Computer/console games site

[maxxxie]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm starting a small business selling games for PCs and consoles, and associated accessories. I'd like your thoughts on the look and feel of my site. I've put a copy of my site at www.aussieclangames.com. Please have a look and tell me what you think.

 

To stave off the SSL comments - yes, the live site will have SSL in place! :)

 

I'm particularly concerned about the look and feel of the site. Having seen some of the sites displayed by others in this forum, I realise just how inept I am. Feel free to reinforce this! :D

 

You can do whatever you like with this site, including signing up and going through the purchasing process from start to finish. The site is not live, and will be refreshed before commencement of trading.

 

Tell me what you think - be brutally honest! I need to know.

 

Thanks in advance,

Max.

[rebugger]

everyone has their strong & weak points, so don't feel that way.

i think getting the style right is the hardest part. personally i spent a lot of time & energy on the styling of my site, and went through quite a few designs.

 

your shop looks clean & tidy but if you're looking for something more, maybe you should consider downloading a free template (some hosts provide them too), or purchasing one. (i think they are around $100?)

 

if it's important to you, and you don't have the skills & you want to spend your time on the business itself i think it's worthwhile.

 

if you've got time on your hands, there are heaps of illustrator & photoshop tutorials on the web, as well as webmaster forums.

they are skills worth developing if that's your thing.

 

j.

[driftwood]

What do you want ? A site everyone loves or a site that works because you make money off it ?

 

What I'm saying is keep in mind why you are setting the site up, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy. To some extent you don't want to give people too many options or put too much in their way.

 

My son works in this industry and when he was still at school I gave him some room on my server to host a compture reveiw site call raveware.com. Bloody thing was so popular my own site slowed down too much. Amazingly he closed the site when he started work because he didn't have time to maintain it. The reason I tell you that is to give you an indication on how popular reviews are in that industry. I would lean the site towards that side and sell the products as a side effect.

 

Keep it simple, you are not doing anything wrong from what I see, may need work on the images and perhaps you could change the enlarge button to "see back" and show the flip side of the packet. Also push rating for the games perhaps.

 

Hope that helps.

[maxxxie]

Thankyou for your comments, rebugger and driftwood, I appreciate you taking the time to visit the site.

 

Driftwood, by "push ratings", do you mean the office of film and literature classification ratings (M, R, PG13 etc)? I'll put it on my list of things to do!

 

I think I will investigate the use of templates a bit more over the next couple weeks. Rebugger, do you have any recommendations for sites that host osC templates?

 

Max.

[Guest]

looks nice, and the boxes look good.

you should improve on the header and maybe change the

welcome text

[rebugger]

sorry, no.

i never used one in the end.

 

though when i was searching for them, the templates were very easy to find.

[maxxxie]

looks nice, and the boxes look good.

you should improve on the header and maybe change the

welcome text

 

Hi moloz,

 

What would you suggest for the header? Are you referring to the graphics that are out of alignment with the "my account" etc text?

 

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions so far, keep them coming!

 

Max

[Guest]

Hi moloz,

 

What would you suggest for the header? Are you referring to the graphics that are out of alignment with the "my account" etc text?

 

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions so far, keep them coming!

 

Max

 

I would definitely touch on the header. A good branding logo for your company would be a start. Not something overly flashy. Just something that says "This is my company". Have it flow into your site. Your header is the first thing customers notice. Bad headers discourage customers.

 

I would even go as far as dropping your Paypal logo to the bottom. Maybe even changing the blue bars to something a little more aesthetically pleasing. Try a Mac/Apple style flow... Maybe, greyish gel bars.

 

Just my two cents. :thumbsup:

 

Since I own a few US based gaming sites, I'm all for Aussie sites :thumbsup: ! For some reason, Nintendo and MS seem to give them the short end of the stick even though you all have such a large gaming base per capita.