Launching site soon - feedback req...

[Martin MGA]

Hi all,

I will be launching my first online venture very shortly and looking for some feedback so far.

Please take a look here and let me know your opinions - good or bad.

Thanks,
Martin

Known issues/still to-do's:
* no text/intro on homepage
* no privacy.php, terms.php or site_map.php uploaded yet
* cheque/postal order referred to but not available at checkout yet

 

[defiance]

just had a quick look - you might to explain to ppl what they are.. ? cos i know a few ppl who might not know what they are exactly..

 

[SillyJokes]

Do you really need to sign up to shop?

It is a turn off to see 'Welcome guest do you want to sign your personal details away just to buy this?"

I would put the search at the top of the page.

Your small images don't look very good - they are blurred.

 

[Martin MGA]

Thanks for the feedback

Do you really need to sign up to shop?

Thing is, you need to enter the same details whether you register or not. Registering though allows me to gauge certain things and easier to keep the customer up to date on their order.

It is a turn off to see 'Welcome guest do you want to sign your personal details away just to buy this?"

Agreed on the actual use of any account type text here, which will be removed before launch.

I would put the search at the top of the page.

Do you mean above the 'Clubs'? I wasn't going to have one at all as at the moment i've only got 1 club, so there isn't an awful lot to search!

Your small images don't look very good - they are blurred.

On the product listing page? Or other images/pages?

Cheers,
Martin

 

[GNU]

It was clear to me from the picture and title what it is you are selling.

Thought the design was nice and clean, and its not imediately obvious that its osCommerce.

A few things I would do:

Protect the customer details etc with ssl, a certificate wont cost much, IMO its not professional to ask users to submit private information without one, even if your payment processor is protected.

Youve taken out the breadcrumbs which looks better, but theres no quick way back to the home page, I would add a home button / link in place of the bredcrumbs.

Your small product images (thumbs) are pixelating badly in the reduced size. Also, loading a page full of full sized images to appear only 1" accross is a waste of bandwidth, slows your site, and looks poor. There is a thumbnailing contribution for osC that automatically creates smaller thumbnail copies of images and displays them where required. I would suggest adding this.

The images for write a review and notifications look a bit naff IMO, sorry.

On the registration page I would get rid of the country list (replace with hidden field) unless your planning to sell abroad.

You need at least one review to populate the reviews box, it looks odd asking you to review products when your not looking at one. You could always write the review yourself

If you were to add a search box I would put it above or below the cart box, just a field and search icon, i.e. not an infoBox

 

[Kay]

Hi Martin

I think what SillyJokes meant was that you have to register or log in before you can browse the shopping area. This is a very off-putting way to design a site. How do I know if I want to register and buy anything if you won't let me look first? You'll have all your visitors clicking away if you insist on this.

Here's a couple of chunks out of my MSc e-Business dissertation (it's a bit heavy going but that's in the nature of these things. If you're a glutton for punishment you can download the whole thing for free from flowtheory.com):

Managers can also try the "loo roll test".

"…visit your favourite grocery website, type in loo rolls and see what happens. According to the [Profit or Pain] report a search on Tesco returns 4 headings and 137 items…but no toilet tissue! Go on, try it today..." (Mouncey 2003)

However, do not try this at Tesco's "new and improved" website. (Tesco.com 2005) Registration is compulsory before a visitor can enter the groceries section of their online store. (Visited on 29 March 2005) (See Flander's comments in Section 2.4.7 (ii) below for an explanation of why this is considered to be poor design.)......



.....Websites have often been designed to reflect the internal structure of an organisation. Vincent Flanders (2004) named BestBuy as the "Daily Sucker" on his website which showcases bad website design. Flanders is one of the usability industry's most prominent commentators.

"BestBuy is missing an opportunity here. Get me on the page. Get me salivating over their product. Then, only when I go to order it, tell me I need to accept cookies to buy on their site… BestBuy has designed their site to solve BestBuy's problems… they want to track how visitors use the site … rather than design their site for their customers. This is stupid! stupid! stupid!" (Flanders 2004)


Hope this helps. BTW, it's a nice clean looking design.

Kay

 

[GNU]

Hi Martin

I think what SillyJokes meant was that you have to register or log in before you can browse the shopping area.
Kay

No you dont, its just that there is only one category and 1 product.

 

[Kay]

OK, thanks. When that message was the first thing I saw it made me think it's another of these places where you have to register before you can do anything. People don't read things properly, they scan for info. IMO that message shouldn't be where it is.

So where should the log-in box be? Top right maybe?

 

[jacksniper]

i think the basic concept of website is good but just the sign up is alright but not many people sign up to buy just one thing i would just make a sort of regesstration when they buy the thing

and how many of the footdolls have you made so far

 

[Martin MGA]

Many thanks for the feedback...

