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MATASA Website Review
By Jesse | February 22, 2008
MATASA is the manufacturer of Fonseca, Cubita, and Casa Blanca. It wasn’t an easy website to track down either. I love it when a manufacturer isn’t listed in the first few pages on Google for their own cigars. Alright so onto the review.
The Cigars: A+
While I was immediately turned off by this website, the cigar section is very good. They have all the brands listed with good descriptions and plenty of pictures. I like the breakdown of the tobacco and also like that they added a category for flavor profile. I’ve got no complaints here.
The Company: B+
They have a nice history of the company, pretty much your average fare and sounds like all the others. They started in Cuba, left because of the revolution and started over again in Dominican Republic.
The site also has a good contact page. Not only does it have a form for contacting them, but also has phone numbers, and addresses.
They don’t have an up to date news section, but have small pictures of advertisements in the Gallery. I didn’t even notice the picture of the ads at first they are just small thumbnails. They are to the left under the menu options in the Gallery. The photos in the galleries are not of the ads, but about the complete rolling process.
Website Features and Usability: C-
The site is easy to navigate and they don’t really have any extra features. So I’ll give them some credit for an easy to navigate site.
I hate this site. It looks pretty, but use it for 10 minutes and it will drive you nuts. First off they are all flash and have music playing in the background. I’ve ranted about these two things in the past. Check out my Cigar Family site review if want more details on my dislikes of all flash sites with music.
What really takes the cake though, is the annoying always changing background. Thankfully they didn’t put it in the cigar section, because some of that text was already hard enough to read. The real kicker is trying to read through the family history with the background constantly changing on you.
Recommendations:
The site has very good information, but this design has to go. I hate it, the ever changing background drove me nuts on top of that they had some repetitive music. At least you could turn the music off.
The two features they need to add are a press section and retailer locations. Although a list of retailers might not be a huge necessity as their cigars typically aren’t too hard to find.
That’s all for MATASA’s site, check back in next week when I take a look at another manufacturer’s site.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Tags: MATASA Cigars, Website Reviews
Topics: Website Reviews |
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:53 am
I hate when you can’t turn the music off easily! Hopefully Matasa sees this review and takes a hint.
Good work!
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
You can at least turn the music off, but I still hate it. I don’t see any need for it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:59 pm
[…] what they are doing wrong and right. This week he takes a look at MATASA’s website. Read this website review at Cigar Jack’s Cigar Reviews. Posted by stogielover Filed in Cigar Articles Tagged: Cigars, […]
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
The changing background is really, really distracting. I think their Flash developer convinced them that it would be really cool, and so they let him go ahead with it.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:01 am
[…] Jack: Jesse takes a look at the MATASA website and tells us that the information is good, but the design has to […]