Black Hole Books

[Guest]

I'm selling second hand books online. If it is successful, I'll open an actual shop in town. I've already got a shipment of books coming from the USA, since we in Australia have a rather limited market and don't see a lot of the books printed over there.

 

http://www.blackholebooks.com/

 

I've been using Link Market to exchange links and hopefully get a higher search engine rank, although it seems the folks on the other end of the "exchanges" don't want to have a link to my site.

 

So far I've only included Paypal for payment options. I'm still checking out other services which work in a similar manner. Any suggestions about such things would be welcome.

 

Anyhow, feel free to tell me what you think, and give me some suggestions.

 

PS: Thanks to the many people on these forums who have helped me out recently.

[rommany]

I can give you a little help,

 

The black doesn't work for me i would go for a cleaner look for books, you need to change the small icons, the checkout page has non-secure items, you need a thumbnail contribution, i see no tel number or address, people would like to know they can contact you other than email.

 

As for the link market site, as i also exchanges links there i know not many will exchange links with you if you do not have a pr, try the free directories first, yahoo, dmoz, joe ant and i would paid some of the smaller directories as long as they have a high pr, then think about swapping links with other book shops, once you have a pr then people will be more willing to exchange links with you.

 

Hope that helped a little.

 

Regards

 

David

 

PS

 

Yahoo and joe ant will charge but in my opinion its well worth it.

[ecopeia]

I agree dude, the black is a little painful. A clean white site is what I think would make a more successful online bookstore. Or even at least use a gradient.

[chooch]

Unfortunately I agree, the general views about black are correct.. I know it is your store name 'black hole books' but the site is too dull.

 

The magenta buttons do not go with the site and the stock images in the right of the header have to be removed or replaced.

 

I have seen at least 2 sites that were black and they were really good sites as they had one main advantage over your site - they were modified so much that they were not stock looking sites. Your site is hardly modified and it shows.

 

You should review your site, make a plan to improve and start work slowly.. Good Luck.

[Guest]

I've started altering the appearance somewhat.

[Guest]

I actually like the default layout. I may change that later though. For now I'm ok with that aspect of the site.

 

I think what I need now is more payment options. Are there any as easy and common as Paypal?

[♥Vger]

Woagh! Major eye strain. Not a site I'd want to keep looking at - it would give me a headache in double-quick time.

 

Vger

[*c57.us*]

The black makes it a little hard to read for people who wear glasses and more. But if you really like the black, why don't you go with a black image somewhat transparent in the background to look like a watermark. But definately do a white or very light background. Books come in so many colors and you want all the attention on the books, not the color of the site. I've tried many different things myself and what I finally came up with is this http://www.c57.us as much as I love color I tried to keep it simple.

 

Also, ther are many people including myself with several books, usually I throw them out or give them away. If you don't already have somthing in place maybe you could give some type of incentive for people that have books they don't use anymore.

 

Wish you the best with your site.

 

By the way, does anyone know how to get rid of the oscommerce stuff at the bottom. I already got rid of the banner. I would like copyright of my business name at bottom.

[RelentlessSkateshop]

Everybody has bad things to say about black. Get yourself on myspace.com and check out some profiles that have a black theme to get some ideas of how to make it work. Black is not easy, but to get black to work at all, you seem to be on the right track. There are color suggestions at www.w3schools.com that you'll find extremely helpful, as everyone who gets into design should know about.

 

Considering all the arguments for a black theme, consider yourself how many e-commerce websites you've come across that have a black theme. There aren't many, not necessarily only because of readability, but limitations imposed by the black background. I found a website called t-shirt hell that made the black work.

 

Good luck,

Jeffrey

[bjbtexas]

I've read a little about Color psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_psychology

 

My new site www.sigfas.com is an exact opposite. Critics don't like my plainness -- Can’t please them either way.

 

I've always wanted to do a darker color site. To me the darker color implies danger, sexuality and adventure. The dark color sites I see that work well are highly graphic with a lot of flash and generally are not directly selling items to the general public.

 

I think you can make it work, but I believe you’ll have an uphill climb with everything you do. All the stock icons and graphics tend to be for white backgrounds -- to make black look right you’ll need lots of extra graphics work. Good Luck!

[RelentlessSkateshop]

All the stock icons and graphics tend to be for white backgrounds -- to make black look right you’ll need lots of extra graphics work. Good Luck!

 

Some crazy guy that posts alot in this forum (maybe even on this thread!) made a bunch of black icons and posted them as a contribution...I hear he likes cats.

[chooch]

I actually like the default layout. I may change that later though. For now I'm ok with that aspect of the site.

 

I think what I need now is more payment options. Are there any as easy and common as Paypal?

You have NOCHEX too....

 

I'm glad you like the layout, you should be proud of your work but i sincerely think a re-design should be on your agenda

[bkkbint]

You have NOCHEX too....

 

I'm glad you like the layout, you should be proud of your work but i sincerely think a re-design should be on your agenda

 

 

I agree with everyone who has not liked the black. It's really difficult to read and it also swallows the photos of your products.

[bjbtexas]

Black works check out sites like www.gmc.com or www.harley-davidson.com. But notice they don't sell they inspire you to go buy.

 

These sites use bold graphics not little ones that get lost in the darkness. Notice that when you start looking at details things bright up considerably - in all black/dark is hard work.

[ecopeia]

Black works check out sites like www.gmc.com or www.harley-davidson.com. But notice they don't sell they inspire you to go buy.

 

These sites use bold graphics not little ones that get lost in the darkness. Notice that when you start looking at details things bright up considerably - in all black/dark is hard work.

