Opinions/suggestions

[varnco]

Can't see the forest through the woods (or is it the other way around)?

 

Slightly modified standard OS, but I've added graphics, changed display layout, added mods, etc.

 

Want to know thoughts.... (I am thick skinned, be brutally honest)

 

Does it look professional or amature?

Is there anything that is "cheesy" that should be removed?

Is there something that should be added?

 

Any other suggestions on how it could be made better/more professional?

 

Store is live, so please don't finish an order.

 

Thanks to all on the support forums that have helped a ton along the way.

www.varnco.com

[Guest]

i think it looks pretty nice.

 

one thing i would say is to look at the breadcrumbs... your 'top' and 'catalog' buttons go the same place.

[mikes]

Here is what I would do for starters:

 

1. Make package tracking and feedback links in the information info box. If customers need to do a ups search they can go to ups. A link is more than enough.

2. Get rid of best sellers info box. Most people have some idea what they want by the time they get to you. What other people are buying is not useful enough for the space it takes up.

3. Those two done, you can know get rid of the right column entirely. This will give more room for products and reduce clutter. This will also create consistency between the main page and the product pages.

4. Widen left column so that category names don't wrap. Click on each category and check that new width is wide enough for sub-categories as well.

5. Move quick find to the bottom of the left column. Everyone needs/uses category list. Only a few need quick search.

6. Get rid of the breadcrumb trail (Top >> Catalog)

7. Get rid of the date and number of hits at bottom of page. People know the date and number of hits isn't neccessary.

8. Change 'Welcome to varnco.com' to 'Featured Product'. Your logo tells them where they are.

9. Put the cart contents ('Item: 0 Total: $0.00') after 'Cart Contents' so that it is all together. It looks odd off by itself.

10. Add just a bit of whitespace (increase cellspacing or cellpadding on appropriate <table>) just after the yellow line across the top (where the breadcrumb trail is). Since the box headings are the same color as this line, they all look too busy being so close together. An alternative would be to change the color or do something different with either that line (and the bottom one so they match) or the box headers.

 

Your product listings have the price and add to cart button (nice button btw) and differing heights creating an odd look. Use valign="bottom" on the <td> for price and button. This may put the button close enough to the product below it to cause some ambiguity. If so, you might but a border around each product for clarity. Also, I'd add a bit of white space between the description, price and button.

 

The category names on the product listing pages and the product name and price on the product info pages are in grey but all other text on the site is black. I'd make them black as well just for consistency.

 

Despite all the comments, you have a good looking fast loading functional site. It just looks too much like every other osc site atm.

 

It fits nicely on 800x600 without a scrollbar and still looks good at 1024x768

 

The yellow and white seems a bit bright to me but not terribly so. Not sure I'd change it but I would look at it on various monitors (or play with brightness, contrast, etc) to see what your customers may be seeing.

 

hth

[varnco]

Thanks for the advice.

 

On #6, not sure what you mean, it's always been like that..

 

Funny, I just added the 3rd column recently, cuz without it, it looked kinda vacant.

[mikes]

The breadcrumb trail is the build in navigation that osc displays:

 

(as an example)

Top>>catalog>>appliances>>refrigerators>>ge-2149x

 

Each level is a link back to that page. Useful but not very pretty.

 

If the main page looks empty, instead of info boxes consider a eye-catching graphic; something that will make them want to check out the next page.

[♥kymation]

With the high-contrast yellow and white, I have trouble telling what is a box and what is space. This makes the page look more confused and crowded than it really is. Maybe adding a very pale version of the yellow color as a background to the boxes would help to define them a bit.

 

There are far too many boxes here. I don't need that complexity; I just need to find the tools that I need. A few hints of other things that you carry that I might like are good; too many and I won't look at any of them. Your Specials work well for this. I'm not interested in anything in the right column and won't read it, so it's just wasted space.

 

In the shopping cart, it is not obvious what the Continue button would do. I would make this say Continue Shopping. Also, it is not obvious that the Recalculate is a link. It's not obvious that any of your links are links. This one could be fixed by making it a button, but I suggest that you change your link color to something other than the text color. Also, since you are in the USA and are selling only to the USA, it's Zip Code, not Post Code.

 

On your Create Account page, the Required is only slightly darker than the background, making it very hard to read. And why is this page blue while everything else on the site is yellow? Looks a bit odd.

 

From your Privacy page:

Varnco.com collects data on this site as is the sole owner of this information which will not be sold, shared or rented to a 3rd party.

Somebody slipped while copying and left out a few words. You should get somebody to proofread these pages for you. As a customer, I read these pages to get an idea of what kind of a company you are. If the text is poorly written then I may reconsider ordering, or will not risk ordering very much or very expensive items.

 

I would add an About Us page to give some more information about your company. Give me some confidence that you are a real business. Give me another way to contact you than that anonymous email form. I'll probably never use it, but it builds confidence. If you are a bricks-and-mortar business then I can walk in and talk to you, but since you are an Internet business I can only read what you have written.

 

You have a nice store here. I've already got you bookmarked. Keep up the good work.

 

Regards

Jim

[varnco]

Thanks for the advice...all good.

 

I'll make changes, as I already have from other posts. One of the items I'll do is get rid of the 3rd column.

 

I did make the images a bit larger, to fill up the space, just need to remove the third column.

 

Not sure I really understand about what is a box and what is space. Would you mind clarifying that a bit for me (I'm hard headed sometimes).

 

Thanks!

[♥kymation]

I didn't really explain that very well. What I was trying to say is that the boxes all run together. It is hard to tell what is part of what. A background could help to separate things, either a color background for the boxes or a color between the boxes. Try to find something that separates the boxes without making them hard to read.

 

This page does exactly that by using a pale blue background in the boxes and darker shades in the headers. Of course this is a very simple page by comparison. The more complex the page is, the harder it is to keep everything separate without making it ugly and hard to read.

 

Regards

Jim

[boysss]

Hi Op.

 

Can you pls tell me how to shrink your resolution to 800x600? with the black background? I've been looking for this solution for ages. Pls helps. Thanks Heaps.

 

Very nice page.

 

Thanks

Leo

[Tariq]

I believe what was used was the Center Shop contrib to do that.

 

Correct?

 

It wouldn't work for me, but I used a nice color flow to make up for it..

[varnco]

I've updated and made several changes that others have mentioned here.

 

Any other/different comments?