Uncrate succeeds because they do a lot of things right.
1. Well-defined niche
Guys who like cool stuff.
2. Well-defined goal
Cool stuff. For guys.
3. Frequency
New cool stuff. For guys. Every weekday.
Right now, on the front page of their blog they review a cool knife, an innovative grill brush, a new hip-hop album, unique stools made from skateboard decks, a stylish tattoo machine and some good old blue jeans.
I’d say they’re staying true to their niche.
4. Design
A minimal, clean, easy to use design with bold colors and a quality logo. Easy navigation. Quality photos. Obvious search. Lots of whitespace. A useful footer. No Flash because no Flash was necessary.
5. Copy
Succinct descriptions, written by a human, that tell you just enough to decide whether to click.
6. Pricing
Obvious pricing for every product (where available). Many sites make you click through to find out.
7. Social
Uncrate makes it easy for you to follow their updates. Web. Email. RSS. Twitter. Facebook. Tumblr.
They understand that different customers want to hear from them in different ways and they not only enable that, they make it easy.
8. Sharing
Uncrate makes it easy to share any product with any social bookmarking site, and they make it fun to email to your friends
9. Simple
Everything about Uncrate is as simple as possible. The interface is minimal and obvious. It just works.
