Feedback/criticsim welcome

[Guest]

Ok after my first attempt and stuffed up not giving my address, some found it anyway..

 

Please review my now updated site and let me know,

 

Criticsim etc welcom and now for the link

 

Caglas Beauty please Review Me

[Guest]

Ok after my first attempt and stuffed up not giving my address, some found it anyway..

 

Please review my now updated site and let me know,

 

Criticsim etc welcom and now for the link

 

Caglas Beauty please Review Me

 

 

Ok.. before i get shafted for not having the "powered by oscommerce." i don't know where i deleted any help???

 

I am proud to have an Oscommerce built site and want it back please help

[blackriverbaskets]

Alter the footer.php in catalog/includes

 

with that said, and since you're going to fix that problem I'll give my review.

 

First, the site isn't bad, a little sterile in the sense that it doesn't really jump out and catch my attention. You might want to try brighter colors, or possibly a different banner image that might make things more inviting. You should also make the banner link to your index.php or make a home link, you'd be suprised at how many people will overlook the breadcrumb, especially yours because it is differentiated from your banner.

 

I would give yourself more of an identity, instead of writing Caglas' Beauty in Times New Roman, choose another font, it just looks kind of generic. Your sites title is Cagla's Beauty, but your Banner says Caglas' Beauty. Your categories make no sense to someone like me, I don't know what Erruptable and Unpredictable refer to. I see there are male and Female symbols next to them, but that still doesn't say enough to me, I originally thought they might be some kind of brand. I'm going to stop at this last part, there are tons of spelling mistakes throughout your site.

 

I bash on CNN if they make one mistake, I wouldn't purchase from a site that didn't spell well. Just copy and paste all text from your site in to Microsoft Word and you'll see red and green everywhere. Just run it through the spelling and grammar check and slowly read it out loud. That's what I do to make sure it sounds right.

 

I hope these items will help you better design your site and lead you to a more lucrative business venture, good luck with everything and have a great day.

 

Kristofer

[Guest]

Alter the footer.php in catalog/includes

 

with that said, and since you're going to fix that problem I'll give my review.

 

First, the site isn't bad, a little sterile in the sense that it doesn't really jump out and catch my attention. You might want to try brighter colors, or possibly a different banner image that might make things more inviting. You should also make the banner link to your index.php or make a home link, you'd be suprised at how many people will overlook the breadcrumb, especially yours because it is differentiated from your banner.

 

I would give yourself more of an identity, instead of writing Caglas' Beauty in Times New Roman, choose another font, it just looks kind of generic. Your sites title is Cagla's Beauty, but your Banner says Caglas' Beauty. Your categories make no sense to someone like me, I don't know what Erruptable and Unpredictable refer to. I see there are male and Female symbols next to them, but that still doesn't say enough to me, I originally thought they might be some kind of brand. I'm going to stop at this last part, there are tons of spelling mistakes throughout your site.

 

I bash on CNN if they make one mistake, I wouldn't purchase from a site that didn't spell well. Just copy and paste all text from your site in to Microsoft Word and you'll see red and green everywhere. Just run it through the spelling and grammar check and slowly read it out loud. That's what I do to make sure it sounds right.

 

I hope these items will help you better design your site and lead you to a more lucrative business venture, good luck with everything and have a great day.

 

Kristofer

BlackRiveBaskets.com

 

 

Thanks for your responce and honest criticsim, i thought i had the spelling checked... i am curious if maybe your american? Anyhow still i will re rerun spell check through the site,

 

As to the Name in Banner etc. I like your honesty and that's why i asked for honest criticism, i am looking at changing/modifying it.

 

As to the catalog, Would you say it would be more advisable puting Mens Range, Womens Range etc?

 

I have only been using osc for a month and i have larnt alot, and can see the learning will never stop..

 

Many thanks, anyone else's opinion

[Guest]

Good Evening Eoghan,

 

See ya got the powered by up :) .

 

Your pages loaded way too slow, even on DSL. The smallest product picture I found in the Erruptable category was 225Kb. Use a thumbnailer or reduce their size by other means, they are just too big.

 

"Customers who bought this product also purchased" is nearly unreadable, please change font colors.

 

At first I thought that "Categories" and "Range Details" seemed to be the same thing. Now I understand that you separated your category descriptions away from the categories.

 

Why is COCOVAN in all caps?

 

Your "Buy Now" and "Add to Cart" buttons have a white border when they are set against anything but a white background.

