We kindly request feedback on our shop :)

[loveacrossborders]

Hi Folks,

 

My wife and I have been working for about a month and a half with OS Commerce to set up our small "Thai Shop" online. This is our first foray into anything business related. I'm also a newbie when it comes to design and php code.

 

A month and a half later this is what we have been able to do: http://shop.loveacrossborders.com/index.php

 

I have made quite a few of modifications to the shop, using about 25 contributions (big and small) from this site, to be exact.

 

Until now we'd only given the site url to a few friends. We don't care what kind of feedback we get, as long as we get some feedback.

 

In particular we'd like to know:

A) Any suggestions to speed up the load time of the shop? Chemo has given this community some great suggestions over the last month. My wife and I have used the Page Cache contribution and also shut off "category count" under the Admin Control Panel.

B) I think that our biggest weakness might be the graphical element of the shop. I've tried my best to make the site uncluttered and relatively simple to use. We'd like feedback on any changes that we could make to the design or layout of the site to make it look better or easier to navigate.

C) Does our banner look good or bad at the bottom of the page? Originally it was at the top, but it seemed like people had to scroll down too far to get to the rest of the page.

D) Do the infoboxes - especially the color and the "curves" make this site look unprofessional?

E) Could the site use more information and pictures about where our products come from?

F) Would there be a better way to integrate a bulletin board into this website? For the time being, all we have is a link at the bottom of the page. We use Ikonboard right now, but might purchase Invision Power Board.

G) Any suggestions to make our shop a bit more "community-oriented".

H) How could we make an announcement to let our customers know that shipping will be significantly cheaper if they purchase 10KG+ worth of goods.

I) Some of the product pictures have a watermark with our site url. Do you think the watermarks look bad?

J) How do the products look? Any suggestions to improve the layout of the product listings? I feel that this is another weakness that we have right now :(.

 

Thanks especially to Jack, Chemo, 241, and many others whos posts we've read the last month and a half.

 

Any feedback whether good or bad is much appreciated!

 

Shaun & Natlada :thumbsup:

[loveacrossborders]

*sigh* 44 views and yet no feedback :(.

[CgFreak?]

very nice things you have there but i did noticed that when you click on an image for a larger view a get this error

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/product_info.php on line 282

[boxtel]

Hi Folks,

 

My wife and I have been working for about a month and a half with OS Commerce to set up our small "Thai Shop" online. This is our first foray into anything business related. I'm also a newbie when it comes to design and php code.

 

A month and a half later this is what we have been able to do: http://shop.loveacrossborders.com/index.php

 

I have made quite a few of modifications to the shop, using about 25 contributions (big and small) from this site, to be exact.

 

Until now we'd only given the site url to a few friends. We don't care what kind of feedback we get, as long as we get some feedback. 

 

In particular we'd like to know:

A) Any suggestions to speed up the load time of the shop? Chemo has given this community some great suggestions over the last month. My wife and I have used the Page Cache contribution and also shut off "category count" under the Admin Control Panel.

B) I think that our biggest weakness might be the graphical element of the shop. I've tried my best to make the site uncluttered and relatively simple to use. We'd like feedback on any changes that we could make to the design or layout of the site to make it look better or easier to navigate.

C) Does our banner look good or bad at the bottom of the page? Originally it was at the top, but it seemed like people had to scroll down too far to get to the rest of the page.

D) Do the infoboxes - especially the color and the "curves" make this site look unprofessional?

E) Could the site use more information and pictures about where our products come from?

F) Would there be a better way to integrate a bulletin board into this website? For the time being, all we have is a link at the bottom of the page. We use Ikonboard right now, but might purchase Invision Power Board.

G) Any suggestions to make our shop a bit more "community-oriented".

H) How could we make an announcement to let our customers know that shipping will be significantly cheaper if they purchase 10KG+ worth of goods.

I) Some of the product pictures have a watermark with our site url. Do you think the watermarks look bad?

J) How do the products look? Any suggestions to improve the layout of the product listings? I feel that this is another weakness that we have right now :(.

 

Thanks especially to Jack, Chemo, 241, and many others whos posts we've read the last month and a half.

 

Any feedback whether good or bad is much appreciated!

 

Shaun & Natlada  :thumbsup:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

if you use box headers, you need box borders otherwise it looks kind of strange.

