Please review my first ever eCommerce website - automotive prints

[Limited100]

How are you going to compete with the 1/4 million images here https://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/cars

Different product, we are selling limited run wall art prints, not images on pillows and tote bags.

They all look like they've been photoshopped btw.

 

[Limited100]

A thought from a vintage car driver friend of mine (about 10 minutes ago):

"Are you selling art or are you selling pictures of cars?"

Both.

Yes I will try to offer greater choice, would be all the better if some of the photographs have a story behind them.

 

[fisicx]

Yes I will try to offer greater choice, would be all the better if some of the photographs have a story behind them.

All the photos can have a story behind them. doesn't have to be a big story. A single paragraph about the car and owner can be enough

 

[Limited100]

I'm curious - did you choose the name 'limited100' on purpose to keep your options open to other types of prints in future?

Hi Mike, I did consider going into other areas but I'm into cars and feel there's enough of a market of car enthusiasts out there so plan is to stick to the car niche. I won't be giving up the day job this is a hobby that has a business angle to it so I'll be happy if it ends up selling 1 print a day, any more is a bonus.

 

[UKSBD]

Is the photographer a partner in the business or do you have to pay him?

 

[arnydnxluk]

I have only very quickly scanned through the other posts here. Just dropping in to say I've visited the site in my bookmarks a couple of times recently and the addition of the 'All Prints' option in the main menu is a huge improvement. I immediately know where to click after landing on the website, feels much more intuitive than the previous set up.

 

[billybob99]

Nice shot of the Bugatti at prescott hill climb.

For people that can't find their own car on there, its pretty clear there are no shots of bangers.

 

[fisicx]

Nice shot of the Bugatti at prescott hill climb.

But have you brought one?

 

[billybob99]

But have you brought one?

No, I'm £2.5m short at the moment.

 

[Limited100]

Is the photographer a partner in the business or do you have to pay him?

As the core aim of the business is to support independent automotive photographers, we are paying a royalty for each print sold directly to the photographer. No I am the sole owner of the business.

 

[Limited100]

I have only very quickly scanned through the other posts here. Just dropping in to say I've visited the site in my bookmarks a couple of times recently and the addition of the 'All Prints' option in the main menu is a huge improvement. I immediately know where to click after landing on the website, feels much more intuitive than the previous set up.

That's good to hear thank you, the full range is on the home page also now to make it even easier to explore the collection. As Fiscx said, why make it difficult, let people see your products..

 

[arnydnxluk]

Received email newsletter today with a bunch of broken images:

 

[Limited100]

Received email newsletter today with a bunch of broken images:

Thanks arnydnxluk,

This is now fixed. Have also made standard £69 price appear first on product pages:

 

[fisicx]

Starting to look really good.

Try some split testing with the ‘all prints’ as the home page.

 

[UKSBD]

A couple of things I would change;

Remove the "100 of 100 remaining" if I look through a few and see that on everyone it makes me think they're not very popular and subliminally think they can't be very good then.


Give people a choice of what print number they want
The T-Shirt company I mentioned earlier in the thread do this
It also gives you the option of holding some numbers back, or even greying some out which gives the illusion they are sold ;-)

 

[Limited100]

A couple of things I would change;

Remove the "100 of 100 remaining" if I look through a few and see that on everyone it makes me think they're not very popular and subliminally think they can't be very good then.

Give people a choice of what print number they want
The T-Shirt company I mentioned earlier in the thread do this
It also gives you the option of holding some numbers back, or even greying some out which gives the illusion they are sold ;-)

Great ideas fisicx and UKSBD - thank you.

• I will try A/B testing as we are starting to get some decent traffic now and have made some sales after 3 months of graft
• Print number is a great idea, I'm discussing with my developer how we can make this work without it being another product variation (already 45 variations and this would become 4500) so need to find a clever workaround.
• Perhaps the 100 of 100 remaining could be replaced with "Pick your edition" or something along those lines.

 

[Michael Beaumont]

Looks clean and the gold gives it that high end feel. The gold could do with being a shade darker to increase readability.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

You need some better pictures I'm afraid. I just bought one from historic car art where there is a much better selection.

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

Not sure if anyone else has mention this... but... perhaps it's just me?

Wood Frame

White Wood Frame

Black Wood Frame

With all due respect, sounds cheap... for such a "premium" product, you should be framing them in quality wooden frames, tell people what the frame is made from...