Protect the customer details etc with ssl, a certificate wont cost much, IMO its not professional to ask users to submit private information without one, even if your payment processor is protected.

With my current host I get Shared SSL, do you think this is worth while using?

Youve taken out the breadcrumbs which looks better, but theres no quick way back to the home page, I would add a home button / link in place of the bredcrumbs.

You get home by clicking on the logo - but that isn't obvious so I have added this.

Your small product images (thumbs) are pixelating badly in the reduced size. Also, loading a page full of full sized images to appear only 1" accross is a waste of bandwidth, slows your site, and looks poor. There is a thumbnailing contribution for osC that automatically creates smaller thumbnail copies of images and displays them where required. I would suggest adding this.

As per SillyJokes comments aswell I was installing that which is now done and looking better.

The images for write a review and notifications look a bit naff IMO, sorry.

I suppose they do, don't they. I've removed the images in these boxes for now.

On the registration page I would get rid of the country list (replace with hidden field) unless your planning to sell abroad.

I will be shipping worldwide hence it's left in.

You need at least one review to populate the reviews box, it looks odd asking you to review products when your not looking at one. You could always write the review yourself

Hmm I never picked up on that, probably because i've only got the 1 product so far my mind passed it by. I'll get my mother to add something perhaps

If you were to add a search box I would put it above or below the cart box, just a field and search icon, i.e. not an infoBox

My only concern with this was making the left column look a little bare at times. I shall have a think and play around.

 

[Martin MGA]

Kay - I get what you mean with the registration issue. Just like yourself, there will be people that see that and think immediately off that. I've removed the text on the homepage relating to it but have yet to insert my own intro.

Hopefully once this is done, it won't be drawn to viewers.

Cheers

 

[Martin MGA]

i think the basic concept of website is good but just the sign up is alright but not many people sign up to buy just one thing i would just make a sort of regesstration when they buy the thing

I was going to allow purchase without registering but the same details need to entered regardless and it would become even more complicated had people have 3 options once they try to checkout.

and how many of the footdolls have you made so far

I'm still negotiating with Hearts FC for how many they want to take for the club stores although my first shipment was for 120 units for my own online selling.

 

[Kay]

Just curious, Martin. What's your target audience?

I'm also interested that you plan to ship worldwide - good on you! But it may work out that UK postage to overseas countries is very expensive relative to the product price. (I'm always on about this.) I wonder how you could work around that one.

We bought a couple of DVDs the other day from a UK company which offered free worldwide delivery on all their products - DVDs, games, etc. Now I am still waiting to see where that parcel will come from (assuming it arrives!). I'll bet that it won't be from the UK - they must have distributers somewhere else where the postage is cheaper.

I hope this hasn't taken your thread off-topic, I'm just thinking about other aspects of your launch.

Cheers

Kay

 

[Martin MGA]

For the Footdolls themselves, it will be similar to seasonal selling to supporters of each club to be honest. I expect to sell the majority of units each time I licence a new club. I don't expect to be selling many Hearts branded ones in 5 years time, so will be looking into other products to bring into the brand.

The majority of overseas buyers are likely to be expats etc and given the relative uniquness of the product, hopefully the shipping costs will be accepted. The only countries I can distribute cheaper in are USA and Russia.

Not at all
I have barely discussed my business upto this point due to ongoing licence negotiations so it is good.

Cheers,
Martin

 

[GNU]

>With my current host I get Shared SSL, do you think this is worth while using?

The problem is that when you use https the domain will change to that of the shared ssl, this will not match the cookie domain of your site and will start causing problems, particularly if you configure search engine safe url's and force cookie usage (for seo).

An ssl cert will cost £60 - £90, if it were me I would buy one, but you dont have to do this, ive seen other sites rely soley on the ssl of the payment processor... but this may put some people off registering / using the site.

>As per SillyJokes comments aswell I was installing that which is now done and looking better.

Gotta love that contrib , I used a different one to that, does same job by the look of it.


>Hmm I never picked up on that, probably because i've only got the 1 product so far my mind passed it by. I'll get my mother to add something perhaps

If you discount prices you should also get the specials box, and as products are ordered get a best sellers box which answers a point raised by another user earlier.... assuming of course you havent deliberately disabled these fields.

>My only concern with this was making the left column look a little bare at times. I shall have a think and play around.[/quote]
The above mentioned info boxes will fill out the left column once the site is active, I was thinking you could use the white space above the cart top right for a search box.

You could consider putting the cart back could into an info box in the left column, again putting a simple search field (not the default osc thing) in the right of the header.

Youve done a pretty decent job on it anyway, if you havent done it already go through the entire site (all features) to be sure theres none of that awful cllipart left lying around, that looks terrible on some osC sites where they have missed a bit!!