Am after some honest feedback please.

[sparkle1980]

Hi everyone

I am new to this site but so far have found it really helpful.

My friend and I recently launched our online shop(www.eldondesigns.co.uk). I designed and developed the website myself with no previous knowledge so I am aware that from a technical point of view I've still got lots of work to do.

It would be really helpful if you could all give me some feedback on the site, products, etc.

Thanks in advance.
Donna.

[becky]

Hi Donna

I love your site! I think it's very easy to use and would certainly buy from it. (In fact I might go and get something soon). The pictures are good as jewellrey is notoriously difficult to photograph.

I looked at the casual necklaces, and they're nice, but more variety, plus maybe a black cord would be good.

Well done though for doing all that yourself! How is it going - have you had many sales?

becky

[sparkle1980]

Thanks for the kind words Becky. I take your point about more variety in the casual collection- am going to add some more designs tommorow with options for different cord colours. I'm glad you liked the images- i take the photos myself with a digital camera and edit them on my pc but like you said jewellery can be hard to photograph.

It's taking off slowly-have had nine sales in six weeks but hopefully once site starts getting indexed by search engines and people find out about the site it will improve.

Donna.

p.s. love your site too- some gorgeous products on there.

[SillyJokes]

It is a great frist time effort but I'm not a fan of the blue colour. It's a personal thing, I know, but I loathe it.

Navigation seems simple enough.

I disagree about the pictures being good though. They aren't bad but you never get to see the whole peice even on the big image. You only ever get a very restricted view of each item.

I tried to check out your checkout but was required to create an account. Again strongly agaist asking people to do this and so did not proceed.

You can see discussions on this forum about the pros and cons of making people create an account. I couldn't even see how much the shipping was.

A bit of a dig about revealed the shipping is free. You should big this up. People love free shipping. The reason I didn't see you had free shipping was because I couldn't be ar**d to read all the happy talk on your home page.

Anyhoo, good luck with it all.

[Rob Holmes]

Hi Donna,

I first looked at this yesterday and after 1 second thought 'disgusting' and I didn't have enough free time yesterday to tell you everything I think is wrong about it. I don't think a nice review does you any favours - kind in one way, not kind in another. Mines the opposite ;)

Pink and light blue is a 'garish' total no-no that makes the site look unprofessional and frankly repulsive.

OS Commerce is ok for some - but it's 'obviously' an oscommerce site that can put people off as they usually know thay have to register before they buy usually - and those that don't know get put off at checkout stage.

You don't have a big reason for people to use you as soon as they hit the site - and generally if you don't do that then they'll be off pretty quick - even quicker with a pink and blue site.

For your standard stuff it needs to be in stock - no-one wants to wait 2 weeks for delivery - hand made or not.

You only have 1 review that shows on every page - get some more else people will rightly or wrongly assume you have 1 customer.

The flowers very dominant top left - and I suppose has defined the colours across the site?

I'd say your prices are too cheap as well - what bride wants to pay £6 for a set of earings and £15 for a necklace - thats their special day - they want to look, feel and wear a million dollars - and that means they want expensive NOT cheap.

I'd also standardise the size of your pictures too - they are all sorts of sizes at the moment and make the pages look messy.

Hope this helps a bit.

Theres loads more but one step at as time ;)

Rob

[Whistle Ink]

Hi,

I didn’t like the bluey colour either. It’s hard to describe why but the whole page was flat, the outside edges and the contents in the middle were all on the same level. (told you is was hard!)

I agree with sillyjokes about the pictures. The items are not shown fully and also personally the background cloth you have got the items on is too dark. I think it’s the fact that they images are big square bold things! Maybe if you could have just no background or fade out the edges?

Isn’t there a module for oscommerce that allows you to checkout without signing up? I would definitely implement this if there is.

There is too much text on the home page. Maybe you could turn some of the statements made in the text into 3 banner like sections linking to more information. Maybe a picture of you two linking to find out more about the creators – Close up pictures of the precious stones on items and then with link to ‘find out more about the materials used’ and the fact that if they can’t find what they like they can have one custom designed for free.

One thing I personally find mega irritating is when I see ‘This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 28 March, 2006.’ Aaarrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

I’m not sure if you can get rid of it!

