Wednesday, October 21, 2009

DFTBA 3.0

Over the last two weeks I've been working on a rebuild of the DFTBA website. The majority of the changes coming to the site were requested by you guys via twitter and emails. We read every suggestion we receive and when we can implement something that we feel will be beneficial for both our artists and our customers, we will.

So, here are just some of the new features coming to DFTBA.com some time in the next week to ten days:

- User accounts – You will now be able to register a user account on DFTBA. User accounts will keep track of your address and orders, so if there should be an issue and you need to contact us, you won’t have to go hunting for PayPal receipt emails. User accounts will also allow for…

- Wish lists - Just like on Amazon, you will now be able to create wish lists for the releases you want but maybe can't afford right now. Or, with the holiday season approaching, you can use the wish list to suggest to your friends and family what you might want for x-mas. User accounts will also allow for…

- Personalized sales – Alex was our first artist to have a promo code offer with his CD, and it worked out really well, not only was it a great way for you to save some money, but orders were up 5x’s from their daily averages for the two days his promo code was active. So we want to extend the promo codes to our other artists in the future. Also, we can set up sales for specific groups of buyers, such as - we can offer 10% off of Hank's new CD to only those of you who've purchased one of Hank's CDs in the past, etc. User accounts also allow for…

- Product reviews and ratings – Just like on Amazon, you will now be able to write reviews and rate each release. Not sure if a particular CD is worth buying the whole thing over a single or just a couple songs? Read the reviews! Like a CD a lot and want to tell everyone how genius it is? Write a review! And of course, given our logo, all products will now have a five-star rating system available. =)

- Similar / Recommended items - based on product tags and which products are typically purchased together, DFTBA will now recommend other items to you when you add items to your cart. Seeing as how Alex's solo CD is often ordered with his band Chameleon Circuit's CD, DFTBA would link the two via sales patterns and suggest that if you add Chameleon Circuit's CD to your cart, you also add his solo CD.

- Download sales – This won’t be available right away, but in the near future we hope to be offering digital music sales directly from our website. Some listeners have expressed that they’d like as much of their money spent on music going directly to the artist as possible. DFTBA already pays 600% more than the average major label does in royalties to bands, and cutting out iTunes and AmazonMP3 (both of which take a cut of sales) would mean more of the money you spend on music would be going directly to the artists you want to support. Of course, if you still prefer to use iTunes for convenience, all of our current and new titles will still be available there as well. It’s all about choice.

- Reduced and free shipping prices – DFTBA will be updating its shipping prices with the launch of the new site. With the new launch, all orders over $50 will ship for FREE. That’s FREE for both domestic and international! Orders below $50 will incur reasonable shipping charges based on the order total. Full shipping cost details will be posted in a chart on the new site. **Update: after running the numbers over and over, we just can't make this happen without cutting into what we pay our artists.

And this last change is for our artists, but I wanted to tell you guys about it too…

- Branded, landing pages. Yes, each band on DFTBA will now have a unique landing page that they can send their listeners to. It will be branded with a banner image and short bio (think the iTunes' branded artist pages). Artist landing pages will include a picture of the artist, a short bio, links to their websites and their music on iTunes, in addition to their full catalog of DFTBA Records releases and appearances on other albums listed for purchase.

I’m really excited about all this. In addition to the new features, I redesigned the site visually too, so it’ll be receiving a great face lift in addition to the new functionality.

If you have other suggestions for our next round of improvements, please leave them in the comments below. Or, tell me what your favorite new feature listed above is! DFTBA will go down for an hour or two some time within the next week to ten days while I switch in the new site.

11 comments:

  1. Sounds like the new DFTBA is going to be made of even more awesome than the current version! :D

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  2. you're a genius :)

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  3. Sounds fantastic, Alan! I can't wait to see it. Thanks for the hard work you put into this site. <3

    Will the accounts be linkable with our DFTBA wiki accounts?

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  4. Bravo! I can't wait. I adore the CDs that I've purchased so far and I'm kinda of working on a "gotta catch 'em all" stratagy. I hope that I'll soon have all the CDs avalible in one for or another. I love the record label, how you guys are changing music sales and all of the artists you currently have. I've spent more money on DFTBA music than on any other music in the last year. Knowing that the money will go to the artists, getting to know the artists through their blogs, websites and youtubes, having artists that do live shows on blogtv.

    DFTBA is going to be the way of the musical future!

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  5. Sounds awesome ! Got to start saving up for the release then ! ^^.

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  6. This sounds pretty amazing.
    Having an account on there was never anything I personally envisioned but after reading these proposals I think it sounds like the most obvious step forward.
    I think DFTBA downloads sounds great too although it'll probably reduce the chance of getting some artists into more widely recognised charts (eg. iTunes) if their downloads aren't recorded in the same way...

    p.s. I'm still waiting on Parrot Stories! Darn slow mail! I'm assuming it'll be here tomorrow though as Alex got his copy today... :D

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  7. Oooh, this sounds awesome! I'm excited for everything, though I suppose I am MOST excited for the user accounts (which includes nearly everything anyway, lol). So, YAY!

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  8. Thanks for the update, Alan! It seems like adding user accounts will be beneficial all around.

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  9. These sound great, I'm especially looking forward to download sales because I don't have an iPod and I can't use Amazon MP3.

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  10. Just wondering about this...

    'Also, we can set up sales for specific groups of buyers, such as - we can offer 10% off of Hank's new CD to only those of you who've purchased one of Hank's CDs in the past, etc.'

    What about if you bought a CD before the user accounts. Can we still get the offers?

    I love the new design btw <3

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