 

if you offer different languages, you also need to provide product descriptions in that language.

 

change your link hover settings because the pages shift when moving over links.

 

and yes, you have this poblem:

 

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/product_info.php on line 282

 

 

 

and this one:

 

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare startelement() (previously declared in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/modules/rss_reader.php:46) in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/modules/rss_reader.php on line 46

 

my suggestion, don't implement every contribution you can lay your hands on. Make your basic site solid first and then consider additions and only if you REALLY need them.

 

contributions will make your site more complicated, slow and more difficult to maintain. Only use them if you must.

 

Other than that, good effort, still some way to go but on track.

[loveacrossborders]

very nice things you have there but i did noticed that when you click on an image for a larger view a get this error

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/product_info.php on line 282

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Got rid of that.

 

if you use box headers, you need box borders otherwise it looks kind of strange.

 

if you offer different languages, you also need to provide product descriptions in that language.

 

change your link hover settings because the pages shift when moving over links.

 

and yes, you have this poblem:

 

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/product_info.php on line 282

 

and this one:

 

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare startelement() (previously declared in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/modules/rss_reader.php:46) in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/modules/rss_reader.php on line 46

 

my suggestion, don't implement every contribution you can lay your hands on. Make your basic site solid first and then consider additions and only if you REALLY need them.

 

contributions will make your site more complicated, slow and more difficult to maintain. Only use them if you must.

 

Other than that, good effort, still some way to go but on track.

 

I put back the borders for the boxes. I agree, it looks more 'rational' to have borders go with box headers.

 

It'll take time to add the product descriptions in a different languages.

 

I commented out anything having to do with RSS for the time being.

 

Thanks for the constructive comments! :D

[Guest]

*sigh* 44 views and yet no feedback  :(.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I clicked on Specials from the login page and got:

 

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: clean_html_comments() in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/header_tags.php on line 140

[Guest]

I clicked on Specials from the login page and got:

 

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: clean_html_comments() in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/header_tags.php on line 140

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the photo pages, the images for downloads and prints seem to be just placeholders.

[loveacrossborders]

I clicked on Specials from the login page and got:

 

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: clean_html_comments() in /homepages/37/d92431318/htdocs/shop/includes/header_tags.php on line 140

 

Fixed the problems with specials.php - All I did was comment out the line that was in error. I probably wouldn't have ever noticed this error unless you posted about it. Thanks baddog!

 

On the photo pages, the images for downloads and prints seem to be just placeholders.

 

Those photos haven't been added yet :).

 

For anyone out there who's curious, I'm using the Options As Images 1.2 contribution which allows you to set images for attributes.

[Madman00]

Just one questions, How did you modify the mouseover colors of your category box.

 

Fixed the problems with specials.php - All I did was comment out the line that was in error. I probably wouldn't have ever noticed this error unless you posted about it. Thanks baddog!

Those photos haven't been added yet :).

 

For anyone out there who's curious, I'm using the Options As Images 1.2 contribution which allows you to set images for attributes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[loveacrossborders]

Just one questions, How did you modify the mouseover colors of your category box.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

All that I did was edit the stylesheet.css and changed the font color for hyperlinks.

 

e.g: A {color: #ff6699;}

 

Hope that helps.

[Andrew Yuen]

Like your site I am half Thai :-) Anyway fix those borders they need help. First thing I noticed were the corners are messed up on all info boxes. Get rid of the shadow on your categories box. Scrolling specials = very annoying to me. Also fix your footer does not look good. Center your store put it in a fixed width table. Other then that good job keep up the good work.

[loveacrossborders]

Thanks Andy for the feedback :)!

 

LOL, but I just spent two hours yesterday installing the Shadow Controller contribution. I had to manually change every main php file for that to work. Oh well, luckily if need be I can switch it off from the admin. control panel.

 

I like it with the categories infobox only because it seems to be an easy way to make the categories - stand out -.

 

I'm not sure what else to do with the borders. What would you suggest?

[Andrew Yuen]

Hi Shaun,

I don't know if this is an option for you but most of the sites that I have designed using oscommerce do not have infoboxes with borders. Instead the swides are a solid color. Check out my jewelry website store and it will probably give you a better idea of what I am trying to say. Hope that helps.