Because this post would become massively big if we'd simply wrote down all the results (plus we'd like everyone to stay anonymous), we've decided to pick a few highlights from the survey. This post will cover the following subjects: Survey results for the website, blog, database and forum, common questions and our improvement plan for the coming weeks.
Besides this public blogpost we'll also reply to those who left their e-mail address in the survey for a private response. We'll do our best to answer most of you, but can't guarantee that everyone will get answer.
Website results
Most of the people who completed the survey are collectors or bronies/pegasisters that visit our website every day. A big part of you originally found us through a search engine or Facebook and ended up liking our blog the most (well, it all started with the blog, didn't it?).Blog results
On our blog of course merchandise news is the most popular, followed by giveaways and sales. Brushables, blind bags, Equestria Girls and Funko figures are the most interesting topics, and Playskool, cards and comics have a much lower popularity. Most of you think our posts are fine, but quite a big group demands more pictures in blog posts.Database results
The databases see a bit less visits than our blog, but are still rather popular. People like the overall layout but sometimes complain about the 'mess'. The most demanded new database is one for MLP related books.Forum results
The forums are relatively new and therefor less popular than the blog and database. Most people joined either for communicating with other fans, or to create a checklist. There are no major complains about the layout or current sub-forums.Common Questions
Q: Will you create a fakie database?/Why not?A: We are aiming to keep our databases filled with legitimate products by Hasbro or licensed manufacturers. On our blog we have the ability to write a bit more info about why products are fake, but as we try to keep our databases compact and accessible, it wouldn't fit there. Besides that it would also be one huge project to do, as there are loads of fakies and they're usually released under multiple names.
Q: Can you disable e-mail verification?
A: We understand that e-mail verification can be a bit of a hassle, but we do have our reasons to do it. The big one being spam-prevention, as it creates another hurdle for spam-bots to automatically create accounts and spam the forums. The other reason is the forums itself, which makes handy use of subscriptions and e-mail notifications to inform you about events on the forum. If we didn't ask for e-mail verification the forum would send e-mail to an unconfirmed recipient, which could be seen as spam if you filled in someone else's address, and we don't want that!
Q: Why did your blog start with Rainbow Power? / Did you delete old pages?
A: Because we've started MLPMerch in early 2014! This was also the big reason we started with the databases, as we wanted to cover the older G4 merch, but writing blogposts about them wasn't relevant. This way we've still covered the 4-year gap without making up historic blogposts!
Q: Will you add older generations to the databases?
A: While this would make our databases incredibly complete, it would also really really really take us a long time to pull off. We'd have to ask around for images, get credit for them, search for loads of information that Hasbro no longer provides and so much more. We also think that there are plenty of websites out there that cover the older gens very well.
Improvement plan
We've looked through all the responses and came up with the following list of changes we'd like to apply in the coming weeks to improve MLPMerch even more:Website
- Minor restyling of the website
- Reorganizing the sidebar
- Contact form (in addition to e-mail and social media)
- Fix the page numbers on mobile devices
- Better scale zoom-in on mobile devices
Blog
- Better mention countries/locations when writing about new merch
- Decrease spelling and grammar mistakes
- New Q&A post
- Provide more images in blogposts (when possible)
Databases
- Blind bag card database (after much postponing)
- Media database (books & DVD's)
- Improve the database navigation
- Custom sort options in the databases
- Update Amazon + other retailer links in the databases
- Reorganize blind bags / FiM Collection database
Forum
- Small changes to sub-forum names and descriptions
We hope that the improvement plan will make MLPMerch a better experience for you, and will publish a complete set of changes when we release MLPMerch 5.0.
For now, enjoy our website and we hope to see you around!
Posts
Keep up the amazing work :)
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work i hope there are more mlp merch survey's in the future. ^^
ReplyDeletein the forum section, you said mayor instead of major 'There are no mayor complains about the layout or current sub-forums.' it should be 'There are no major complains about the layout or current sub-forums.'
ReplyDelete