It's awesome how much you understand our situation when this is the first time you've seen what we're working on. This was exactly what we've been struggling with, and having another perspective on it is extremely helpful.

And, you went through the trouble of mocking something up and sharing it with us. We'll definitely take a close look at your ideas. Thanks.

In that vein, show some product. What does "collaborative shopping" look like on a screen? Bonus points if you show non-clipart people using your product in a way that makes sense to your users. Would they also be on a phone call w/ each other, for instance?

I find that videos are becoming a popular way to tell that story - if you choose to go that route, keep it under ~ 3 mins.

kingsley's right. My impressions (these echo others'):

1) Get rid of all that text. Make the search box huge and pre-fill it with something useful. Don't put a bunch of words underneath explaining what the user should fill it with.

2) ~30sec video in _female_ voice of buying something together. Make sure the first ("preview") frame is a picture that shows why your product is awesome.

3) Colors(!) on the front page. Looks like it was designed by a tasteful developer, rather than a tasteful designer (if I'm wrong, then tell the designer to get a bit crazier).

4) No elephants. Seriously. Nobody wants to be an elephant. Even 'gear nerd' men don't want to be elephants. Unless .. you're selling elephants?

5) Integrate with FB/Twitter/Whatever. Put the logos on your _homepage_ so that everybody knows you're 140ch-compatible. This will increase the buzz factor.

6) If your site does badass technical stuff, write some technical blogs about them and get them out to the relevant humangregators. Opinion-makers troll technical posts to find the newest cool stuff.

woah! cool! It's always amazing when people give feedback using images like this. Really clarifies what you're trying to say.

Thank you for that, and your suggestions.

Gearing the site towards women is all well and good, but I can tell you right now that your suggestion of using "she" and "her" on the front page will offend. If you want to cater to women, do it by changing your aesthetic and emphasizing the women's clothing/accessories/etc shopping options your site offers -- NOT by assuming that the user is a woman.

Would targeting a specific gender of people get us anywhere? Why not just appeal to people who "Like" shopping for the qualities of shopping, rather than tailoring it to a female or male? Maybe we make shopping interesting enough for males who usually don't shop, to shop with others. What are your thoughts on that?