Online Computer Store Feedback Requested

[Guest]

Hi All,

 

I was looking for feedback from the osCommerce community regarding our online computer store. We have spent a lot of time customizing osCommerce to suit our needs and are now getting ready to start advertising. Before we go into it, I was hoping to have some realistic feedback about the site in general. Please comment on ease of use, attractiveness and overall experience of using the site.

 

For now the site will me marketed primarily towards a Canadian demographic, although we do have the capabilities of international shipping (UPS).

 

Also, please note that I am aware of the terms of use and privacy policy not displayed at the moment. These are under final review and will be posted shortly. As well the flash banner on the left side will be updated shortly (too fast, spelling issues, not clear).

 

This has been quite a learning experience and I hope to learn some more from your guys.

 

Thanks in advance. :thumbsup:

 

site: http://www.tecomputers.ca

 

Martin

[PD_Steve]

Nice design... One small problem which could cause you to lose visitors though:-

 

Your animated swf/flash area is very slow loading and is the first to load up. I received a white screen for about 8-10 seconds until the site appeared (complete white screen, not just the flash area). Now the flash is buffered it loads much faster but this might be something you need to address.

 

I would add a loading bar into your flash as its obviously quite a large swf file. At least then your customers will know that the site does exist and is not going to time out.

 

Search for swfobject also and use that to integrate your flash into the design to remove the "click here to activate" Internet Explorer issue. Swfobject embeds the flash into javascript and this stops the rather irritating MS "you have to click to use this flash" problem.

 

Just for reference so you can benchmark. I am on a 20mb Cable connection from the UK on a Quad x6700 PC.

[PD_Steve]

Oops, final note. Remove the hits counter. Low hits make your site look unpopular and only stand to give you a negative. You can reactivate them once they are in the millions :)

[Guest]

Hello,

 

Nice work. The site looks clean, it is easy enough to navigate and it looks like a computer store.

 

I agree with the flash and counter recommendations.

 

Also:

 

I don't like the "this product was added to our catalog on" in product_info.

 

The colors of your heading text and table backgrounds (stock oscommerce colors I think), most noticeable on your shopping cart, are too purple. They clash with the silver grey used on the site.

 

Overall, it is a good design.

 

Best,

Catherine

[Guest]

Thank you both for the feedback. I will make these changes asap. :-)

 

Martin

[modulate]

Like the site, great use of graphics.

 

In your about us, little typo..

 

..they began their planning towards their dreams and on October 27th, 2007 There Exist Solutions & Designs Ltd. was born.

[Jaide]

I would change the links (on hover, the blue) to a different color, and take out the -> in the links as well.

 

Neat layout and animated image in the header!

[georgec]

- "Log In / Checkout / mini cart" menu - change the font to match the rest of your site (sans-serif font family)

- change the a:hover color of your categories menu. Make the font of the categories menu larger. it is where you want your customer to look after they see your specials, right? think like a customer. "Ok.. i like what I see here.. now where's the rest of the stuff... oh wait.. there's something.. but its too small and i'm sitting here in this dark room ... ugh.. as soon as I put the mouse on top of the menu item it disappears into the background.. wtf? where's the "w00t" effect? you got my point :) maybe replace the text w/some graphics? or add some bullets? talk to Jaide here (ezdecal.com) ... she's the cool-category-menus-queen!

- Either make your video wider or your boxes area narrower

- Make your boxes... less square. maybe round up top right and bottom left corners... or add some background to the box header

- Advanced search - your magifying glass button is not aligned with the search field (at least in firefox)

- once inside a category.. the table header and border colors do not match your color scheme

- As someone already mentioned, remove the counter or atleast make the font black so only you know its there and can check it by selecting it

- product_info.php - add some space between the price/add to cart button and the right border

- specials (above the categories menu - you have white bg on your product images.. its ok.. but add a border around it.. "border: thin solid #cccccc" would do

- comodo authentic site thingy.. do you really want to put it where noone would see it? after all you paid money for it, right? :) move it to some place under the categories

- the movie under the search box.. it has some text from the right border to the left... needs some padding - fix your flash

- about us -text touches the right border

 

Its a good start... keep it up that way!

G

[georgec]

I would change the links (on hover, the blue) to a different color, and take out the -> in the links as well.

 

Neat layout and animated image in the header!

