ironMIKE Posted March 31, 2006 Posted March 31, 2006 my newest shop is live now - skateboards, shoes and clothing . As i'm not much into the fashion area (...beside regi-shoes) i'd love to hear what you think.
ironMIKE Posted April 1, 2006 Author Posted April 1, 2006 Wow, 3 fake accounts from users here with names like "fdsafsad" and so on. I think people from the community here should not use such crippled logons or at least should use an E-Mail of their own instead of things like [email protected] or [email protected] which could reach a real person not involved. I'm always happy for users that create test accounts to provide feedback but some rules should be obeyed.
spax Posted April 1, 2006 Posted April 1, 2006 I like the look very much, nice job. There is a green strip at the top of the header, unlikely it is meant to be there, but if it is, I think it should go. When the center part of a page isn't fully populated, there is a light grey background. It looks as if something hasn't loaded. IMO, it would look better changing it so it looks like the rest of the page. To be honest, I don't like the footer. It seems a bit......bolted on! And I don't see the point of all that link counter, parsetime and cache info there. Error on Shipping costs: Can't open Template file: [define_shipping_1.php] The Conditions are in German! No problem if the rest was, but all else is English.
ironMIKE Posted April 1, 2006 Author Posted April 1, 2006 Error on Shipping costs: Can't open Template file: [define_shipping_1.php] The Conditions are in German! No problem if the rest was, but all else is English. Actually the shop is in german (there are 2 flags on the top left of the page), the one in charge for translations seems to have missed some files, thank you for pointing this out! Your notes on design, especially the bg-color will be updated on my next coding session. The cache stuff is in there for debugging right now and will be removed when the site ist finnished (if that can ever be the case).
rankandfile Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 I am not a seasoned OSCommerce veteran, but I think the site is pretty good overall. I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10. I dig the gray and green color scheme, but I think that you might be better served if you make your text a lighter color instead of the light gray on dark gray. You make it a point to show the German VAT info in white text. Why not reverse this and have it in light gray? I think it's more important that viewers see the links to your products than get informed about taxation. I like the gallery of logos in the lower left, but it might look better if they were displayed in 2-3 (or more) rows across the entire bottom or center column (I'm not sure if this is easy to do or not). This will take up some of that huge gray space at the bottom. When zooming in on the image of a product, the "CLOSE" option in the upper right is cut off, so that I can only see the letters "CLOS". When selecting a product, there is a ton of empty space at the bottom of the center column. I am not sure if this is by default or not, but you might want to fix it. A good example of adding more content to the products page can be seen at Joe Woodworker's Site: Example. The product pages there are loaded with useful content that customers can use: reviews, instructions, links to related products, references in magazines, even links to brochures. This not only shows the customer the price of the product, but also reinforces their purchase, instructs them on how to use/assemble it (mounting truck to deck), and shows guides them to other products that might be useful (Customers who bought this deck also bought these trucks, wheels, and decals). There is also a nice footer there. Another point is that your site took about 30 seconds to initially load. I am in the US and using the latest version of Firefox. This may not be a big deal if you are catering to customers only in England and Germany, but may be a problem if you decide to go global. All in all it looks like a good site that just needs to have some fine-tuning here and there. I hope this helps and best of luck with your store!
insyspider Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 Groundzero Clothing Shoes and Skate Shop in WORMS Did I read that right and if so what does that mean?
ironMIKE Posted April 3, 2006 Author Posted April 3, 2006 Groundzero Clothing Shoes and Skate Shop in WORMS Did I read that right and if so what does that mean? That's the city "Worms" in germany (and yes, we have problems in search engine rankings because of team 17 well known game ;))
ironMIKE Posted April 3, 2006 Author Posted April 3, 2006 I think it's more important that viewers see the links to your products than get informed about taxation. A problem here are german laws like the "Preisangabenverordnung (PAngV)" that enables your competitors to give dunning notice with enforcement. When zooming in on the image of a product, the "CLOSE" option in the upper right is cut off, so that I can only see the letters "CLOS". Thank you, fixed When selecting a product, there is a ton of empty space at the bottom of the center column. I am not sure if this is by default or not, but you might want to fix it. A good example of adding more content to the products page can be seen at Joe Woodworker's Site: Example. We actually have cross-selling and products galleries that aren't filled with information yet. But the example you gave is truly a source of perfect information! Another point is that your site took about 30 seconds to initially load. I am in the US and using the latest version of Firefox. This may not be a big deal if you are catering to customers only in England and Germany, but may be a problem if you decide to go global. 10 out of 10 for your great advises!
