The English Paper Company online store

[Guest]

An ecommerce solution I have just done using osCommerce and Barclaycard ePDQ as the payment gateway. Although live, is still a work in progress, as I am looking into setting up an SSL certificate for my client, and just a few general tweaks here and there. Also uses STS and a few other contributions. :)

 

URL: http://www.englishpapercompany.co.uk/store

 

Sam

[cmakynen]

An ecommerce solution I have just done using osCommerce and Barclaycard ePDQ as the payment gateway. Although live, is still a work in progress, as I am looking into setting up an SSL certificate for my client, and just a few general tweaks here and there. Also uses STS and a few other contributions. :)

 

URL: http://www.englishpapercompany.co.uk/store

 

Sam

 

 

I like the overall look of the site - its got a nice balance of white space and colour. Following are minor items that should be easy to fix.

• Your menu bar along the top (Home, Paper Range, Craft Accessories etc.) doesn't work isnt clickable. Can't view source so I can't tell if its just my version of Explorer at fault (6.029/sp2) or if the link logic is just missing. It works at your homepage, http://www.englishpapercompany.co.uk/index.htm, but inside the online store at http://www.englishpapercompany.co.uk/store/index.php is where it stops working.
  
• Consider replacing the standard buttons (the revews, add to catalog, etc.) - this contrib might look good, they are black/white buttons: http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/5874
  
• In the left panel, you have a drop down for catalogue categories, and immediately below it a menu of categories too - pick the one you like and get rid of the other.
  
• Terms and Conditions page - spaces are missing between words - its hard to read!
  
• Also on the T and C page - you refer to "The Dekko Web Site" but your store's name is different - what is the real name, make it consistent throughout the site. If its Dekko, you should use that regardless of what the url is. Otherwise it looks like you copy/pasted someone elses!
  
• Move the "quick find" up higher so people can find it right away.
  

Nice looking site - the home page and the catalog are nicely integrated.

[Guest]

Hi Chris thanks for the feedback. On my machine I use Vista with IE7, Firefox 2.0.0.14, Opera 9.25 and Safari 3.1.1, and the menu bar works on the main site/online store in all of them, so maybe it's an IE6 problem? I can't install IE6 on this machine for obvious reasons, and using something like Browsershots won't help me either - unless someone else here with IE6 can confirm whether they get the same problem or not?

 

The buttons are one of the 'tweaks' I am looking to sort out, and yeah I need to sort out the formatting on the T & C page. The text was sent to me in a Word document which I got it to save as HTML then used an online HTML to PHP converter, but obviously Word isn't good at writing 'proper' HTML so it seems to have messed a lot of things up. With the buttons, that's on the to do list! :)

 

Dekko is the company that own/run The English Paper Company, so in other words EPC is just a trading name.

 

Good idea about the quick find box - moved that up!

 

It's the first time I've ever used osCommerce before so it has been a bit of a steep learning curve for me!

 

Cheers

 

Sam

[cmakynen]

It's the first time I've ever used osCommerce before so it has been a bit of a steep learning curve for me!

 

Cheers

 

Sam

 

You're doing great - its hard for everyone at first, but obviously you're conquering it!

[Guest]

Thanks Chris!

[♥Vger]

The basics of a good design are there, but it's a pity you used the Simple Template System to get it. If you read these forums oyu'll find lots of posts about how STS adversely affects search engine spidering.

 

As already mentioned you need to lose the default osCommerce buttons and box headers as they detract from the design.

 

Problems:

 

No SSL means very little business. I wouldn't buy from your site.

 

No Meta Tags

 

No Ultimate SEO URLs

 

Server is very slow to load the homepage

 

You've made the classic mistake of sticking the osCommerce store in a folder and having a splash page in the root. Lose the splash page, move the osCommerce site down into the root.

 

Vger

[Guest]

Hi Vger,

 

As stated in a previous post I'm aware of the SSL situation and I'm on the case.

 

I know about the meta tags, that is also on the to-do list, I don't think STS has caused any problems as far as I can see, as Google does show some pages from the store in the search results if you do a site: search on it. However I will be monitoring the site constantly anyway as I have been asked to maintain the site, so I shall see what happens in the future and remedy any problems as and when.

 

Not sure about the site being slow for you, it loads just fine for me?

 

I didn't want to put the store in the main / directory on the server for various reasons, I don't see how this can adversely affect things anyway to be honest, as the store is only one part of the site.

 

:)

[♥geoffreywalton]

What is the difference between the home and online store links? Lose one if they are the same.

 

I know it is an online store, why have this title line? On a portable you are losing selling space.

 

Why not move your address to the bottom of the left column so items of more "selling" interest come into view.

 

I clicked on catalogue and selected card and the selected catalogue and got a different page, confusing.

 

I'd also move the acceptable payment methods to the bottom of the first page moving new for this month up.

 

Finally the box to enter tell a friend email address is really tiny.

 

Keep it up

[Guest]

Hi Geoffrey,

 

Home takes you to the home page of the website, i.e. /index.htm...

 

The idea is to keep a consistent style across the whole website and store, so we can't move the contact details unfortunately.

 

I'm not sure how to go about moving the payment details bit to underneath the new products for April section, as that text along with the rounded buttons for each category are defined in TEXT_MAIN in the includes/languages/english/index.php file?

 

Yeah the email a friend bit is kinda crappy, gonna add that to the list too! :)

[Guest]

Small updates...

 

- Ultimate SEO URLs contrib installed and configured

- Dynamic meta tags set up for each page (added code to a couple of STS files to do this)

- Few other small changes such as adding different currencies, different buttons, edited the T&Cs, and some other random stuff

 

No SSL yet, my client has asked the host to sort an SSL certificate out so as soon as they have done their bit I can sort out the osC end, not sure how long they will take to do this though...

 

Feedback (good or bad) appreciated, as always...

[Guest]

SSL now set up! Yay! :)

 

Feedback/comments etc. welcomed.