Sweetwater is a very popular website where users can purchase musical instruments and music related products. They have a wide variety of guitars, drums, keyboards/synthesizers, and studio equipment such as microphones. The website is very user friendly as I have never had a problem finding products in the several years I’ve used the site. To test the website’s capabilities, I entered “Jazzmaster” into the search bar. I then was pleased to see several Jazzmaster guitars organized by price and brand. Sweetwater sorts all of it’s products by brand whenever you search for something. For example, the more expensive Fender Jazzmaster guitars appeared first while Fender’s less expensive Squier Jazzmasters appeared below.
The website makes it very easy for first time users to find exactly what they are looking for. The top of the webpage contains five options of navigating the site. These options are: “Shop by Category”, “What’s New”, “Deals”, “News and Research”, and “Support”. Most users will be drawn naturally to the first option of “shop by category”. Hovering the cursor over the “shop by category” option will allow a secondary drop down menu to appear. The menu displays all of the types of products Sweetwater carries. One of the best features of Sweetwater is that the website has no shame in telling you that they don’t carry a product. For example, searching for “Danelectro” guitars result in a message that they do not carry Danelectro products. This can save users a lot of time instead of continually searching a website for products they do not carry. Sweetwater also allows you to search for products utilizing a variety of criteria. You can search by brand, price, body style, 6 string, 7 string, and 8+ string. This website is one of the most popular musical instrument suppliers in the U.S.A. It’s easy to use, detailed, and allows for a carefree shopping or browsing experience.