Tag Archives: inverness

On the hunt for a new website provider

I went in a couple of business courses earlier this about improving websites and SEO which I found extremely useful but also a little disconcerting, in that they highlighted how many issues we still wanted to resolve. Our ecommerce website – www.comacodirect.com has now been running for 5 years. At the time our choice of provider seemed an appropriate one but 5 years is a long time… Also if I’m being brutally honest it has never quite delivered the results we had hoped for. The majority of our sales still come via other online sales platforms.

comacotoysdirect

The Comaco Toys website as of early August 2014

So what do want a revamped site to do? Well we need fast download speeds for a start, our current provider is steady but slower than average. We would like the facility to export our listings to other sales platforms, currently this is all done manually and it is a time consuming task! We would like the facility to be able to write meta tags for all pages on the site; we need a responsive design which will adjust for mobiles and ipads; and we want an integrated blog so that this one can be quietly retired.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to find a provider who will give us the maximum confidence that the site will have improved SEO and better sales will follow. A tall order? Possibly. Obviously the content of the site is ours, but this can only get us so far if the design is not up to spec.

And where do we find this miraculous provider? I don’t know yet. Magento has certainly been mentioned to me more than once and I am hoping to get some further advice through the Highlands and Islands Digital Health Check for businesses, although they haven’t replied to me yet. Clearly though it is something that needs to be up and running by October for the run up to Christmas.

Watch this space!

 

 

Fisher-Price Wooden Toys at Comaco Direct

The last 6 months or so has seen Comaco begin to stock all kinds of branded toys which we had not considered previously. Hello Kitty, Lego Storage, Nerf and MegaBloks have all been doing well. However we are especially pleased to have a selection of great wooden learning toys from Fisher-Price.

All these toys are suitable for ages from 12 months or 24 months plus. They range from simple, fun, ergonomically designed pull along animal figures, to a selection of educational games which develop problem solving, memory and fine motor skills.

The toys have fun animal themes in bold attractive primary colours. In addition they come boxed to ensure that the gift of one of these toys will be a treat to be remembered! Check out the full range of Fisher-Price Toys at Comaco Toys Direct.

Fisher Price Wooden Zebra on Wheels Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Wooden Zebra on Wheels

Fisher Price Wooden Lion on Wheels Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Wooden Lion on Wheels

Fisher Price Wooden Crocodile on Wheels Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Wooden Crocodile on Wheels

Fisher Price Animal Tower Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Animal Tower: Have fun stacking the 6 colourful wooden animals.

Fisher Price Balance Stacker: Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Balance Stacker: Build up the two monkeys correctly to make them balance.

Fisher Price Animal Memory Game Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Animal Memory Game: Memory matching game puzzle which contains 6 cards and 24 blocks.

 

Fisher Price Animal Dominoes Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Animal Dominoes: My first animal dominoes have 28 pieces.

Fisher Price Wooden Pyramid Puzzle Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Wooden Pyramid Puzzle: Fit the four blocks together correctly and complete the colourful animal pictures on each side of the pyramid.

Fisher Price Shape Sorter Comaco Toys Direct

Fisher Price Shape Sorter: Each Block has several different sides featuring letters, numbers, shapes and colours. A great learning toy for toddlers!

Transformers: Age of Extinction Toys

With the new Transformers film now showing at your local multiplex, we thought it was high time to share a couple of great new Transformers toys we have in stock at Comaco Toys. Both toys are exclusive tie in products with Transformers: Age of Extinction. Both are car ramp racing sets suitable for ages 3+.  The first features one racing car, a super ramp with two loops and a Grimlock Transformer. Check out the great pictures below of the Transformers Grimlock Set

Transformers Grimlock Box

Transformers Grimlock Box

Transformers Grimlock

Transformers Grimlock Car Racing Ramp

Transformers Grimlock Detail

Transformers Grimlock Detail

The second set is the fantastic Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge Car Track. This jumbo boxed set features a car ramp concealed inside a Transformers Optimus Prime truck. Two racing cars are included – Bumblebee and Lockdown – plus two identity discs.

Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge Truck Open

Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge

Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge (Truck Closed)

Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge (View 2)

Bumblebee and Lockdown discs

Bumblebee and Lockdown discs from Transformers Optimus Prime Challenge Set

See also our new Transformers post

The Blog that Shouldn’t Be

There hasn’t been a post for a little while now and the main reason is that I have learnt that having separate blog providing links to our main website may not in fact be a good idea.