White Wood, Black Wood makes me think cheap nasty balsa wood or pine... a second thought rather than I'll frame it in a nice Walnut, Oak or Ash frame... it's a premium product, showing some nice vehicles why put it in a cheap frame?

 

[IWW Limited]

My 2 pence...

I'd rename All Prints to Browse Prints, personally. I wasn't sure where to click.

Also when I'm browsing and click on a make and model it refreshes the page but no confirmation that I've clicked an option and I can't see any change below the fold.

Hope this helps, it is an aesthetic purchase and does a good job with the gallery.

Thanks

 

[Lucky8]

Just saw this thread. My feedback:

1. Change the brand name/url. Limited 100 isn't the proposition, prints of cars is.
2. I was expecting something a bit naff, but it's not at all. So well done that it's not, but the fact I expected it to be might still be a concern.
3. Images need to be near full page - the thumbnails are way too small, but I was really surprised that when I clicked on them I was only returned an image a bit bigger. The maginifier is pointless really on an image so small. Fill the screen.

How's business been since March?

 

[Limited100]

Looks clean and the gold gives it that high end feel. The gold could do with being a shade darker to increase readability.

Thanks, are you referring to the sub-text in the logo?

 

[Limited100]

You need some better pictures I'm afraid. I just bought one from historic car art where there is a much better selection.

Fair enough.

 

[Limited100]

Have you checked to see what Google thinks of your site - your page insights link is https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://www.limited100.co.uk/&tab=mobile - it's not good in terms of what Google thinks of if.
I would not use Shopify in a million years - but hey ho - if you want to use please carry on. There are better / less expensive options.
As a side issue - I have a friend at Cadremont who makes the picture mounts and backing boards that you use to frame the images etc. Give them a shout the next you need to re stock - they use conservation level mountboard and will beat any like for like price

Thanks will bear in mind. Not sure what I can do in terms of page speed, I wonder if there's a lazy-loader app for Shopify.

 

[Limited100]

Not sure if anyone else has mention this... but... perhaps it's just me?

Wood Frame

White Wood Frame

Black Wood Frame

With all due respect, sounds cheap... for such a "premium" product, you should be framing them in quality wooden frames, tell people what the frame is made from...

White Wood, Black Wood makes me think cheap nasty balsa wood or pine... a second thought rather than I'll frame it in a nice Walnut, Oak or Ash frame... it's a premium product, showing some nice vehicles why put it in a cheap frame?

Thanks for your feedback. As sustainability is a priority, our frames are made from environmentally-friendly Polcor, which is easier to cut with a greater degree of accuracy and doesn't bend like wood. Natural wood is available on request in any type, I could do a better job of communicating that on the website.

 

[Limited100]

My 2 pence...

I'd rename All Prints to Browse Prints, personally. I wasn't sure where to click.

Also when I'm browsing and click on a make and model it refreshes the page but no confirmation that I've clicked an option and I can't see any change below the fold.

Hope this helps, it is an aesthetic purchase and does a good job with the gallery.

Thanks

Thanks for your feedback. You will need to scroll down below the brand names to see your new, filtered print selection. If I can figure out a way of having the prints and the brand name options above the fold I will.

 

[Limited100]

Just saw this thread. My feedback:

1. Change the brand name/url. Limited 100 isn't the proposition, prints of cars is.
2. I was expecting something a bit naff, but it's not at all. So well done that it's not, but the fact I expected it to be might still be a concern.
3. Images need to be near full page - the thumbnails are way too small, but I was really surprised that when I clicked on them I was only returned an image a bit bigger. The maginifier is pointless really on an image so small. Fill the screen.

How's business been since March?

Thanks for your feedback.

1. Changing the brand name / url - do you have any suggestions? I don't think it's too bad a name.
2. What made you expect it to be a bit naff? Glad to hear it exceeded your expectations.
3. The images should be full screen on a PC when you click on them, which image were you looking at? It's hard to make the images behave exactly the same across mobile and tablet devices.

Business is slow, I had an order of 3 prints in June, then 4 in July, 2 in August and 3 in September, so it's gone from nothing.. to very little. I won't be quitting the day job any time soon. On the positive side, every single customer that has ordered from us is extremely happy with their purchase.

 

[Lucky8]

Business is slow, I had an order of 3 prints in June, then 4 in July, 2 in August and 3 in September, so it's gone from nothing.. to very little.

Hmm. Maybe start with this, and then focus on the website. Unless the website is *the* reason why business is so slow. I have a feeling it's not.

