My Store (Just About Done)

[ottakar]

Hi People

 

I have just spent an enjoyable few days putting together my first os-commerce based store ... would be grateful if anybody can cast a critical eye and give me some feedback. URL is as follows:

 

http://www.houseofbooksuk.com

 

Also I read quite a few comments on these boards relating to the 'need' for installing the Purchase without account contribution ... I have not implemented this contribution as it seems to me to be an unnecessary complication ... even if you allow purchases without an account your customer still has to fill in his/her name and address for delivery purposes ... and that's about all the info they have to provide when creating an account .. so why the big issue about allowing customers to shop without an account ?? ... or am I missing something fundamental ?? ... not altogether unlikely as my brain still hurts a tad from a week wrestling with OS Commerce ...

[rhodgkiss2001]

Hi People

 

I have just spent an enjoyable few days putting together my first os-commerce based store ... would be grateful if anybody can cast a critical eye and give me some feedback. URL is as follows:

 

http://www.houseofbooksuk.com

 

Also I read quite a few comments on these boards relating to the 'need' for installing the Purchase without account contribution ... I have not implemented this contribution as it seems to me to be an unnecessary complication ... even if you allow purchases without an account your customer still has to fill in his/her name and address for delivery purposes ... and that's about all the info they have to provide when creating an account .. so why the big issue about allowing customers to shop without an account ?? ... or am I missing something fundamental ?? ... not altogether unlikely as my brain still hurts a tad from a week wrestling with OS Commerce ...

 

 

Hi, I always check out the new live shops and already saw that your store is live. I notice that you don't have a lot of products? How do you get your store added to the live section? I saw that it is listed in the contributions but, it still doesn't tell you actually how...

 

I wish you lots of customers....

[radders]

Try spending a few more weeks on it.

Change the free background, the standard osc buttons, the horizontal scroll bar add SSL and add some books.

[chooch]

I THINK THE ORANGE HAS TO GO

[spax]

Either set a background colour to your header text "My House of Mosty Books" or do it again using the page background image as its background. The transparency looks terrible!

 

Lose the border on the breadcrumb trail. Very early 90's!

 

Orange and purple clash big time. Imagine what you'd look like with purple trousers and orange shoes. B)

 

Lose the counter at the bottom. It's only you who needs that information, all the users will see is a not too busy site.

[hubcat]

I find the orange text on orange background and blue text on blue background both a bit hard to read. The blue is worse, though. Maybe if you switch them or something or go to basic black. You don't want people to have to squint to figure out what you're saying.

 

It's always a good idea to give people another way to contact you. I only found e-mail. Can I call? Can I write? Do you have an address you can post to instill confidence?

 

Good luck,

Adrienne

[ottakar]

Hi, I always check out the new live shops and already saw that your store is live. I notice that you don't have a lot of products? How do you get your store added to the live section? I saw that it is listed in the contributions but, it still doesn't tell you actually how...

 

I wish you lots of customers....

 

Hi

 

I just added my store by clicking the live store link at the top of the oscommerce home page http://www.oscommerce.org/ and using the submit link ... no idea if there is any restriction on htis but I guess not 'cos they OK-ed my humble shop

 

I'm struggling with my product database ... ooops ... don't particularly like easypopulate and I haven't found any really useful way of speeding up the load process .. ho hum

 

I'm just hoping that I'll sort the product load before my store has had long enough air-time to attract customers

[ottakar]

Try spending a few more weeks on it.

Change the free background, the standard osc buttons, the horizontal scroll bar add SSL and add some books.

 

thanks for that ... will take comments on board .. more books will be added over next few days .... I'm struggling with my product database ... ooops ... don't particularly like easypopulate and I haven't found any really useful way of speeding up the load process .. ho hum

 

I'm just hoping that I'll sort the product load before my store has had long enough air-time to attract customers

[ottakar]

I THINK THE ORANGE HAS TO GO

 

Ummm .you may well be right ... I'll play with some different background colours ....

[ottakar]

Either set a background colour to your header text "My House of Mosty Books" or do it again using the page background image as its background. The transparency looks terrible!

 

Lose the border on the breadcrumb trail. Very early 90's!

 

Orange and purple clash big time. Imagine what you'd look like with purple trousers and orange shoes. B)

 

Lose the counter at the bottom. It's only you who needs that information, all the users will see is a not too busy site.

 

Hi

 

Thanks for the comments

 

The 'transparency' on the banner is actually deliberate believe it or not (meant to give a slightly 3d look) ... but I will look at it again to see if it looks better flat

 

Will try no border on breadcrumb and alternatives to orange backgrounds

 

Was already set to lose the counter 'cos it doesn't work very well anyway

 

Thanks again

[ottakar]

I find the orange text on orange background and blue text on blue background both a bit hard to read. The blue is worse, though. Maybe if you switch them or something or go to basic black. You don't want people to have to squint to figure out what you're saying.