ksl8313 Posted April 3, 2006 Posted April 3, 2006 I like the look, including the green strip (contrary of other posters) You seem to be doing a great job, with both the regi shoes and this website. :thumbsup:
codex Posted April 5, 2006 Posted April 5, 2006 what contributions you have installed ? i would like to know. i like your images gallery. can i get some it like contribution from osc contributions list ? what template system do you use ? thank you in advance. your store looks great
ironMIKE Posted April 5, 2006 Author Posted April 5, 2006 what contributions you have installed ? i would like to know.i like your images gallery. can i get some it like contribution from osc contributions list ? what template system do you use ? Template system is based on this article: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/beyond-template-engine I came to the same conclusion as the author of the above article that php itself is perfect for template when you use the alternate command syntax The images gallery has the same structure as the categories / products scheme in osc and was written from scratch. It can not be used with or backported to any MS-Release of osC since it heavily relies on the new object oriented design of the store, it's easier to write a gallery for MS2 based on the original products/categories scheme. You can give STS Templating system from the contribs a try it's quite good for a start (as long as your server is not to busy, since it does a lot of string operations) You can see an example of a site using STS here: STS Based osC Shop (I later removed the heavy load operations be editing every file by hand)
ironMIKE Posted April 5, 2006 Author Posted April 5, 2006 what contributions you installed for this shop ? BeautyShop ? Here you go: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1032 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1359 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1501 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,338 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1041 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1480 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1373 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1347 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,598 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,160 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1008 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1524 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1529 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1689 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1055 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1709 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1435 http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2094 But all of them had to be modified to work as i needed it.
codex Posted April 9, 2006 Posted April 9, 2006 i'm talking about this one :) http://skateboards.shop-in-worms.de/index.php and this one: www.regi-shoes.com. Great shops. Very nice forum and images gallerys. i would like to get a peace of your experence.
ironMIKE Posted April 10, 2006 Author Posted April 10, 2006 i'm talking about this one :) http://skateboards.shop-in-worms.de/index.phpand this one: www.regi-shoes.com. As stated before those where made after I got more experienced in PHP, thus they are only based on oscommerce MS3-CVS. Gallery & Forums are written from scratch only using the some osc functions like date conversion and database class. Even the customer class was changed to a more general user class. and what are you using for header meta tags ? Meta Tags are generated automatically by the templating system
ironMIKE Posted April 11, 2006 Author Posted April 11, 2006 let me know if you have any problems or anything else you can think of that may deter customers from ordering, any feedback will be appreciated...thankyou - www.naturalbodyskincare.com I went through checkout w/o noticeable errors, despite paypal loading slow (about 35 Seconds, but that should not keep anyone with real interest away) There are some issues that irritate me: Why are you linking to http://www.emustore.com/ in the footer? As you promote "worldwide delivery" in the header, link to detailed shipping costs from there! The Information Box is heavily overloaded, less is more, give information about you, why should I buy at your place? Reduce the countries drop down to the ones you really want to deliver, use the countries local names => http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2485 How do you define "tons of traffic"? I need about 400 Unique visitors a day to have 2-3 orders a day, after reaching 3500 vistors a day (thats ~ 28000 impressions/requests per day) business went into profit for regi's. The skateshop now has about 80 users a day (30 from oscommerce forums, 20 from adwords and 30 by SERPs) since its' launch 2 weeks ago and has had 2 orders until now. You seem to have less than 50 users a day according to your footer stats, perhaps you could try Search Engine Campains?. But remember, I'm not the targeted audience for your product as I'd never buy such things nor do I have a credit card. So perhaps I'm not the perfect advisor for you.
