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Please Help Review My Store


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Hello all,

Please take a look at PerformancePartz.com.

 

I would appreciate feedback on ways to increase my conversion ratio, and anything else you find good or bad about the site. Please let me know its strengths and its weaknesses.

 

Thank you very much,

Ryan

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I think overall your site is quite nice. When I see the tiny text on the menus though, it just screams that a designer did them. Our designers are always trying to make the text smaller and smaller. Great job.

osCommerce is a great piece of software with wonderful contributions.

Spend some time in the contribution area. There are a lot of gems there.

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Nice site, very fast & furious.

 

Have you thought about using SSL? I know that WorldPay and PayPal gateways utilize 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer technology. But your customers personal details including usernames & passwords are travelling across the country, unprotected.

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Good idea, I will definately look into SSL for the main portions of the site right away. Any other ideas guys, especially on conversion? Anything I am missing to create trust, or is anything ambiguous?

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Hello all,

Please take a look at PerformancePartz.com.

 

I would appreciate feedback on ways to increase my conversion ratio, and anything else you find good or bad about the site. Please let me know its strengths and its weaknesses.

 

Thank you very much,

Ryan

 

Nice. We are in the same business and think your site is well suited for our business.

 

the only comment I have is about your "pick your ride" at the top. How do you use it? I selected a vehicle and it didn't seem to do anything. On my site this feature will show all products for that vehicle. if this is what yours is supposed to do as well, when a vehicle has no products you might need to display a message as such. if this is not what it is used for, I am curious how you use that information?

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Nice. We are in the same business and think your site is well suited for our business.

 

the only comment I have is about your "pick your ride" at the top. How do you use it? I selected a vehicle and it didn't seem to do anything. On my site this feature will show all products for that vehicle. if this is what yours is supposed to do as well, when a vehicle has no products you might need to display a message as such. if this is not what it is used for, I am curious how you use that information?

 

 

Ahh maybe I should explain that better to customers. Its a very cool feature I coded. Basically what it does is this, you select your car, and while your browsing categories ONLY products that match your car will be shown in the product listing.

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Ahh maybe I should explain that better to customers. Its a very cool feature I coded. Basically what it does is this, you select your car, and while your browsing categories ONLY products that match your car will be shown in the product listing.

 

really? that sounds cool. does it work well? I agree though that at first glance it looks like a search box so you might want to let customers know this is what it does...

 

with my vehicle search, I added a counter so I can see how used it is. Over the past year 90%+ of customers seem to browse the store using the vehicle search which leads me to believe many customers only prefer to browse products for their specific vehicles. You should emphasize that part of your store!

 

:thumbsup:

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I think your best bet might be to install the recover cart contrib. Then you will be able to actually contact customers who changed their minds at some point in the checkout process, and hopefully find out why (if you're nice!). You might also try posting a some kind quick site survey to try to get feedback from site visitors. With our store, we try to get a dialogue going with the customers, get them comfortable with us, and then we can ask them for their opinions on the site, and how they found us, etc.. Since we have a rapport going, we get pretty straight answers from them.

 

Jeremy

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Nice site, very fast & furious.

 

Have you thought about using SSL?? I know that WorldPay and PayPal gateways utilize 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer technology.? But your customers personal details including usernames & passwords are travelling across the country, unprotected.

 

I'm pretty sure oscommerce uses MD5, or the php password() function.... someone sniffing packets and "viewing" your scrambled password is very unlikely to be able to cause any harm.

 

I think SSL is a great idea, but your password is very encrypted before it is sent to the database.

I need to read the rules more often...

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I agree with everyone on the design and aesthetics of your site.

 

Cart recovery is nice. Another idea is one that you seem to incorporate. Newsletters. They are the key to getting people's attention that you are still alive. The best newsletters for your site would be to incorporate ezines on the major manufacturers, such as Nissan, Honda, Ford, etc. This could be where customer feedback and demos could bring in information on the most popularly searched manufacturers. You could also bring in newsletters on the specific types of modifications: imports, dragging, etc.

 

Another great way to incorporate new sales is with your current customers. Offer them coupons or special deals at specific times via e-mail. Use your current customers as your demo base by presenting them with special savings or coupons if they will simply take the time to answer a few questions for you. Sweepstakes are good for this too, but generally speaking sweepstakes can cost more investment if you want them done properly and legally.

 

I agree with Westkoast on the security of osC too. The only benefits of an SSL for you would be implied security for customers. They like seeing that little "s" in the address bar when submitting any type of information; plus, some browsers can be configured to display waqrnings when submitting information in an "insecure" format. The customer really doesn't "KNOW" that osCommerce is so well protected.

 

"Let's all make rediculous amounts of dough!"

 

Ruhl

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Can you please explain the aspect of newsletters more? I have not been using these effectively, and I am eager to learn. What sort of ways does a newsletter help boost sales?

Thanks a lot!