 

It's always a good idea to give people another way to contact you. I only found e-mail. Can I call? Can I write? Do you have an address you can post to instill confidence?

 

Good luck,

Adrienne

 

Hi Adrienne

 

Thanks for that

 

The orange background gets a big vote of no confidence so I'm pretty resigned to playing with that background colour and will look at alternative background / text combinations

 

As for the contact there is a page on my server with full address and contact details ... somehow it's not linked to my contact me link ... will resolve this issue asap

 

Thanks again

[spax]

The 'transparency' on the banner is actually deliberate believe it or not (meant to give a slightly 3d look) ... but I will look at it again to see if it looks better flat

 

You may have missed my point. You have a drop shadow on the text which gives it the 3D effect, nothing wrong with that. However, you have made it transparent so it looks to be on the page background, that doesn't work.

I just had a closer look at it and had you set the transparent background colour to the colour that is behind the text now, instead of black, it would have looked better. Although making an image with a drop shadow transparent, won't work perfectly. The best way is to set the background to what is on the page and don't bother with transparency. Like this:

 

[ddp]

Hi People

 

I have just spent an enjoyable few days putting together my first os-commerce based store ... would be grateful if anybody can cast a critical eye and give me some feedback. URL is as follows:

 

http://www.houseofbooksuk.com

 

Also I read quite a few comments on these boards relating to the 'need' for installing the Purchase without account contribution ... I have not implemented this contribution as it seems to me to be an unnecessary complication ... even if you allow purchases without an account your customer still has to fill in his/her name and address for delivery purposes ... and that's about all the info they have to provide when creating an account .. so why the big issue about allowing customers to shop without an account ?? ... or am I missing something fundamental ?? ... not altogether unlikely as my brain still hurts a tad from a week wrestling with OS Commerce ...

I think you might want to install a meta tags contribution. For you since you won't want to edit each individual product you might want dynamic tags which I think is automatic.

Your privacy statement is pretty brief.

I would put an address and phone number on the contact page. I always like to see an address when I am dealing with someone.

[dandelion]

The orange, red, and purple just aren't working! Oh and the links rollover to green! There are online colour scheme selector tools that are free to use - maybe one will help you find colours that go together.

 

There is a free button generator at oscommerce-buttons.org so you can get rid of the stock buttons once you pick your final colours. Maybe a white background?

 

Also change your monitors screen resolution to 800 x 600 and you'll see that a lot of people won't see the whole shop on one screen. Use center shop to fix this.

 

You can turn off the (9) numbers in the categories - looks better

 

Good luck!

[ottakar]

You may have missed my point. You have a drop shadow on the text which gives it the 3D effect, nothing wrong with that. However, you have made it transparent so it looks to be on the page background, that doesn't work.

I just had a closer look at it and had you set the transparent background colour to the colour that is behind the text now, instead of black, it would have looked better. Although making an image with a drop shadow transparent, won't work perfectly. The best way is to set the background to what is on the page and don't bother with transparency. Like this:

 

 

Hi ... thanks again for that .. I have changed the image so it looks better but I may now steal your version ... :-"

[ottakar]

I think you might want to install a meta tags contribution. For you since you won't want to edit each individual product you might want dynamic tags which I think is automatic.

Your privacy statement is pretty brief.

I would put an address and phone number on the contact page. I always like to see an address when I am dealing with someone.

 

Hi ... Thanks for yr helpful comments

 

Have installed header tag controller contribution ..

Will look at other privacy statements and compare and contrast ...

Lack of name and address etc was unintentional screw-up .. had link to wrong page, now corrected

 

Thanks again :thumbsup:

[ottakar]

The orange, red, and purple just aren't working! Oh and the links rollover to green! There are online colour scheme selector tools that are free to use - maybe one will help you find colours that go together.

 

There is a free button generator at oscommerce-buttons.org so you can get rid of the stock buttons once you pick your final colours. Maybe a white background?

 

Also change your monitors screen resolution to 800 x 600 and you'll see that a lot of people won't see the whole shop on one screen. Use center shop to fix this.

 

You can turn off the (9) numbers in the categories - looks better

 

Good luck!

 

Hi .. thanks for yr comments .. v helpful

 

nobody liked the orange red and purple :( ... it actually looks Ok on my monitor but I do have some slight colour-blindness so it's probably my eyes rather than anything else .. anyway in view of the big thumbs down I will experiment with more neutral colours

 

Will also get rid of stock buttons ... but didn't know about that button generator ... I have used

cooltext.com in the past .. will try them both and can now look forward to hours of mindless fun

 

Hadn't tried the 800 x 600 resolution but will do now ... In theory there's a minimum shrink size code in the site to prevent the thing going loopy if viewed on differnrt resolutions .. but maybe it's not working as intended .. will investigate

 

Didin't know you an turn off numbers in infoboxes .. will certainly sort that as I agree will look heaps better

 

Thanks again ... now, do I sort this or do I sit in the sun :D

[Guest]

pwa is about not asking customers to provide details you will store, and possibly misuse, personally i never create an account to buy goods, end of story

 

instead i woulf go for fec nowadays this fixes two issues and reduces number of screens you have to use by two

[Guest]

It's getting better.