 

Harley uses Gray, not black. There is a huge difference. And GMC uses a black background for the site, not the body. Plus thats not even true black like on blackholebooks.

 

Anyway, Dude, your site is not a place where anyone that i know would want to sit and browse, which is part of the point. I can hardly stand to look at the index page for more than a second without hurting my eyes. I hate to be so blunt, but I feel like all of our comments on that have gone totally ignored, which to me, is a mistake since we represent something like a customer base and many of us have researched market strategies and are more or less experts, in our own right, on marketing ecommerce sites.

 

You have to remember, you want a site that will drive your customers in, a site that they will want to hang around in. Not a site that will cause a migrane.

 

My suggestions?

 

1. Change all of the elements that are white, like header navigation, buttons, and all body text to another color other than white. Like maybe even a 10% black shade of gray. A slight variation of the white, but not that blinding contrast. In the header bar, why don't you use a shade of gray similar to what you used in your infoboxes. That would definitely give it a more fluid feel.

 

2. Change all the hot pink text to something smoother, like perhaps a darker or more pastel pink. That pink is killing me, I'm serious. And it may turn off men from browsing besides.

 

3. Remove this:

How to use this website

Over in the top left corner is the menu of book categories. Click on Fiction or Non-Fiction, and the selected category will expand to show sub-categories. Click on any of those to see which books we have available. If you wish to purchase a book, you will need to create an account here.

Most people who shop online can figure this out for themselves, except the create account part. But you already said it in the top about creating an account. Incorporate the text there about an account being mandatory.

 

4. If you are going to have the buttons in the header, you must remove the text links beneath it. They are repetitive and redundant.

 

5. The purple buttons don't even go with the site at all. Go here osCommerce Button Generator or Here and get you some new buttons.

 

6. Something is wrong with your urls. Here is one:

http://www.blackholebooks.com//product_inf...bf426e0663f7db3

It shouldn't have two forward slashes after your domain. You need to change this in configure.php

 

7. Your category images are sized wrong. You need to fix this in the admin. This image

has 100x35 dementions. They are getting squished.

 

8. You need to change or remove all stock table_background images. You can either replace them or there are contributions out there that are transparent images to replace them.

 

Whew. Thats not all of my suggestions, but only what i think are definitely necessary for your success. I just had to get that all out. I've been following this post since the begining, and I really want to help you. I hope I have.

 

Good Luck! And please forgive my forwardness.

[Guest]

How's this:

 

Do a Fixed Width w/CSS contribution. Have your site's width roughly 800px wide.

 

Do the background of the page to be black or a muted astronomy theme image, and the site's background to be white.

 

Leave your logo banner black for obvious reasons.

 

Then, you have a white background so you can use whatever color(s) you wish for links and such.

 

THis way, your Black Hole/Astronomy theme can still be played out nicely and professionally, but you have a white background for all the text and images of your products - which will allow your products to be seen much better.

 

Also, you do need to reduce each image's file size and/or use an image contribution, such as Image Magic. Everything is taking WAY too long to load.

 

When you are offline and have some free-time, think about ways to make your store standout from other bookstores online.

 

I believe there's a points-based contribution - do some kind of promo of buy "x" number of books and get $5.00 off the book of the month. (Or collect so many points and get $5.00 off the book of the month).

 

Spotlight an author and his/her books, with a special sale for those items.

 

Add a message board to your site so visitors can discuss books and authors.

 

Surf competitors - Big names and small timers - see how their sites are designed. What do you like, what turns you off. How many are doing newsletters???? That's another thing you can do - a monthly newsletter.

 

As you design your site and you think of these unique aspects, they can be incorporated into your design from the get-go ... makes it easier in the long run.

 

Best of luck!

[bjbtexas]

Black Templates

 

I'm not selling it, nor advocating it -- I'm just saying it can be done. I have no intent to split hairs on what's black, gray or charcoal.

 

Black and other dark colors -- are just harder too make it look good.

 

[shooter-boy]

Hi Adam,

 

I don't actually mind the look of your site, but do agree with what others are saying about global accessability etc.

 

Anyway, my single (but serious) comment is your hard coded links.

 

You should use the tep_href_link link wrapper function for ALL links. Otherwise people lose cart contents of they click on them with cookies disabled.

PM me if you need some clarification on how this works.

 

Good job on getting your site up and running.

Great to see another Aussie on the boards.

 

Rob

[Guest]

Hello again.

 

I have implemented several of the suggestions, and agree they make it look better. I'll keep working on the rest as I get some free time.

 

For now, I'm not sure how to fix that double slashes in the URL problem. Here is my configure.php"

<?php

// Define the webserver and path parameters
// * DIR_FS_* = Filesystem directories (local/physical)
// * DIR_WS_* = Webserver directories (virtual/URL)
 define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.blackholebooks.com/');
 define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.blackholebooks.com/');
 define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure webserver for checkout procedure?
 define('HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'www.blackholebooks.com/');
 define('HTTPS_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'www.blackholebooks.com/');
 define('HTTP_COOKIE_PATH', '/');
 define('HTTPS_COOKIE_PATH', '/');
 define('DIR_WS_HTTP_CATALOG', '/');
 define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/');
 define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/');
 define('DIR_WS_ICONS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'icons/');
 define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/');
 define('DIR_WS_BOXES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'boxes/');
 define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/');
 define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/');
 define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/');
 define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/');

 define('DIR_WS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', 'pub/');
 define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', dirname($HTTP_SERVER_VARS['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) . '/');
 define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'download/');
 define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/');

// define our database connection
 define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
 define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'secret');
 define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', 'secret');
 define('DB_DATABASE', 'secret');
 define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
 define('STORE_SESSIONS', '');
?>