GringoLocal – Local Deals for Travelers

3 thoughts on “GringoLocal – Local Deals for Travelers”

1. Feedback sought:
   1) Look around the home page – do you understand what you need to do next?
   First, select location, then enter email. It does not say “Where you want to go”
   This could be confusing. Some people might think that you need to enter your current location since this is not specified.

   2) Think about your next desired trip. Now try to find cool things to do here. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?

   The list of places to travel is confined to non-U.S. cities. Why are there no U.S. cities listed?
   3) Are you encouraged to buy a deal? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   If I was traveling to any of these cities, yes, it does sound appealing.

   4) Did you find it easy to navigate from deals and cities?

   Yes, it is easy, but what if I don’t want to receive emails? I think you should allow us to view deals without first entering email.
   5) Would you trust on this website? Do you suggest anything to look more trustable?
   As far as trust, the way to build trust is by brand recognition through ads or through repeat customers.

   Another way to develop trust is to partner with reputable brands, such as Visa or Mastercard so people aren’t worried about getting scammed.

   6) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.

   This site appears to come through on the offerings. As you asked on question 5, I don’t know how to know if I can trust you. People don’t want to give money away if they cannot verify you are a legitimate site.

2. Using Safari on OS 10.7.4 
    
   1) Look around the home page – do you understand what you need to do next?
    
   Homepage or landing page (the first page one ends up on when going to http://www.gringolocal.com)?
    
   I am greeted on the landing page with a site logo, a statement about experiencing travel like local, and a text-tab  “where” I put in my location where I want to travel (With Amsterdam already in the tab), and my email address. 
    
   There isn’t really much telling me what to do. Of course, intuition tells me to see if there are any other locations in ‘Where’.
    
   I selected Sydney as my trip location, and hit next without entering my email address (and was happy to see 
    
   Notes: On the landing page, you may want to extend ‘Where’ into “Where do you want to go”. Though it seems like a lot of text, some clever font arrangements can make it work. Also, including this text may remove the confusion that some have in thinking that ‘Where’ is asking ‘What is your location’ instead of ‘Where are you planning to go’.
    
   Not sure why you have an option for including my email address if I can access information without using it.
    
   There is nothing else on the landing page that tells me what your site is about, what your vision is, contact info FAQs, and what your policies are concerning privacy and information (I am  giving you my email address after all),
    
   2) Think about your next desired trip. Now try to find cool things to do here. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?
    
   So, looking at things to do in Sydney. It is here that I am greeted with a ‘How it Works’ and ‘FAQ’ and ‘Contact’ info. Too late… why should I care about that now that I am looking at your site? Yes, it can go here, but it should also be included on the landing page for your site.
    
   Noted that, because I didn’t put in my email address, I have a small notice under ‘Subscribe to local offers’ that “This email doesn’t exist/is not a valid e-mail” and is asking me to provide a valid one. Maybe if I knew why I had to provide one right away, I would have.
    
   In looking at the offers, I do find it easy to to browse through them. However, I do not see any way to filter them– what if I am looking just for food and restaurant deals? I have to go through all the other deals that are offered in order to find them. A filter, or a category lay-out (Food and Drink, Entertainment, Health & Spa, etc) would be helpful.
    
   Looking at the deals, it is neat to find that you have a count down timer included, letting people know how long the deal is on for, when and how the voucher can be redeemed, and how long the vouchers are valid–as well as where the deal is offered from (like Groupon, for example). 
    
   On the downside, I am not told what business is offering the deal, or where that business is located (so it may be a great deal, but it may not help much when I discover it is on the other side of town and doesn’t fit my schedule to get there in time). In that regards, including more information about the business (like, what is the name of the business, where it is located) would be a great help.
    
    
   3) Are you encouraged to buy a deal? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
    
   With all the translation programs available for web users, it is not that difficult to translate a non-English offer from a site like Groupon into English. Being a user of several of these programs (having done a fair bit of international travel), it is not that difficult for me to find and decipher the same deals as found on other sites.
    
   This is not to say that your site is not required– some people just don’t have the savvy, or the inclination, to try to sort through a large selection of foreign language offers trying to find something they like (and having to translate each one they think looks good to make sure it is good). In that regards, your site offers a fairly valid service.
    
