Second Store not performing as well as first !

[gforster]

Hi

 

My first store has been very successful, although we didn't stray too far from the stock look we did enough to make it look the part and it is now my full time job.

My wife runs a small online shop selling Nappy Cakes (don't ask) and it has been a great hobby business for her, however when she saw the bathroom site she asked if I could convert her shop over to osCommerce which I happily did.

 

I took the site down for a month or two and rebuilt it with osCommerce, I managed to get the ranking back (we are top 3 in google for all our keywords) and the traffic level is better than it has been for a while (around 100 uniques a day) but the sales have pretty much stopped.

 

For this industry that level of traffic isn't bad and we are used to a conversion rate around the 2% mark which again I am happy with but since the change we are only doing around 1 sale a week :angry:

 

The customers are not being put off at the checkout as they are simply not getting that far, I have some good contribs installed (as per my bathroom store) and I think the photos are good quality. I have installed a new logo (and I am in the process of changing the colour scheme to match so please excuse the stock colour at present).

 

What have I done wrong to put people off, I am sure it's right under my nose and everyone will give me the grilling I deserve :blink:

 

The site is Nappy Cake Shop

[Guest]

When I went to check out your site, it seemed a little slow, even with my Comcast Broadband connection. So, I plugged your main URL (www.nappycakeshop.co.uk) into websiteoptimization.com's page load analyzer, and came back with the following times:

 

14.4K: 127.79 seconds

28.8K: 65.99 seconds

33.6K: 57.17 seconds

56K: 35.98 seconds

ISDN 128K: 13.93 seconds

T1 1.44Mbps: 5.04 seconds

 

Those times are pretty staggering! 35 seconds to load your main page with a 56K connection is huge!

 

You can get your complete report by entering your URL at:

 

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

 

I would tackle these issues first. Most customers will leave your site in 8 seconds or less.

 

There is an excellent forum discussion on improving the speed of site here:

 

A Store Speed Optimization in Progress

 

Hope this gives you a starting point, at least.

[gforster]

When I went to check out your site, it seemed a little slow, even with my Comcast Broadband connection. So, I plugged your main URL (www.nappycakeshop.co.uk) into websiteoptimization.com's page load analyzer, and came back with the following times:

 

14.4K: 127.79 seconds

28.8K: 65.99 seconds

33.6K: 57.17 seconds

56K: 35.98 seconds

ISDN 128K: 13.93 seconds

T1 1.44Mbps: 5.04 seconds

 

Those times are pretty staggering! 35 seconds to load your main page with a 56K connection is huge!

 

You can get your complete report by entering your URL at:

 

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

 

I would tackle these issues first. Most customers will leave your site in 8 seconds or less.

 

There is an excellent forum discussion on improving the speed of site here:

 

A Store Speed Optimization in Progress

 

Hope this gives you a starting point, at least.

 

Hi there and thanks for the observations however I question the accuracy of this tool.

 

Firstly I tried to replicate the problem you encountered on several different PC's and could not, so I looked more closely at the tool you used. According to that Amazon takes 75 seconds to load with a 56k connection and we all know of course that this is not true. I tried several other high profile sites and got similar results.

 

It did however point out that two of my images were 3 times bigger than actually being displayed and therefore wasting bandwidth etc

 

I do appreciate the help and keep the comments coming but I cannot take the times from that tool seriously....

[Obewanz]

I would have to say that at this point the load time was quite acceptable. (didn't see it before)

 

That said, it is a stock osc site with nothing to really grab my attention except that the product/catalog images just don't fit with the color/style of the site/store. Since what you are presented for product has an aura of design, you should seriously consider changing the look and feel of the site by using templates or changing it otherwise. I wouldn't purchase from this site as it looks too amateurish. The product images aren't very clear either.

 

Sorry, but I just don't see anything here that makes me want to take action, or even return to the site. I really wish that I could put my finger on why the site makes me feel this way, but the best I can do is color and imagery.

[Guest]

Hi there and thanks for the observations however I question the accuracy of this tool.

 

Firstly I tried to replicate the problem you encountered on several different PC's and could not, so I looked more closely at the tool you used. According to that Amazon takes 75 seconds to load with a 56k connection and we all know of course that this is not true. I tried several other high profile sites and got similar results.

 

It did however point out that two of my images were 3 times bigger than actually being displayed and therefore wasting bandwidth etc

 

I do appreciate the help and keep the comments coming but I cannot take the times from that tool seriously....

 

Well, it could have simply been a tad slow when I tried to access it. There were a lot of images on your main page (13 or 17, I forget which). That will always cause the projected download times to be high.

 

It should be pointed out that the times are for a straight 56K connection - not the connections equipped with download accelerators, as are commonplace from places like PeoplePC, etc.

 

Also, I wouldn't argue with the Amazon time. It takes a while for the page to load the first time for me on broadband (by "a while", I mean 5-6 seconds). There are a lot of images on their main page. Of course, if you are a frequent visitor, than a lot of the download is chopped to caching.

 

It was simply an observation. Maybe the times aren't exactly accurate, but the tool is well known in the designer/developer community (a former teacher of mine showed me the site). It isn't necessarily that the times are dead-on accurate - it just shows you where you can improve your site's speed somewhat.

 

It all boils down to the timeless "size vs. speed" argument...

[Zews]

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