How many prints like yours are sold each year in the UK?

 

[Limited100]

Hmm. Maybe start with this, and then focus on the website. Unless the website is *the* reason why business is so slow. I have a feeling it's not.

How many prints like yours are sold each year in the UK?

Not sure how I'd find out. Search volumes are around 10k/month across all search terms in the UK alone, so not massive. There are 6 million car enthusiasts in the UK though so any dent made in that audience would make Limited100 a success, 1 sale a day would be brilliant.

Nightmare shipping with TNT, had an order from the USA 2 weeks ago and their order has been stuck in customs for over a week. They're wrecking our reputation before we've even had chance to grow

Shipping domestically, Yodel and Parcelforce have been brilliant, but was hit with a nasty Parcelforce surcharge so will probably stick with Yodel, and DPD if they ever start allowing startups to work with them.

 

[fisicx]

The image on the product page should full width. You can add a swipe function to scroll through the gallery.

This removes the whole pop up/overlay function and improves the UX.

 

[Lucky8]

Not sure how I'd find out.

It's fundamental. Can't base a business on what sales might be nice to have, need to base them on an informed estimate of actual demand. Who's your main competitor? How many do they sell?

 

[Limited100]

It's fundamental. Can't base a business on what sales might be nice to have, need to base them on an informed estimate of actual demand. Who's your main competitor? How many do they sell?

I don't know, I honestly don't have a clue how you'd find out.

 

[Root 66 Woodshop]

Thanks for your feedback. As sustainability is a priority, our frames are made from environmentally-friendly Polcor, which is easier to cut with a greater degree of accuracy and doesn't bend like wood. Natural wood is available on request in any type, I could do a better job of communicating that on the website.

Sustainability is a priority? Then surely using real wooden frames would provide a more sustainable product... surely? - Plus in a lovely Oak or Paduak, Mahogany, Ash or even Yew frames... it would give your product a more of a high end price tag...

Do you know why England has an abundance of Oak, and why it's sustained it's price tag despite being more common than pine these days?

 

[Lucky8]

I don't know, I honestly don't have a clue how you'd find out.

Hmm. You don't know the shape or size of your market, the size or characteristics of demand, any of your competitors nor how many they sell. But you've created a business to sell a product to people.

What would you say to someone who said all this?

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Hmm. You don't know the shape or size of your market, the size or characteristics of demand, any of your competitors nor how many they sell. But you've created a business to sell a product to people.

As someone who has bought such products, I'd say the current range of offerings is somewhat limited (excuse the pun). Even with specialist sites you have to trawl through an awful lot of guff to find anything worth buying.

The best options, atm, are the big sites that sell everything but you are often restricted to stuff that's mass produced. I have mentioned historiccarart [dot] net as being better than the OP's but it's far from perfect.

There is definitely room for sites such as Limited100, it just needs to have a better choice - in my humble opinion.

 

[Limited100]

Sustainability is a priority? Then surely using real wooden frames would provide a more sustainable product... surely? - Plus in a lovely Oak or Paduak, Mahogany, Ash or even Yew frames... it would give your product a more of a high end price tag...

Do you know why England has an abundance of Oak, and why it's sustained it's price tag despite being more common than pine these days?

How is chopping a tree down more sustainable than recycling polystyrene?

 

[Limited100]

Hmm. You don't know the shape or size of your market, the size or characteristics of demand, any of your competitors nor how many they sell. But you've created a business to sell a product to people.

What would you say to someone who said all this?

I created it on a whim and so far have sold a few, so I guess there is a market, whether it becomes my full-time job in a few years, highly unlikely but worth a go. If I get to 1 sale per day on average then it'd be a great side hustle.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

How is chopping a tree down more sustainable than recycling polystyrene?

A tree is basically captured carbon, chopping it down and using it as picture frames doesn't change that.

I guess you knew that though. Good luck with the business, I think your attitude about it being a nice side hustle is a sensible one.

 

[Lucky8]

If I get to 1 sale per day on average then it'd be a great side hustle.

OK, so make a plan to get you there, because 1 a day doesn't sound much at all but it's quite a fair bit off from where you are.

I can tell you enjoy this stuff, so as a side hustle it can be fun. To that end and your website, IMO bigger images is key.

 

[Limited100]

A tree is basically captured carbon, chopping it down and using it as picture frames doesn't change that.

I guess you knew that though. Good luck with the business, I think your attitude about it being a nice side hustle is a sensible one.

That's the spirit!