 

Delete the grey border around your info boxes...and the html code < td > Then they will be fine.

 

Use a different clipart image for your email button - the yellow/black one doesn't go with the rest of the color design.

 

Don't forget to use the banner logo suggestion on the shadowing mentioned above!

 

Keep going!

[ottakar]

pwa is about not asking customers to provide details you will store, and possibly misuse, personally i never create an account to buy goods, end of story

 

instead i woulf go for fec nowadays this fixes two issues and reduces number of screens you have to use by two

 

Hi ... thanks and point taken .. will look at fec as soon as I get a mo

[ottakar]

It's getting better.

 

Delete the grey border around your info boxes...and the html code < td > Then they will be fine.

 

Use a different clipart image for your email button - the yellow/black one doesn't go with the rest of the color design.

 

Don't forget to use the banner logo suggestion on the shadowing mentioned above!

 

Keep going!

 

Hi .. thanks for these thoughts .. it feels a bit like painting the Forth Bridge at the moment, just when you think it's sorted it's time to start again :D

 

Will try the borderless infoboxes ... and that'll teach me ... when I started I changed the format of the infoboxes by amending the html in all the individula pages .. NOT by changing the stylesheet :blush: ... hey ho, it's raining so I can't play golf anyway

 

Point taken re email gif .. will repalce (might even remove if I can't find/make cool enough one)

 

Think banner logo now OK ...

 

Thanks again :thumbsup:

[Guest]

Much better on the info boxes! Now, when you get your SSL cert logo and forms of payment accepted logos, you can create another info box in the right column and place them there - that was the right side is nearly uniform in length with the left column boxes.

 

Do me a favor - try using a light purple/lavender plain background - the black text is a tad hard to read against the textured background you currently have. If you put the background...well, in the background - your foreground stuffs (info boxes, site logo, text, etc) will pop out more. Give it a try.

[ottakar]

Much better on the info boxes! Now, when you get your SSL cert logo and forms of payment accepted logos, you can create another info box in the right column and place them there - that was the right side is nearly uniform in length with the left column boxes.

 

Do me a favor - try using a light purple/lavender plain background - the black text is a tad hard to read against the textured background you currently have. If you put the background...well, in the background - your foreground stuffs (info boxes, site logo, text, etc) will pop out more. Give it a try.

 

Hi Barbara ... I really do appreciate your helpfull critique and advice

 

The texture is meant to represent parchment (in line with the book store theme) but I'm beginning to value your eyesight, taste and discretion :) so I'll look at a light purple/lavender background asap but at the moment I'm 'struggling' with the fast easy checkout contribution ... I thought I had it working but there's a couple of 'minor' glitches ... hey ho

 

Unsure about the SSL cert logo ... at the moment I've got a temporary ssl cert issued by my hosting service and I'm not sure if I get and/or can use a logo for this type of certificate. Will look into. My choices for certificate were:

 

- my own private certificate from eg verisign (want to avoid expense of this at least at first)

 

- my own temp certificate (as currently implemented on the site) .. believe only difference is that visitors are told that certificate is from unknown source and am hoping that majority will accept this

 

- shared certificate from my hosting service .. only available on 3rd level domain so would have had to create a domain alias and not sure if this would 'work' satisfactorily

 

also take your point re uneven column lengths .. I did move the info box to the right to even things up but then I noticed that depending on the customer and whether they are new or signed in or whatever, the right hand box display varies anyway so a constantly even length is probably not possible (or is it?). Either way I agree showing payment methods on front page would be really useful so will sort it asap

 

I'm also thinking that the top of the page in the header area is a tad 'bland' and I was thinking of finding a suitable background image ... also as the site develops I am getting increasingly unhappy with the bookshelf 'logo' at the top left ... as the site starts to look more, dare I say, professional, the logo starts to look more home-made (which of course it is) .. any thoughts on these points greatly valued

 

Many thanks once again you have really been a great help :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[Guest]

If you want a parchment-like look, there are backgrounds that ARE parchment (the light tan, etc). You can keep the maroon infoboxes (might need to change the purple background of them to match the parchment color).

 

Google free backgrounds - nearly all of them offer "parchment" look backgrounds.

 

Then your bookself logo might be able to stay for now.

 

Basically, you have more room to use more colors with a light tan color background than you ever could with purple.

 

For your SSL logo - since you are currently using a shared one, you can do a quick mock up in Photoshop a lil box that states you are SSL secure - I've seen other sites do that. And once you get your own cert - you can swap out and use their logo.

 

Best of luck!