 

Your header picture is pleasant to look at.

 

I clicked on "Download Cataglog" and a new page opened with the pdf file loaded into it. I was expecting a "save to disk" dialog box to open. No right/wrong here, just stating my expectations.

 

While visiting your privacy page I wondered why you even mentioned eoghanarnold.biz.

 

Your site doesn't look bad, but to me it seems to have a canned template feel to it.

 

On the NONSSL create_account page the table-background image is too tiny to read (as are most others). My onscreen magnifying glass told me it reads "account". Why am I required to give you my gender and birthday to make a purchase?

 

On your about_us page, I really had a problem with: "Other reasons stream from being bored at home when i am off on work cover". Your started Cagla's Beauty because these products helped your Daughter. Market that aspect - not that you are bored.

 

I think some of the stuff mentioned is just being nit picky. I think I'm in that mood tonight, didn't get any beer. In my opinion the biggest problems are the size of the images and your "I'm bored" statement.

 

Okay, I just created an account. How do I access My_Account page? I had to type in http://caglas-beauty.com.au/account.php to view my account page.

 

The check out pages looked rather nice and clean. No shipping charges to the United States? WOW

 

The paypal checkout page is the FIRST mention of payment in AUD that I remember seeing. And I really felt fleeced seeing [email protected] on the top of the paypal page. You should tell me before hand that you are trying to run multiple stores from the same paypal identity.

 

I hesitantly tried the band transfer method of payment. (I am thinking that it is one thing to give my credit card details to a store, but giving my banking information - NO WAY.) I was pleasantly surprised to see that is a consumer initiated transfer.

 

The continue button on http://caglas-beauty.com.au/checkout_succe...p/action/update loops back to the same page.

 

This concludes tonights test of your site. Thank you and have a great evening.

[maxxxie]

Let me preface this response by saying that although my comments might sound a little harsh, they're not intended that way. :)

 

The good:

 

I like the banner up the top and the surrounding colours. I like the Ulysses butterfly picture too!

 

I like the idea of store news, but I think you could afford to treat it less like a blog and more like a daily/weekly newsletter.

 

The bad (I'm sorry there's so much more of this - I know it's easy to criticise, don't take it to heart):

 

Your site really is full of spelling and grammatical errors, and it has nothing to do with the Australian/American spelling differences. And I have to echo dcphosting's comments about your "About us" page. You're bored? You're on compo? No-one wants to know about this. They want to know how long you've been in business, and what the major goals of your business are (apart from "making money"). If you have some exclusivity in distribution, they might also want to know about that (eg "We are the sole Australian distributor for such and such", or "We deal exclusively in such and such line of products").

 

Your returns policy is unclear. You cannot afford ambiguity in a policy. "etc" should never appear in a policy as it is open to interpretation. I do not know where your business is located (since your "contact us" page doesn't include a postal address), so I cannot give you a direct link, but I suggest you visit your state government's fair trading web site. This site will give you information on how to form a clear returns policy.

 

You need an obvious link for people to create an account, to log onto an existing account, and to check out. I found your checkout by adding a product to my cart, and then clicking on the cart link. Many consumers wouldn't think to do this. I think the checkout link needs to be as obvious as possible, or people will just abandon the purchase.

 

In the account creation process, I do not like being forced to provide DOB information, or information about my gender. If you really must ask these questions, at least make them optional. My preference is to not be asked at all. I understand you might want this information to generate demographics about your customer base, but I think it will put customers off. Also, do you ship outside Australia? If not, remove mention of all the other countries in the drop-down box.

 

There is no easy way for me to check my account information. What if I have changed address? Or I want to view order status?

 

What shipping methods do you use? I wasn't prompted to select one, or advised of shipping charges. This information also needs to be spelled out in your shipping and returns policy. Have you installed an Australian shipping module? There are some good ones out there that use the Australia Post website to generate shipping costs and expected delivery times on the fly.

 

I didn't put an actual order through as I don't want to clog your database with dodgy orders. So I went to my cart and selected the item I'd added to the cart, clicked the "remove" checkbox, and clicked update. And it did not empty my cart. After that, I tried to increase the quantity of the item (put "2" in the qty box) and clicked update. It did not alter the quantity of the item. So now, I have one item in my cart that I can't remove nor can I increase the quantity to order. I think this will result in lost sales for you. I suspect you're using the Ultimate SEOs contribution. I suggest you check the support thread as I'm pretty sure there is a bug fix for this behaviour.