 

Were you reading my mind when I was writing my post? :)

[Guest]

Service page is in different style/font to rest of site

 

Do not ever expect me to create an account just to buy stuff, I WON'T DO IT

 

You have hidden the most interesting stuff about your company below the guff on the about us page. Although you may think that this is interesting I am afraid noone else will, the same as noone cares about my life story. I have a thousand things I would like to read, that isnt one. What people are likely to be interested in is that you build good quality systems.

 

I suggest your About Us page changes to a more "Why Are We Here?", explain the idea behind your business, i.e. "Quality Custom Builds At Low Prices", then show how you do something customers might not expect, do it as a story like "How we got Jims Custom parts working together with Vista, blah blah", make sure the story shows how you make different, and how it supports your "IDEALS". Then put a link with a headline, "Joes Huge Disk Failure", in your flash. If you have the flash source code then try adjusting the loading so that the most important parts, load first then others load later.

[Guest]

Awesome feedback everyone. We'll get to work on this and should have the changes complete by the end of the week!

 

About what georgec said in regards to the comodo logo.

 

- comodo authentic site thingy.. do you really want to put it where noone would see it? after all you paid money for it, right? move it to some place under the categories

Through research I have discovered that in fact, placing it higher (like at the top or side panel) might not help with conversion. The reason is that most e-commerce sites in consumer minds have some sort of security, and by placing it higher on the front page might make a consumer think "they're trying too hard"... If you look at some of our main competitors in our area http://www.tigerdirect.com/ , http://www.canadacomputers.com/ and http://www.directcanada.com/, just to name a few, they have their site seal on the bottom as well. More important the conversion is overall look and feel (which I thank you for addressing). However b/c we are unknown (and therefore likely not blindly trusted) I was considering getting the comodo "corner of trust". Please give me your thoughts and feedback on this. I also wanted to let you know that the site seal shows up next to the CC entry field on the payment page (something you guys would not see unless your were buying something).

 

I suggest your About Us page changes to a more "Why Are We Here?", explain the idea behind your business, i.e. "Quality Custom Builds At Low Prices", then show how you do something customers might not expect, do it as a story like "How we got Jims Custom parts working together with Vista, blah blah", make sure the story shows how you make different, and how it supports your "IDEALS". Then put a link with a headline, "Joes Huge Disk Failure", in your flash. If you have the flash source code then try adjusting the loading so that the most important parts, load first then others load later.

Great idea! In this saturated market we need to do everything we can to differenciate ourselves. Thank you!

[Guest]

Thank you for all the feedback again. I wanted to notify you all of the changes that have been implemented so far based on your feedback.

 

- Used SWFObject to load our flash. We put the code at the bottom of the Page and Used a Flash loader to ensure the page comes up as quickly as possible. Please test this and let me know if the page still takes too long to show up.

 

- The counter is hidden now and we have finally removed the arrows (->) for the side navigation pane and changed hover to red.

 

- We have changed all of the colours of OSC to match our grey theme.

 

- Updated the look of the specials page by adding boxes around the items on sale. This way it doesn't look like the specials are floating around... lol We haven't however put the border around the specials image above the categories menu as georgec mentioned. I guess I missed that one. Will have to implement in the next round of updates.

 

Other changes not mentioned in this thread:

 

- Added phone # and customer service hours in a visible location to help conversion. Also signed up and implemented the "hacker safe" logo. I have read in this forum a few threads debating hacker safe. I will tell you that I believe it is necessary for new business to maximize conversions from the ever increasing skeptical online shopper. I will say however that I don't think it’s worth the $1800.00 USD that they want for it. To that end I am happy to report that it is possible to negotiate with them for a substantially better price. PM me if would like to know what I am paying. :-)

 

- We also implemented the Fast Easy Checkout Module and are working on modifying the XML output to meet the formatting needs of one of the price comparison sites that we have signed up with.

 

Changes that we are planning for the near future::

 

- Improve the experience of the “Customize your PC” to make it more user friendly.

 

- Implement one of the Froogle modules (any recommendations would be appreciated).

 

- Update the flash ads to keep them current make it more inviting for customers to shop with us.

 

Sorry for the long winded post. I just wanted to give you all an update. I hope to hear more continued feedback from you as we keep tweaking this site. Thanks.

 

Martin