My very first store - please take a look (Take 2)

[jazzboe]

Ok, let's try again...

 

This is my very first store. Any comments would be greatly appreciated so I know what to do and what NOT to do again.

 

http://www.cyclecentral.com.au (this link works for me in both Firefox, Mozilla and Safari)

 

I have had some feedback on my previous attempt at this topic (I forgot to add the URL last time :P);

 

A couple of members weren't able to load the site (some because of above....)

 

One member didn't appear to have the correct page loaded first (could be a http:// instead of https:// error or visa versa in the configure.php)

 

If you receive these errors, or have found other problems also, can you please let me know. Good points can help too sometimes...

 

Thankyou to those who helped on the first attempt.

 

-J

[allaboutwicker]

Hi, Your site looks great! I only had a minute to peek at it, but what I saw I liked. The only thing I would consider questionable and this is only my opinion is the color scheme in the top bar being blue and orange. The footer bar works with the white and orange, but my eyes have trouble seeing the blue words well for some reason, probably just my old eyes!

 

By the way, what contrib did you use for the tabs across the top? I have seen these before and like them, but haven't searched yet for a contrib.

 

Best Wishes to you.

[Guest]

I think your site looks good. I have to say I am new to this myself. I like the header and footers. I also like your info boxes.

 

A couple of things struck me. Most notably your whole site seemed to be running through SSL. This made it very slow to load. I was still waiting on pictures apearing after about 30sec. However, when I started looking in a bit more detail your site seem to be using SSL inconsistently. Sometime used http: and others using https. Very strange! I am afraid I can offer no suggestions as what might be causing it.

 

I think if you get this fixed it should load a bit faster (I did find it quite slow). I think on a more general note you could jazz it up a bit more. I does still have look alot like basic OSCommerce site.

 

Hope this is useful.

 

Dan

[philbydevil]

Hey jazzboe, the site looks good. Haven't really clicked around the whole store but the general feel is good.

 

Ditto to changing the orange/blue for the top bar (probably the bottom one too if the top's changed). Maybe change the background to blue and text to white (the same as the links above it)??

 

Also, in the bottom bar, I really think that it looks better if "requests since..." is removed.

 

And your redirection from the homepage: www.cyclecentral.com.au seems to be pointed towards a https address. Maybe remove 'Top' from your breadcrumbs (ie. top orange bar).

 

Nice buttons.

[jazzboe]

Thankyou all for your feedback. Combined with the comments from my first post, I will need to look at;

 

- Touching up the breadcrumb (remove the TOP>>). I was going to get rid of the Breadcrumb altogether, thinking that it wasn't necessary....however, University marketing / business courses recommend breadcrumbs.....so I'll just get rid of the TOP>> option

 

- Make the colours of the footer and header bars the same.

 

- Will have to investigate the SSL thing - I have been doing a little reading on it - I think some of the external links cause problems with the secure / non-secure items issue...

 

- I will dig out the contribs I used, including the tabs - a great, simple contrib to use.

 

Again, thanks for the feedback :)

[jazzboe]

OK, for those who were wondering what contribs I used;

 

The tabbed menu

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/5214

 

Graphical Borders

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/1702

 

Specials Box

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/4010

 

Thumbnailer

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/5491

 

Extra Pages

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/2021

[allaboutwicker]

Thanks for the tips on the contribs you used! I would like to recommend another one for you. I see you got rid of the Let's See What We Have Here stuff, but now it just either shows Categories or your website name. Maybe you want it like that, but if you want the specific category or subcategory name to show there here is an easy contrib to do that. I will just post it here as it was only a text file:

 

Page Heading Title: Follow these instructions to Get rid of "Let's See What We Have Here" for SubCategories and "Categories" for Top-Categories. Replace them with the name of categories or Subcategories name:

 

In the /catalog/index.php, there are three <?php echo HEADING_TITLE; ?>

 

FOR CATEGORIES, just replace the first one

<?php echo HEADING_TITLE; ?>

 

TO

 

<?php echo $category['categories_name'] ?>

 

 

FOR SUBCATEGORIES, just replace the second

<?php echo HEADING_TITLE; ?>

 

TO

 

<?php if (isset($HTTP_GET_VARS['manufacturers_id'])) {

$category_query = tep_db_query("select manufacturers_name from " . TABLE_MANUFACTURERS . " where manufacturers_id = '" . (int)$HTTP_GET_VARS['manufacturers_id'] . "'");

$category = tep_db_fetch_array($category_query);

if ($category['manufacturers_name'] != "") {echo $category['manufacturers_name'];} else { echo HEADING_TITLE;}

} else {

$category_query = tep_db_query("select cd.categories_name from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES_DESCRIPTION . " cd where c.categories_id = '" . (int)$current_category_id . "' and cd.categories_id = '" . (int)$current_category_id . "' and cd.language_id = '" . (int)$languages_id . "'");

$category = tep_db_fetch_array($category_query);

if ($category['categories_name'] != "") {echo $category['categories_name'];} else { echo HEADING_TITLE;}

}

?>

 

 

The third <?php echo HEADING_TITLE; ?>

Nothing needed to modify.

 

Best Regards!