Alcademics

Frankly, I think the first half of your list is really nitpicky.

But more importantly, you pointed out for me that MOST liquor sites focus on lifestyle and flashiness to sell their products, and not the product itself.

This isn't a big revelation for me in terms of some of the more commercial brands like Bacardi, Captain Morgan, Remy Martin... but you just made me realize that for even the better brands that people like us respect, it's still the same old strategy.

Depressing.

Great list, Camper. Giving consumers the opportunity to locate a local liquor store carrying the product is another function that I have not found brand websites utilizing enough.

I would add fancy flash or shockwave where it takes a long time to navigate. Cabana Cachaca, for example, has you wandering through the jungle for a bit in between each screen? Wasted time that deters me from clicking on more parts of the site.

Perhaps this is what you meant by "fun to explore".

And yes, any recipe that requires me to watch a 3-5 minute video to get the proportions and ingredients gets nixed. Especially when the bartender has more flare than bartending skills.

You need to work this into a $$ gig as a web site adviser. Include in that restaurant web pages to help them avoid PDF menus, websites that don't work on mobile devices, and not clearly listing the hours and address.

Camper, do you have an example of a brand/site that manages to avoid the majority of these issues?

Amen! I was just gritting my teeth about this last night when, to view a liquor website I've been to *many* times before, I once again had to go through the painful process of entering my birthdate via a drop-down menu of years that started in 1915. Seriously? I couldn't just type a date in?

I actually find that money doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with it. There are plenty of websites (if not in the liquor world) that don't blow the development and design budget but are still beautiful, informative, and utterly useful, and plenty of sites that have clearly had tons of cash thrown at them to little effect.

Here's hoping more liquor (and wine and beer) producers take your words to heart, Camper.

I'm with you on this Camper. I will add that the age verification stuff is bogus when you consider that any 10 year old who wants to check out a site can enter a fake age. Everyone knows this. Furthermore, why is it a bad thing if a kid wants to learn about Angostura or Laphroig on the internet? I'll bet you anything they are fixated on the information gathering of location and age data that tells the brand what demographic is interested in their booze. End of story.

Great post. We've been advocating many of the points you make to our clients, but there is a tendency to evaluate site design based on "coolness" and an ad message vs. looking at functionality first.

In fact, it's surprising how many supplier don't use Google analytics at its basic level to see what content people are visiting.

In any case, I'd like to reprint your post on my blog...can I have permission to do so?

tx

steve

"(If the age is over 21, isn't it legal in every country?)"
You're looking at this from your own angle. But here in Europe legal age for drinking is 18 in most countries (if not all). So if age-check doesn't include these country checks, basically we, Europeans, would have to wait another 3 years to enter the site? :) :)

But, yeah, I totally agree that simple YES/NO choice is enough. Even a child can do the math and trick "more complicated" checks by entering false information, so why bother installing those checks anyway? :)