 

Ok, I'm done being nitpicky. I've had my own osC store open for just on 12 months now, and I have to say it's been a long, hard road. And when people tell me there's a problem with my site, it is hard not to take it personally. But hang in there. Improvements early on in the life of your business' online presence will make all the difference in the long run. Customers are fickle; if something about your site puts them off, they'll never come back. Get it right now, and the sales will start coming through :)

 

Max

[Guest]

Let me preface this response by saying that although my comments might sound a little harsh, they're not intended that way. :)

 

The good:

 

I like the banner up the top and the surrounding colours. I like the Ulysses butterfly picture too!

 

I like the idea of store news, but I think you could afford to treat it less like a blog and more like a daily/weekly newsletter.

 

The bad (I'm sorry there's so much more of this - I know it's easy to criticise, don't take it to heart):

 

Your site really is full of spelling and grammatical errors, and it has nothing to do with the Australian/American spelling differences. And I have to echo dcphosting's comments about your "About us" page. You're bored? You're on compo? No-one wants to know about this. They want to know how long you've been in business, and what the major goals of your business are (apart from "making money"). If you have some exclusivity in distribution, they might also want to know about that (eg "We are the sole Australian distributor for such and such", or "We deal exclusively in such and such line of products").

 

Your returns policy is unclear. You cannot afford ambiguity in a policy. "etc" should never appear in a policy as it is open to interpretation. I do not know where your business is located (since your "contact us" page doesn't include a postal address), so I cannot give you a direct link, but I suggest you visit your state government's fair trading web site. This site will give you information on how to form a clear returns policy.

 

You need an obvious link for people to create an account, to log onto an existing account, and to check out. I found your checkout by adding a product to my cart, and then clicking on the cart link. Many consumers wouldn't think to do this. I think the checkout link needs to be as obvious as possible, or people will just abandon the purchase.

 

In the account creation process, I do not like being forced to provide DOB information, or information about my gender. If you really must ask these questions, at least make them optional. My preference is to not be asked at all. I understand you might want this information to generate demographics about your customer base, but I think it will put customers off. Also, do you ship outside Australia? If not, remove mention of all the other countries in the drop-down box.

 

There is no easy way for me to check my account information. What if I have changed address? Or I want to view order status?

 

What shipping methods do you use? I wasn't prompted to select one, or advised of shipping charges. This information also needs to be spelled out in your shipping and returns policy. Have you installed an Australian shipping module? There are some good ones out there that use the Australia Post website to generate shipping costs and expected delivery times on the fly.

 

I didn't put an actual order through as I don't want to clog your database with dodgy orders. So I went to my cart and selected the item I'd added to the cart, clicked the "remove" checkbox, and clicked update. And it did not empty my cart. After that, I tried to increase the quantity of the item (put "2" in the qty box) and clicked update. It did not alter the quantity of the item. So now, I have one item in my cart that I can't remove nor can I increase the quantity to order. I think this will result in lost sales for you. I suspect you're using the Ultimate SEOs contribution. I suggest you check the support thread as I'm pretty sure there is a bug fix for this behaviour.

 

Ok, I'm done being nitpicky. I've had my own osC store open for just on 12 months now, and I have to say it's been a long, hard road. And when people tell me there's a problem with my site, it is hard not to take it personally. But hang in there. Improvements early on in the life of your business' online presence will make all the difference in the long run. Customers are fickle; if something about your site puts them off, they'll never come back. Get it right now, and the sales will start coming through :)

 

Max

 

Hiya All, Gees so many bugs i did not know.. Thanx, Max.. I don't take it to heart, it is a bug i haven't found and feel appreciated that you have discovered the bugs for me...

 

The Cart Thingie ok.. I'll look into it (i have 80 Customers who have bought in the last 4 days and none of them have mentioned bugs) so an independendant reviewer who can find them is great.

 

The About us... I have removed the bit about being bored etc..

 

The Sign Up, Removed the cumpolsory Gender have added a note: (reason for asking D.O.B is my store generates a gift voucher for birthday, and sends it via email congratulating them for their b/day)

 

 

Spelling and grammatical errors.... argh i knew i should have paid attention in all my english classes. ( i always figured i never going to England so why should learn English?? Just kidding.)

 

And i need to get into the PHP and clean it up.. :)

 

Thanks guys..

 

P.S. Your test accounts have been deleted :)