Scotweb Contest - you'll like this prize!

[Nick Fiddes]

CONTEST NOW OPEN - SEE BELOW!

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First, many thanks to the X Marks mods for the real honour of making us their inaugural featured Vendor. As we're not just retailers, but kilt enthusiasts ourselves who take real pride in doing all we can to promote and preserve Scotland's authentic traditions. Our boast of offering the world's largest range of tartan products is based on not only being able to produce any tartan to order in short lengths, but also in having producers able to affordably make up practically anything that can be made from tartan, from cufflinks to bedding, teddy bears to... you name it. So we're just delighted to be a part of this wonderful community...

... and now we'd like to give something back! To help launch this new X Marks initiative with a bang, we've decided to give away a unique prize that we hope will have many of you salivating. The prize will be a top quality hand-sewn traditional eight yard kilt, made to measure for you in ANY (non copyright) tartan pattern - including our woven-to-order range of thousands of tartans recorded by the Scottish Tartans Authority but not generally in production, made by our artisan weavers. You can even design your own tartan if you like, and we'll produce it for you! So it's literally true when we say this prize is unique. :-)

Want to know how to win it? Read on. It's a level playing field for everyone, however expert or new to the game. But first, here's why...

For years we've been mostly known here as the Kilt Store. That's because until now we've chosen to market our huge range of products under multiple umbrellas, to help anyone with specialist interests find what they're looking for. So we've also had Bagpipe Store, Celtic Store, and a couple of dozen other identities. But the company has always been Scotweb. And this has sometimes caused confusion. So we've decided that from now on that will be our main name.

You may notice our banner at the top of this page which links to the special X Marks discount has recently changed. This is part of a root-and-branch redesign that we'll be rolling out over the next few months. This isn't just about design, but we're producing an all-new site from the ground up - faster, more efficient, with lots more features. And we'd like you guys to be the very first to get a sneak-peek at it...

I'm going to post a special link here some time very soon. This will show you our Development site. (Please note - it's not live yet, and you can't enter the contest until it is, so please do not send us feedback on our current site!) The new site is not all working yet, and it will keep improving over the coming weeks. For example, right now you can't even Check Out on it, but that will come soon. It's a work-in-progress.

But we'd like your help! We've really valued the feedback on our amazing tartan finder and other things we've had over the years. So we'd like to invite you to take a look at it, and give us your feedback. This could be anything from criticisms about layout being unclear, to ideas for features we might not have thought of... or anything else we might not have thought of. I say it's a level playing field because I know some posters on these forums work in the web biz themselves. But I also know that sometimes the most naive observations are the most helpful, and novice web users are often the best testers. So just tell us what you think!

The prize will be awarded soon after the end of May, and we'll give it to the entrant who we judge to have made the most useful contribution or contributions. This might be one incredibly simple and obvious observation that's simply escaped us, or it might be a bunch of micro-criticisms that help us resolve lots of bugs. We're deliberately leaving that open. And to ensure that the judging is free of bias, I'll mostly leave the decision to our wonderful tech team, who don't hang out on X Marks and so won't know a Moderator from a Newbie. It's all in the value of the feedback. Fair enough?

I'd also ask that all entries are submitted via a special email address: <competition@scotweb.co.uk>. We'd ask that people DO NOT post their comments here while the competition is running, again to ensure a level playing field. But if there are any questions about the rules, prize, or other aspects of this contest, I'd be glad to answer them here so everyone can see the replies.

Watch this space for the test site address soon... again, please don't enter comments on the current live site! Any questions?

And thanks again to all concerned for this opportunity!