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Newsletters are a way for you to open up a dialogue with your customers. In one sense they let your customers know that you're there, and remind them of your site. That can be good or bad. If it comes across as nothing more than an ad for your site, they'll probably feeled spammed and that their trust has been abused, but if you can provide them with relevant, valuable information that they are glad to have received, then they will think more highly of you, and your site, and may choose to purchase from you. Your newsletters can incorporate, among other things specials and offers as mentioned above, but most importantly, you need to provide content that is useful or entertaining to your subscribers. It's not something to be entered into lightly, in my opinion, because it's a lot easier to screw it up, than it is to get it right.

 

My 2 cents,

Jeremy

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Ryan,

 

Your site is a diamond in the rough! Great, unique incorporation of osC into a style of your own. Site doesnt feel packaged, nor do the colors contrast. You've obviously put time and attention into this project, as well as one remodel after the next.

 

Product info page are very informative, clean, and full of content.

 

Simply put, TIGHT. ;)

Carpe Carp: Seize the Fish.

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I found a little bug. You have still installed the german language. My browser's(Firefox 1.0 ) default language is german and so german language is automaticly selected.

I think you know what this site looks like in german? There isn't one customized text.

Just deinstall the german language and the problem will disappear.

 

with kind regards

 

Kobold

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Newsletters are VERY easy to screw up. The best information on them is do not start one until you are absolutely ready. Creating a cheesy salesman e-zine at the beginning will hurt you in the long run.

 

If you have the resources, play on the car manufacturers or genre newsletters. For example, let's say you have an Import Tuners' newsletter. Each week, bi-weekly or even month you could present relevant articles to your customers. Do not include the articles in the newsletter, only the teaser. The teaser is the text that gets the reader's attention, thus compelling them to click the "Read more..." link and being directed to your site.

 

The best articles are the ones that you can incorporate your products into. Let's say a new intake is available for Honda Civics and Preludes. If you are doing Imports OR Honda newsletters, include the article in your next newsletter with the new product constructively placed throughout the article using links.

 

I would highly recommend visiting established sites and signing up for their newsletters. Note how they construct their newsletters and place ads (that's what they are after all) for their products inside the copywrite.

 

The worst-case scenario for a newsletter would be to establish good copywrite, send the teasers out, and on the articles on your site have banners and advertisements for relative products.

 

As an example only, I manufacture merchandise and then sell it. We have excellent market in each holiday. For each holiday (and there is pretty much one a month) we send out a newsletter with departments. That is, decorating tips (with our products of course); What's New; and a proprietary column on health and aromatherapy. It has taken us quite some time doing the research, creating the copywrite, etc. However, the sales resulting from our efforts has far surpassed our business plan and has made a huge impact in the way we market our products and services.

 

In short, do your research and put the effort into, because newsletters are an exceptional source of revenue and produce unheard of ROI.

 

BTW, there are plenty sites out there that can be utilized for information. Most are sales pitches, but Internet.com offers good, straight-forward info. They have a site dedicated to newsletter and e-zine creating and marketing.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ruhl

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How do you get informational text when someone clicks on a catagory.

 

Example, if you click on "Air Intakes" category, the new page with a little bit of information on Cold Air and Short Ram Intakes as well as a list of products available.

 

Thanks.

 

nvm. I think I found it. There is a contribution called Category Description.

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How do you get informational text when someone clicks on a catagory.

 

Example, if you click on "Air Intakes" category, the new page with a little bit of information on Cold Air and Short Ram Intakes as well as a list of products available.

 

Thanks.

 

Hi That is called the category description contribution, you can find it on this site.

Furthermore, I have updated the select a ride feature, it's TIGHT now..

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Firstly, congratulations on a great looking site. Very slick!

Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problems as most OSC stores under the hood.

 

For a start, I don't know whether you get most sales from repeat customers or not, but OSC is notoriously unfriendly for "casual buyers" - people who just see something they like, add to the cart and checkout with minimal fuss.

in OSC you have to go through the tedious process of creating an account, then going through far too many steps on the checkout to add to the hassle.

 

I don't know if this is something affecting your sales or not - but I'd recommend you at least look into the "purchase without account" contribution to see if that would help.

 

Additionally, don't ask for gender on the account creation - it should really be made optional, or better yet, removed completely.

 

You need an SSL certificate. End of story.

 

In account creation, postcode should come after state/province.

 

Suggest you default the country drop down to USA.

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Yup you really have a good site there. I show yours to the other industry guys when I show them my services and they ask who else has the vehicle selection feature, because even some of the big players in this industry don't.

 

I looked at your prices and they seem pretty inline. I think they were a little high last time I checked.

 

Also I hope you are aware that the industry isn't really doing all that well right now. Its still winter time and some of my friends who WD say the industry is slow compared to last year this time.

I ♥ PHP/MYSQL/CSS

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Also I hope you are aware that the industry isn't really doing all that well right now.  Its still winter time and some of my friends who WD say the industry is slow compared to last year this time.

 

up 3 times compared to last year. Also the BIG WD's are reporting some of their best #'s ever.....

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