boxtel Posted April 11, 2006 Posted April 11, 2006 little confused by your sitesearch. I search for "indepen" I get a search screen with the message 1 results found in .... seconds I don't see any results. does the 1 results mean that it found 1 word match? below that I see independant found 3 products in store I don't see any products I only see a google ads box and your cookies do not work right, set but not used as the session id remains in my url so maybe this .skateboards.shop-in-worms.de is not the right domain to use? light blue "close" on green is very bad to read so I would adjust that overlib window. why this text: Login with your password to continue! New with us? Click here to register with us. Registered customers of our onlineservice have full access to all areas of this site. and a Create new account! button? still need a birthdate? what is the difference between "Your Account" and "login" ? why not only show "Your Account" after login or create account? on create account: when changing the country I get a truckload of error messages in the top about what I did not supply. if I press the button I get a javascript window with those errors. I would choose one method. if you do not allow checkout of quantities beyond your stock level, then why offer a dropdown box that goes beyond that level? why this link "Your shopping cart contents" on the shopping cart page? I generally don't care how many shoppers there are with me in a normal store (except for the checkout line) so what information does it serve to tell your customers how many guests you have? I also don't care when you added stuff. "Get them while they are hot!"? come on! In my opinion, your thunbnails are much too small on the product listings. I would randomize your specials box, now I see the same product on every page. a mailto: href tag is not a good idea. if this applies: International shipping solely upon enquiry. then maybe make it a little more clear what country you are located in and/or shipping from. "Despite careful control of the contents we bear no liability for the contents of external links. Exclusively the respective operators are responsible for the contents thereof." and those external links are? Treasurer MFC
ironMIKE Posted April 11, 2006 Author Posted April 11, 2006 I search for "indepen"I get a search screen with the message 1 results found in .... seconds I don't see any results. does the 1 results mean that it found 1 word match? below that I see independant found 3 products in store I don't see any products I only see a google ads box On english pages I show adwords, as the store does not deliver much outside germany. On german pages, there is no google adwords, theres amazon book recommendations instead. I will look into the mentioned usability notice. and your cookies do not work right, set but not used as the session id remains in my urlso maybe this .skateboards.shop-in-worms.de is not the right domain to use? Right, cookies are just a backup, user tracing is always don via g&p. light blue "close" on green is very bad to read so I would adjust that overlib window. done, thank you. still need a birthdate? Had some problems with "Teledienstgesetz" in germany and the "child protection act" in US, added it thereafter. on create account:when changing the country I get a truckload of error messages in the top about what I did not supply. if I press the button I get a javascript window with those errors. I would choose one method. I could not do it better with the automated Postcode detection for Germany/Austria/Switzerland if you do not allow checkout of quantities beyond your stock level, then why offer a dropdown box that goes beyond that level?why this link "Your shopping cart contents" on the shopping cart page? Link gone like the wind, stock check included, thanks I generally don't care how many shoppers there are with me in a normal store (except for the checkout line) so what information does it serve to tell your customers how many guests you have?I also don't care when you added stuff. I don't care, but the guy I made the cart for does, so I give'em what they deserve ;) "Get them while they are hot!"? come on! Ok,ok, changed that. International shipping solely upon enquiry. Thank you Despite careful control of the contents we bear no liability for the contents of external links. Exclusively the respective operators are responsible for the contents thereof.and those external links are? Adsense for example. Or any other link the administrator will enter via HTML Editor in the future. You will find this disclaimer on every german internet page. Thank you very much for your opinions.
Chance Posted April 15, 2006 Posted April 15, 2006 I dig the popup images. Is that a contribution or custom? My advice comes in two flavors- Pick the one that won't offend you. Hard and Cynical: How to Make a Horrible osCommerce Site Warm and Fuzzy: How to Make an Awesome osCommerce Site
codex Posted April 16, 2006 Posted April 16, 2006 hi Mike, I have one question for this shop: http://beauty.shop-in-mainz.net/index.php?language=de you said you using STS plus with this shop. What contribution do you use for meader meta tags ? I'm asking because STS plus is not working with Great contribution Header Tags Controller. So any help with this question is highly apreciated. Thank you.
ironMIKE Posted April 16, 2006 Author Posted April 16, 2006 I dig the popup images. Is that a contribution or custom? It's custom made from overlib -> http://www.bosrup.com/web/overlib/ mainly adapted to fit the gd-lib thumbnailer/image resizer I use.
spr1nt Posted April 28, 2006 Posted April 28, 2006 great site, loads very quick for me. the website design and colors fit what your selling. the brand column on the right, was that from a contribution? if so, can you tell me which one? thanks in advance.
ironMIKE Posted April 28, 2006 Author Posted April 28, 2006 ...the brand column on the right, was that from a contribution? if so, can you tell me which one? The Brand Box appearing on the right when a product is shown comes with the std. osCommerce, it's not a contrib. Just enter a manufacturer with a logo an connect it to a product an the box appears.
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