   But… read what I have in the trust part.
    
   4) Did you find it easy to navigate from deals and cities?
    
   Navigation is easy, though again, not having a search or filter option (or a category lay-out) for the deals makes it feel a bit tedious (and even hectic) looking for specific deal types.
    
   5) Would you trust on this website? Do you suggest anything to look more trustable?
    
   Not at the moment. You do not offer anything about your privacy policy or security, or your legal statements (i.e.: you do not tell us who would be responsible if things don’t work out). You are asking me to provide you with financial information without offering a legally valid guarantee that my information is safe.
    
   6) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
    
    
   You need to do more to explain your site and how it works ‘before’ someone starts looking at the deals you offer. Not having a ‘How it works’ or ‘FAQ’ link on your landing page basically leaves the first time visitor blind to what they are getting into. If I had just come across this site and was greeted with your current landing page, I wouldn’t give it a second thought because I do not see anything there that tells me what you do and how you do things, or why I need to provide my email address.
    
   Site security and handling of credit card information. You need to provide a legally valid guarantee regarding how you handle the users financial transactions.
    
   Site search/categorization. You need to categorize your offers into coherent groups–Food&Drink offers, Hotel offers, Recreation offers, etc. to make navigation easier.
    
   Information on the businesses offering the deals: Who the business is, where they are located.
    
   Site colors, menus, banners, etc. are all nice. Site is fairly pleasing to look at. No problems on Safari browser.
    
   Submitted at 12:35PM EST.

3. 1. I think so. It looks like I’m supposed to choose the city I’m traveling to from the drop-down menu and enter my email to get coupons for businesses and services in that city.
    
   2. The first destination city I chose was London, and unfortunately, there was only one deal offered. The next city I chose was Dublin, and there was a somewhat better selection (five different deals), but some of the deals were repeated for some reason. Nothing was really confusing except for the repetition of the same deals.
    
   3. If I was traveling to one of these cities, I might buy one of your deals, especially for food. It can be quite expensive eating out all the time in a foreign city.
    
   4. Navigation was pretty easy. The drop-down menu titled “Where” at the top of the page allows visitors to easily shift between cities, although I’ll admit that I didn’t notice it right away. I’m not used to search boxes placed so far up by the header.
    
   5. I would trust your site for the less expensive deals, yes. I think I’d be hesitant to purchase a more expensive deal until I’d experienced a few transactions with you. In terms of what you could do to make your site more trustworthy, I’d suggest displaying testimonials, accreditations if you have them, and media coverage. An “About Us” page would help with credibility if you have prior experience in the travel industry. Also, I noticed some grammatical errors. That can make a web site look sloppy and unprofessional, so you may want to clean those up. Finally, I noticed in your FAQ that you “charge a service fee.” How much is the service fee? I didn’t see anything about a service fee mentioned when I looked at your deals, so now I’m worried about getting slapped with a hidden cost. All fees should be made clear upfront.
    
   6. I’m not a big fan of extremely minimalist home pages. Yes, they allow visitors to jump right in, but, to me, they also scream “unfinished beta web site.” I would love to at least see some images of happy tourists doing activities in various cities around the world. I also really didn’t like that I had to enter my email address just to get into the site. I suspect a lot of people are going to be turned off by that.
    
   You don’t have a large selection of cities to choose from, and most of those cities only offer a few deals each, but your web site is new, so I assume it will grow with time. The deals themselves are displayed nicely with attractive images and enough details, I think, to decide if the deal is of interest to the buyer. Most of the discount rates seem pretty good, and I like that you list prices in American dollars as well as in Euros for those us who live Stateside.
    
   I checked out the main pages in your navbar. Strangely, “Day Offer” just takes me back to the landing page. “How it works” does a good job of concisely explaining how your site operates, and the FAQ provides a more detailed explanation. However, I’m still confused about the “service fee,” as I said above.
    
   Overall, I like the concept of your site. It’s sort of like a Groupon for travelers, and I haven’t seen anything exactly like that before. I’d like to see the home page redesigned as described above, and I’d like to see more transparency about your fees. Other than that, I think you could have a winning web business here.

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