According to a very knowledgeable SEO advisor  I spoke to around a month ago, Google may consider a third party site (albeit one transparently written by the business themselves) providing so many links to our website as “suspicious”. In the future this could even lead to penalisations which might have a sizeable negative impact on our web traffic.

The correct way to do it apparently is to set up an “in house” blog on our website, which is what I am going to look at next. In the meantime there may be a few more posts on here while the transfer is completed. Especially as we may also decide to move to a different web provider – but that’s another story!

 

Fun Time Toys at Comaco

Just a short post this week to tell you about some great toys for younger children new in stock at Comaco.

First there is the Push along Shape Sorter Bus. This comes with a selection of brightly coloured shapes to sort through the correct holes in the bus.

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Also we have Spinning Popping Pals. Just press gently down on the button and watch the colourful balls spin and pop.

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Both toys are suitable for children as young as 12 months, and are guaranteed to keep them entertained for hours!

 

Comaco Toys: The Movie

We originally made a You Tube video almost 5 years ago when our own website was launched. Having noticed that this was still showing up on Google we decided it was time for an upgrade. So here it is!

The new vid definitely shows the range of products we currently have in 2014. Give it a watch and let us know what you think!

The video was created using Windows Movie Maker and it is basically made up of product images from our website plus captions and a few extra graphics. It was interesting to compare the content between the old and new videos. Although some generic categories had not changed – Toy Guns, Knights, Cowboys, Army etc – almost all the individual products had. Perhaps not surprising after 5 years! Completely new however were most of the branded products so far discussed in this blog – Nerf, Megabloks, Hello Kitty, Monster High and Papo Figures.

We are quite pleased with the background music was downloaded from a royalty free site. There are also a few bonus sound effects for those who watch it through right to the end!

Mar sin leibh an-dràsda

Papo Wild Animals at Comaco Toys

We’ve told you previously about our fantastic Papo Knights and Dinosaurs at Comaco Toys, However we also have some fabulously detailed Wild Animal Figures.

Individual animals include White Crocodiles, Tigers with cubs, Brown Bears, Grizzly Bears, Polar Bears, Kudus, Galapagos Tortoises, Buffalo, Reindeer and Kudu. And all that doesn’t even cover the Sea Life!

However we also have several Wild Animal Gift Boxes available, each with 3 or 4 figures. Check them out:

50054 Papo Big Cats Gift Box

80000 Papo Chimps Gift Box

80001  Papo Hippos Gift Box

80002  Papo Elephants & Rhino Box

60503  Papo Jungle Play Mat

We want your suggestions!

Firstly many thanks to everyone who took advantage of our Easter promo last weekend at Comaco Toys. If you were a first time customer we hope to see you again very soon.

This week’s blog however is slightly different. We are always looking at ways to improve the services we offer as an online toy shop and we would value your feedback or suggestions on our website and the range of products available.

Please check out our shop at www.comacotoysdirect.com, if you are not already familiar with it, and have a browse. Then let us know what you think! This could be with regard to product range, pricing, shipping options, payment processing, site layout… anything, so long as it is constructive!

You can do this by filling out the contact form below or by going direct to our website Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Big Easter Sale Weekend at Comaco Toys

Go to the new page for this post

Papo Knight Figures at Comaco Toys Direct

A big new order from high quality figure designer Papo has now arrived in stock at Comaco, and I must say it looks great. Our last blog post was on the Dinosaurs, so this time were going to concentrate on Knights in armour from the Medieval Era Range.

We have five different boxed gift sets available. Each contains two knights on horseback with a variety of different weapons and designs:

39185  Knights Display Box 39185

80601  Knights Display Box 80601

80600  Knights Display Box 80600

39750  Knights Display Box 39750

39751  Knights Display Box 39751

In addition to these great sets we also have a couple of fantastic accessories:

39932  Catapault / Arrow Launcher

60502  Medieval Castle Playmat 

The Catapault / Arrow launcher really fires (safe) balls and arrows. Meanwhile the large, heavy duty Playmat comes in its own carry case and measures 95 x 133 cm. It weighs in at nearly 1.5 kg!

These are superb quality toys which give many many hours of play – why not start your collection today! Check out all our Papo Knight Figures.