Wynco Distributors Web Site Earns Three Mice

Lowell

www.wynco-llc.com

Despite leaving e-mail and phone messages, we never heard back from the Web site administrator at Wynco Distributors LLC. If we had, the animal-health supplier’s Internet presence probably would have gotten a higher rating.

Although we didn’t have much luck with replies to general Internet inquiries, Wynco sales managers from various divisions across the country were very responsive to e-mail tests we sent them. We surmise from this that paying customers are well attended, and perhaps Wynco’s IT people were simply tied up in late September fighting the Nimba virus.

But what if we had been a potential customer looking for information? Missed opportunities to communicate often translate into missed sales.

We love the look of the home page for www.wynco-llc.com. A distributor of water-soluble pharmaceuticals, feed additives, vaccines, insecticides and other products, Wynco touches the needs of many species. The use of an animal collage is both clever and cute.

One art designer on our review team called the page “eye catching.” She didn’t find most of the site’s subsequent pages nearly as attractive but guessed the wide array of products offered by the firm dictates a flexible design.

A technician noticed that the site’s pull-down menus didn’t work well, and clicking through hyperlinks was the only way to reach additional pages. Also, seven of the 16 links in Wynco’s industry news section do not work because they link to out-of-date Yahoo sites.

The biggest problem, however, is that the site does not offer e-commerce buying to customers. We assume that’s because of the complicated product lines or a sales strategy that requires personal interaction.

But it would be nice for high-volume, repeat customers to have the luxury of ordering online.

The downloads for the material safety data sheets are very handy, especially for surfers with slow connectivity. The information was also very thorough and appears to be an excellent safety tool for the firm’s customers. The only downside is that the link causes you to leave Wynco’s site and use Adobe Acrobat Reader instead of just opening in a window.

The procedure makes it a little hard to get back to Wynco’s site.

There is some banner advertising going on here for Wynco’s manufacturers, but it’s unclear if it’s enough to be an additional revenue stream. Most likely, the site’s primary purpose is to serve as an information outlet.