When you click onto Rocky Patel.com for the first time, depending on the speed of your connection, you might want to just leave the room and make yourself a sandwich...or smoke a Presidente-sized cigar...or both. I am relegated to DSL, broadband internet although not the fastest variety, and this page took over 60 seconds to load. Get used to seeing the tobacco plant "loading" icon on this site...you will see it a lot. After the icon finally disappears, you are greeted by an animated Rocky Patel logo with smoke drifting up behind it. There's also some annoying Cuban-style music playing and no way to turn it off or down without using your computer's main volume controls. Then you must still click through to "Enter Site."
Next you visit the real "Home" page, which took another 15 seconds to load, at which time I was greeted by a stuttering video of Rocky walking through a tobacco field talking. "I promise you that nobody will work harder to give you a quality cigar." or something like that. I wish someone had worked just a little bit on trying to make the website a better experience. At least on this page the music can be turned off or down...check that, you can turn the "sound" off or down, which not only mutes the music, but Rocky's speech, too. So in order to hear what Rocky says, you have to listen to the music whether you like it or not.
Most important on any cigar manufacturer's website is the "Products" page. Clicking on a cigar in this area of the RP site starts off another 5 second wait while that page loads. Looks like Rocky is just in love with the sound of his own voice and has to have a video introduction of each and every cigar. You know, I really don't want to see and hear Rocky talk on every single page; he can be interesting, but here he mostly isn't. What I really want is an easy-to-use, informative site about the stogies that he makes.
Unfortunately, there are vast gaps in the knowledge presented on products Rocky Patel makes. It seems like this site has hardly been touched in the last two years. There is a page for the Decade, but no mention whatsoever of the lancero under the size chart. The Renaissance has a page, but Rocky apparently has not had time to film a video for it (a relief, actually, but notable because it is missing), and the title on the page calls it the "Ren Stick" for no apparent reason--I've never heard it referred to in that way anywhere else. The Vintage 1999 is there and he shot a video for it, but there is no mention anywhere on the site of his Seasonal Blend program that has been going on for over a year now. And there is no mention anywhere of the vast number of Rocky Patel sticks that seem to only be available through mail order/online vendors. If these sticks are good enough to carry his name, shouldn't they be represented on his website?The calendar of events was also strange. For each day, they list the total number of events. When you click on "4 Events" you will see a list of those four events. I checked the calendar for July 25 and saw immediately a big problem: no listing for the event at Burns Tobacconist in Chattanooga--an event where Rocky Patel himself is going to be appearing.
When I first looked at this site a few months ago, there was an option to click on an "HTML version" of the site, but when you did it said "Under Construction." Fortunately, that portion of the site has now been at least partially completed and you can view the product line in a fast-loading HTML page. Most of the rest of the HTML site is still not finished, though. I have limited web design skills, but I could have finished the HTML site by now.
All-in-all, this site is a major disappointment. From long load times to very incomplete product information and self-aggrandizing by the owner of the company, I just can't find much to recommend here. I'm giving it a D+ at this point, but that's only because part of the HTML site is done; without that slight improvement, the grade would be even lower.
Grade: D+
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