CRE Loaded Store - Artful Objects, Jewelry, Home Accents - feedback?

[gallerygirl]

I started working on a store for our gallery in January, and finally have it to the point where either I'm satisfied or my technical expertise has hit a wall. I used CRE Loaded standard. I have no PHP skills, limited web design skills.

 

We've had no sales yet, but several accounts created. Likely that's due to the fact we currently have shared SSL (dedicated is on the way in a few days).

 

http://www.lbvgallery.com/shop/

 

So far I've installed & done the following:

-added 250 products that are best-sellers from our store + interesting things that generally aren't available elsewhere on the 'net

-took pretty photos, optimized them

-wrote interesting product descriptions including lots of measurements

 

-Chemo's SEO URLs

-dynamic Sitemap

-Google Sitemap (and submitted to Google)

-submitted google base feed

-have meta tags + meta descrip for each product

-made an RSS feed and submitted to some directories

-made a widget with the RSS feed

-submitted to ~400 directories from the Vilesilencer list

-submitted to all search engines

-added GiftWrap module

-accept CCs (except AmEx) for manual processing in our retail store

-accept PayPal (am upgrading to business PayPal)

-accept checks/giftcards/store pickups

-offer free shipping over $50, flat rate $4.20 for purchases under $50

 

-changed the stock layout's colors and buttons to match our original site

 

Problems/Issues I'm aware of:

-no dedicated SSL (is coming as soon as I get a CSR)

-checkout is LONG and looks slightly unprofessional

-can only view 12 items @ a time

-a few products are lacking descriptions

-our shopping site is in a subdirectory (not sure how this affects things)

-haven't installed an auto-thumbnailer

 

What else can I do? I'd love to change the template and integrate the shopping site with our custom-designed website, but I don't have the skillz nor the budget to pay someone to do so.

[♥Vger]

This is the osCommerce Forum - we don't deal with CRE Loaded here.

 

Vger

[♥toyicebear]

A important tip till anyone considering to do a purchase in this shop, pay by PayPal and do not under any circumstances use your credit card.

 

-accept CCs (except AmEx) for manual processing in our retail store

 

Since they are on shared hosting the shop can hardly be PCI compliant in regards to storing and handling the cc info.

 

The shop is also illegally collecting and storing your CVV/CVV2 number for offline processing.

 

 

 

For the shop owner.

 

My advice is remove the cc payment option or to get your self a payment gateway solution for cc processing in your online shop.

 

As it is now you stand a real chance of loosing your merchant account, getting blacklisted from getting a new merchant account and facing stiff fines.

[gallerygirl]

CRE Loaded is osCommerce... and the CRE Loaded forums are pretty much dead. I've learned so much from these forums and all of my mods were gotten from the osCommerce site. I don't see why the fact that I'm using a modded version of osCommerce would render this community unable to give feedback.

[gallerygirl]

A important tip till anyone considering to do a purchase in this shop, pay by PayPal and do not under any circumstances use your credit card.

Since they are on shared hosting the shop can hardly be PCI compliant in regards to storing and handling the cc info.

 

The shop is also illegally collecting and storing your CVV/CVV2 number for offline processing.

For the shop owner.

 

My advice is remove the cc payment option or to get your self a payment gateway solution for cc processing in your online shop.

 

As it is now you stand a real chance of loosing your merchant account, getting blacklisted from getting a new merchant account and facing stiff fines.

 

Woah, I didn't know this. I was under the impression that the way that CC #s are handled (by separating the CC# and CVV/CVV2 from each other, one in admin and the other in email) that this circumvented the problem.

[♥toyicebear]

Woah, I didn't know this. I was under the impression that the way that CC #s are handled (by separating the CC# and CVV/CVV2 from each other, one in admin and the other in email) that this circumvented the problem.

 

NO it do not.

 

 

Storing the CVV number in any form is not alowed. You can not store it in the db and you can not circumvent that by sending it by email eighter.

 

 

To repeat you can not store CVV number in an online shop for later offline processing at all.

[gallerygirl]

NO it do not.

Storing the CVV number in any form is not alowed. You can not store it in the db and you can not circumvent that by sending it by email eighter.

To repeat you can not store CVV number in an online shop for later offline processing at all.

 

 

Manual CC Processing is now disabled...

[jonquil]

gallerygirl,

 

I like the shop but you ask for date of birth, which does you no good and makes me uncomfortable. SSL Cert is a must, of course.

 

You can minimise the category image dimensions to 1x1 since you don't use them anyway. And I would center your shop to 1000 px wide.

 

Load time is quite slow, so another reason for me to move on (and away).

 

You might try an incentive in-house: For every business card (and email address) collected, send to the person's email address a 10% voucher that they can use when they register to make an online purchase. A little marketing like that can go a long way.

 

jon

[gallerygirl]

gallerygirl,

 

I like the shop but you ask for date of birth, which does you no good and makes me uncomfortable. SSL Cert is a must, of course.

 

You can minimise the category image dimensions to 1x1 since you don't use them anyway. And I would center your shop to 1000 px wide.

 

Load time is quite slow, so another reason for me to move on (and away).

 

You might try an incentive in-house: For every business card (and email address) collected, send to the person's email address a 10% voucher that they can use when they register to make an online purchase. A little marketing like that can go a long way.

 

jon

 

Jon,

 

Thank you for taking the time to critique our site! I have removed the date of birth field, and am working on making other changes based on your recommendations. Reducing load time is so hard... I have read Chemo's thread about extra queries but a lot of that is above my head. I hope that a thumbnailing contribution will help the load time.

 

And in-house based marketing campaign is a good start; I have a few ideas up my sleeve for other marketing ideas, but I want the website to be fully functional & professional looking first.

 

Thanks much -

gallerygirl