so despite that disadvantage.
Also, natgordon - great site. If it was useful outside of the US I'd point several friends to it immediately.
So there are 2 groups of people.
1. registrants (people having babies) - branding here is important and the name could bite me. Let me know if you have any suggestions for other names.
2. people buying the registrant gifts - BabyList doesn't even have search which is a default wishlist/registry feature. I think giving someone a pretty url slug and letting them email it/share it/link to it, is not going to be a problem.
If it were a wedding registry, I would suggest maybe HitchedList? It would be better than WeddingList since it's less general. Obviously this doesn't help directly, but maybe will inspire some ideas!
I think the best startup names are those that relate to a market's pathos.
My advice would be to use the proper spelling ('Babylist') in general - especially in your html titles - and in no time you'll be #1 for the term, regardless of spelling:
http://bit.ly/h5fizW
People will go to babylist.com. They will probably copy the concept if it takes off.
Bad idea.
It seems silly to try and compete with established players.
2. the owner of the domain is a single-location brick and mortar retailer, with no e-commerce. that would inform my thought process, were in in the OP's shoes
I disagree about .net domains, especially for a market of mothers; traditionally, they aren't hackers like the creator here :)
It's not even the domain name quality that I'm questioning-it's the convenience of stopping by a brick & mortar store with an exact item to pick up. I know you're thinking "the internet much more convenient, but not if its a process you're not used to.
It's the same root cause as to why people send files back and forth via email - it's so engrained in people, that its the status quo.
So the real challenge here I think is breaking that social norm that retail giants have cemented in us.
I was really going to implement this when I got married a few months ago but couldn't find an elegant way to confirm when a guest had purchased a gift. Sending an e-mail is OK but it's not 100% accurate. This can lead to duplicate gifts which are a big pain.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...
In fact, as an entrepreneur, you almost always want it to have been done before. It is much easier to say "Amazon wish lists specifically for expectant parents" than it is to try to define a totally new market.
Start-ups are created and thrive in those pockets of inefficiency that large corporations leave in their wake. The best entrepreneurs use that as leverage rather than shying away from it.
Somebody already posted this on your suggestion forum, but I do like the idea of allowing people an option to offer item suggestions. Expand that idea by also allowing people to alternately "buy" something like a gift card (redeemable credit) for the moms; this would be helpful for the people out there who want to buy a gift, but who don't necessarily want to swoon over baby items. (e.g. Target gift card)
Congrats for the mom-to-be!
Perhaps also allow gifting 'cash' via paypal and run affiliate links for the paypal signup.
If I'm buying a gift for a friend, do I need to know their mailing address in order to have it shipped to them? It would be amazing if this took care of that for me.
In terms of suggestions, I'd suggest you tweak your index page a bit. When I landed there, I was most interested in seeing what one of these registries looked like. I assumed that clicking the image of John and Jane's Baby List would show me an example, but it's not currently linked. To actually find an example, you have to think a bit and either find the text link under your Create button or realize that the Showcase link is what you're looking for.
Also, the Vendors page needs a bit of work. I'm sure that's number 7273 on your priority list, but I don't think it'll be very successful in engaging vendors as is.
I put up the vendors page after I saw a vendor create a list of their products with a description "create your baby registry on this site to register for our store". At least I can contact them once we have something engaging to tell them.
In the mean time work out a way to ensure as few people as possible have to verbally pass the domain on, think about tools which enable you to let the interested party notify their friends that this is their list; easy things like publishing to facebook, twitter, email, etc.
(some of these may have been done, sorry if they are - I didn't take the time to look it over to thoroughly).
Looking at the company I think you might have to pay a hefty whack to get that domain.
I'm going to guess that they didn't have anyone there who knew what to do with your request, was it a money offer. I think I'd make a modest money offer (no more than a couple of hundred GBP) - people generally know what to do with an offer of money.
Make it very clear that you want to buy babylist.com name only, that you're not competing directly with them and are based in the US.
I don't think you want a huge offer as this will ring a bell saying "ooh, I better check with someone if I can get more ...".
YMMV considerably, grace and peace.
On the marketing front, one way to pitch it is that a decentralized registry makes life easier for your friends, too. I am so sick of having to pay top dollar for gifts just to get them off of a registry, when better deals can be had elsewhere for the same products. How many extra dollars have gone to Bed, Bath & Beyond instead of Amazon simply for that reason?
How stable are the product links you use? Do you do any type of periodic validation?
If I click on a link to view a product, it might be nice to open that window inside a frame (or modern equivalent) with a babyli.st "reserve" button at the top.
Right now no.
>> If I click on a link to view a product, it might be nice to open that window inside a frame (or modern equivalent) with a babyli.st "reserve" button at the top.
Great idea!
"We" would sound more professional.. Just to be clear, I'm not saying you should remove that friendly tone which I find great, especially for that kind of website. However, I'm not sure if it is worth it to put so much emphasis on you as you are not the goal of the website..
We were looking for "bleh". Thanks to xyz designer who join our team and help us create this [etc.].
My 5 cents, good luck :)
(I know it's kind of ironic that I suggest being more professional when I can hardly speak English correctly, but anyway..)
1) Try to collect data and offer up suggestions 2) Try to get a good Facebook presence. (etsy.com). Your target market lives on Facebook now. 3) Can you email your registry?
Gotta go. Good luck
2. Your domain name sucks. Look for something better. This is impossible to recall.
Similar idea, but with the variant of your own domain and the ability to announce to friends etc, when your baby is born.
One quick note would be that the logo is linking to babyli.st/index when it could really just link to babyli.st. That way I don't have to click the Back button twice. :)
If I look at the example registry and goto purchased items, there is 1 purchased at "etsy.com". If expand "View By Store" and uncheck "etsy", the item disappears as intended. However, if I uncheck "Amazon" and then recheck "Amazon", new items show up that weren't originally there. I'm assuming they're from the "All Items" list even though I'm still under "Purchased".
As others have said, I'm not in your target market, but I think the site is very well down.
As far as usability goes, the home page is very easy to understand, and you'll definitely get a high conversion rate because of this.