How does it look now?

[moonbeam]

Well it is still a work in progress. I would like to know what yall think thus far?

 

Store link

 

Always greatful,

Moon

[RyanSmith]

Well it is still a work in progress. I would like to know what yall think thus far?

 

Store link

 

Always greatful,

Moon

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yikes, thats slow to load. I really don't like the flash, and the whole site looks a little bit amateur. I would start by installing a thumbnail contribution, and make web-sized graphics of everything else, then repost.

[♥toyicebear]

Slow load time...

 

I got so turned off by your opening page that i did not even visite your catalog.

 

Time for a major rework....

[moonbeam]

Ryansmith, Thankyou I understand just what you mean. I will get right on it!

You are right, I am amateur :D . Just tryin to make my mark!

 

Slow load time...

 

I got so turned off by your opening page that i did not even visite your catalog.

 

Time for a major rework....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

:'(

Thats to bad you got turned off so quickly. I would have liked to hear why you think it needs a major rework. Instead you just bash and run. That really does not help people. Is it the slow load time? What about the opening page? Is it the logo, colors, what??? I guess its just not worth your time. huh? :blush:

[RyanSmith]

Just because your an amateur, that's no reason not to reach for excellence. The flash was just a real turn-off for me. I have seen some good flash, but for the most part, flash is over-used, and used incorrectly. I hate when people add flash to their sites just for the sake of having flash. It makes the site busy, and distracts from what you really want your visitors to be focusing on. I admit that when flash is done correclty, it can add a great professional feel to a site, but it's just not an easy thing to do. And if you don't know how to do it correctly, just don't do it at all. It's like he was saying, it's hard to get past the landing page.

[moonbeam]

I have no question about what you said. You made yourself clear. That was just what I was looking for. Ryan I am reaching for excellence other wise I would not have put myself out there. I agree with you and see just what you are saying. Thanks again

All in all I was trying to get away from the standard cluttered stock oscommerce. In effect I am trying to make something clean and easy to use. It's not done by no means.

It's a little hard to remedy something people don't like without knowing what it is. You, Ryan on the other hand ...clear as a bell.

[FalseDawn]

It takes a _lot_ of effort to make a good website. For example, when I'm doing product photos, I usually take 40 or 50 of them, and choose the 2 or 3 best ones, then spend an hour or 2 in photoshop painstakingly trimming the background and resizing.

You really need to be able to put this amount of dedication and time into your store, or it will always be just a hobby.

 

Some specific comments:

Don't let the background run between your header "bars" at the top - it looks disjointed.

As far as the bacground goes - hmmm - not overly keen!

There's a bit too much "whiteness" going on - your links going from purple to green look bad in the header. Maybe investigate some javascript mouseover or CSS effects to improve this.

 

Your home page is a bit bland. Too much whitespace.

You've removed the left and right columns, but are not making use of the space.

 

At the moment, your categories are very sparse - are you thinking of adding more items in the future? If not, there seems little point in having a category with just one product in it.

 

I think with all the comments about your flash, you'll remove it now? :-)

[moonbeam]

It takes a _lot_ of effort to make a good website. For example, when I'm doing product  photos, I usually take 40 or 50 of them, and choose the 2 or 3 best ones, then spend an hour or 2 in photoshop painstakingly trimming the background and resizing.

You really need to be able to put this amount of dedication and time into your store, or it will always be just a hobby.

 

Some specific comments:

Don't let the background run between your header "bars" at the top - it looks disjointed.

As far as the bacground goes - hmmm - not overly keen!

There's a bit too much "whiteness" going on - your links going from purple to green look bad in the header. Maybe investigate some javascript mouseover or CSS effects to improve this.

 

Your home page is a bit bland. Too much whitespace.

You've removed the left and right columns, but are not making use of the space.

 

At the moment, your categories are very sparse - are you thinking of adding more items in the future? If not, there seems  little point in having a category with just one product in it.

 

I think with all the comments about your flash, you'll remove it now?  :-)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes oh yes the flash is now gone.... :blush:

yes um I am trying to implement a dhtml menu to replace the current green/purple links. However, I am having trouble getting it to work.

As I am also having problems installing the thumbnail cotribution so that I could add more products. I will get it though. I thought I should get a reaction before I spend another 3 months working on something that no one likes.

Thank you so much for taking the time to point out area's of work and not just generalizing. :thumbsup:

[RyanSmith]

You have to be real careful with DHTML menus. I think that they're cool, but for a lot of people using them, they can be really frustrating. You have to consider all the people using trackballs, touchpads, and all the other silly mouse contraptions out there that are much more difficult to point accuractly with than a regular mouse.

 

That being said there are some cool DHTML menus out there for free on DynamicDrive. I always head out there for the base of my DHTML menus.

[KodiakToolseller]

I ran an order through as [email protected]

 

I found a couple things you may want to consider addressing.

 

1) You may want to think about reducing the number of countries in the drop down menu. I only have "United States" available to my customers. I am not set up to ship to foreign lands. When I get orders from Mexico and Australia, I handle them through e-mail and the phone. I got complaints from customers who kept missing united states and hitting countries like uganda and the UK

 

2) When I went to check out, I chose USPS at $4.95 for shipping but your site charged me around $75.00 for shipping

 

3) You may want to consider changing "post code" in the account set-up area to "zip code"

 

 

Hope this is helpful. I think your site is clean and straight forward. With the type of products you're selling, you can't make it look too serious, it has to look fun.

[moonbeam]

Ryan thanks for the tips on dhtml. I will check it out!

 

Dave, I configure countries to show only what was needed. Oversight on my part havent even thought of that one!

Now the shipping thing really bothers me, every time I run a test it calculates everything just fine. I ran 9 different tests all with different products and I tried all the different shipping options for each test. Everything seems to calculate just fine. I wish I had the details on your test.

Clean and straight forward, cool man thanks for the shout and yes sir it was helpful.

 

Always greatful,

Moon

[KodiakToolseller]

Moonbeam,

 

I tried to get the shipping issue to happen again but had no success. Maybe it was just "one of those things".

Seems to work perfect now.

[moonbeam]

Kodiak,

I don't know what that glitch was all about. But, thanks again for following up. You are an asset to the community!

Always greatful,

Moon