The category pages could be improved by maybe having a graphic header for the category name and presenting the sub categories a little better. They look like they are just stuck on the page.

Donna are you looking to go into web design or just sell hand crafted jewellery but you thought you would create the site yourself? If it’s the latter you may want to get a designer in to tweak things up for you so you can then get on bringing in the sales. If it’s that you want to get into website design, there’s a lot of work to do! Whether you can ‘learn’ good design is debatable.

When I searched for handcrafted jewellery on Google the quality of the sites at the top was appalling! Some oscommerce ones up there too.

But overall a very good first attempt. You just need to fine tune things a little design wise and then get out there promoting your website! Good luck!

Bye

Paresh :D

[sparkle1980]

Wow, I feel very deflated now! However, looking at the issues you have all raised objecyively I have to say I probably agree with some of them. I'm going to look into installing a fast checkout so people do not have to create an account and work on improving the images. Re the colour, this is a very subjective thing as other people have said they love the colours.

I'm definitley not looking to go into web design, I just created the site myself as did not have the funds to get professionals on board. Guess I've still got a lot of work to do then.

Thnaks for the feedback everyone

Donna.

[Whistle Ink]

Don't feel deflated Donna! You did ask for honest feedback! :D

I don't think these opinions regarding your site aren't meant to make you feel deflated, rather to give you a feeling of what others are thinking and maybe inspire and motivate you to maybe make changes to better your site and increase the potential of your business!

You have said that you agreed with some of the points made so this excerising has been useful for you.

Inflate yourself back up Donna! :lol: :lol:

Bye

Paresh

[FunkyBears]

Hi Donna,
I think you have done an excellent job so far but agree about changing colours. It would be an idea to photograph the product on some models in would bring a more human element to the equation.
You could use models of different age groups to show how your product appeals to all. It would be an idea to show the gift box the gift comes in. You could also put some coloured borders arround the images to highlight them
Keep going your never going to get it right first time
Test and Test again to see what works and what doesn't and move forward
good luck

[becky]

Crikey - I guess I'm outvoted, but I wasn't just trying to be nice. I really do like the site!

Good luck with it!

[Coding Monkey]

Each to their own, Becky. The point of a website is to appeal to the majority within a target audience, with the audience being defined by its purpose. For example, a film website is generally in Flash and will take about 10 seconds to load, which is fine. Do that on an e-commerce website and you're buggered. In this case, the website fails its purpose.

[Early Warning]

I like the site also. No changes neded for me

[GDJ]

Donna

There is an oscommerce module that allows one to purchase without registering. Not sure how you going to approach changes on your site but there is a version of oscommerce called cre loaded. This comes with a lot of modules pre-installed, including the buy without registering module. I have used this on a site so if I can be of assistance please just shout.

[Copyqueen]

I love the colours! Think it looks great - and I am wondering how many of the people who have responded are female? Becky and I love the colours, and (I suspect) we could be the only ones who fall into your target market...?

However, you'll need some optimised copy for the homepage and the first line, "Would you like to log in? Or create an account?", threw me. I hadn't even looked at any of the jewellery at that point, and the pushiness to give up personal details is a little intimidating. (Okay, I'm exaggerating, but you get the drift.)

The homepage copy should be a nice, snappy little introduction to the site - what it offers, who you are, and why customers should buy there. It should also be optimised with a couple of key words or phrases to generate more search traffic.

If you'd like to talk more about copy just PM me...
Anna

[sparkle1980]

Hi

Thanks for the honest feedback everyone. I actually came to the conclusion myself that maybe the original site colours weren't to everyone's taste and have spent the past couple of days coming up with a new colour scheme. I have find it quite difficult to come up with a scheme that fits in with the overall theme of the site and that isn't going to put off potential customers.

Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear from people who looked at the original site as to whether the new site looks better and indeed from anyone else who may have suggestions/opinions as to how I can further improve the layout of the site. I'm aware that I still need to do some work on improving the images.

Thanks in advance.
Donna.
eldondesigns.co.uk

[ibscom]

I am a newbie too, but if it helps I like the message about postage and your payment processor it builds trust with the customer and also (not sure this is true but I've read it many times recently) it leads to less discarded carts.

Good luck