Website Production Value
In a print catalog, "production values" refers to the quality of the paper and printing processes used, the number and quality of images, and the care taken with graphic design. High production values are critically important in catalogs, which have to convince consumers to buy based on a few sheets of paper.
Production values are even more important on the Web. Consumers will not buy from an amateurish Web site.
Most of the people who visit your site will still find the idea of ordering online unusual. I have been buying online for three years, and I still find it a little unusual. So your site needs to inspire visitors with confidence. It should say that yours is the kind of company that does things right, and that if I order something from you, it will be a good experience.
Of course there is no direct connection between the quality of your site and the quality of your company. A company could have a brilliant graphic designer and lousy products. But usually there is a connection, and that is what visitors to your site will assume. If your company is unable to put up a good Web site, then it seems natural to assume that your company cannot deliver good products or services.
The most extreme case, of course, is when your company does not have a Web site at all. Occasionally I go to look for information about some product, but find that the company either doesn't have a Web site, or has a site with nothing in it. Not impressive.
Almost as bad as the empty site is the site that looks amateurish.
In contrast, take a look at Despair.com. Here is a site that says, we mean business. What makes a site say that? The same thing that makes a Ferrari look like it means business: good design. On the Web, good design means good proportions, appropriate typefaces, clear layout, and color combinations that work.
Overall the most important feature of a Web page is the organization. That is what visitors will notice first. It should be possible to "read" the structure of a page at a glance. A high quality Web site looks clear. A badly designed site looks haphazard.
Of the elements on the page, the most important are the images. A Web page consists of text and images, and everyone's text looks the same, so the difference in production values between good sites and mediocre ones depends almost entirely on images.
By images I do not necessarily mean product images. I mean gifs and jpegs, whether they are product images, display text, logos, button bars, bullets, or what have you.