Please review my first ever eCommerce website - automotive prints

[Root 66 Woodshop]

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

Because, for every tree that has been chopped down, 3 are planted... These trees are being planted for the supply of lumber...

Then as mentioned... Oak is an extremely readily available product because back in the 1600's 1000's and I mean 1000's of Oak trees were built by boat builders... then in the 1700's the age of iron and steel boats roared... which is why we are an OAK-RICH country...

 

[Limited100]

Because, for every tree that has been chopped down, 3 are planted... These trees are being planted for the supply of lumber...

Then as mentioned... Oak is an extremely readily available product because back in the 1600's 1000's and I mean 1000's of Oak trees were built by boat builders... then in the 1700's the age of iron and steel boats roared... which is why we are an OAK-RICH country...

Interesting, ok will bear in mind thanks

 

[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, I've tweaked the menu, looks a bit cleaner now. Again, I'll see if the theme has an option to have a left column for options within categories so you can see some prints above the fold.

 

[Nyx004]

Perfect, I really like it!

 

[Limited100]

Perfect, I really like it!

Thank you! After a slow start I did £6k in sales in November and December, not too bad for a side business. Still a long way to go but it's really got some momentum now and customers are all very happy.

 

[Limited100]

Sorry for the ridiculously late response. Thanks for the recommendation, we've already got this stuff sorted but will bear in mind for the future.

Pagespeed insights - crikey! 8/100 for mobile and 51/100 for desktop.

And here's me considering a video banner instead of image, maybe not!

The embedded YouTube video seems to be the main culprit - which I find odd because I didn't think they start buffering until you click play. I wonder if Vimeo is better in this respect?

6k turnover throughout November and December, around 7k so far this year so seems to be growing steadily. Thanks for your advice and for the recommendation.

 

[Limited100]

Vimeo seems the best option in terms of fully loaded time, http requests and file size: https://wp-rocket.me/blog/fastest-video-player/

 

[fisicx]

Do you need the video?

People will only visit your site because they want automotive prints. You don’t need to explain anything. You don’t even need the hero image/slider.

And the pop up is really annoying. And something Google warns against.

The image range is getting much better but getting to them on a phone is still awkward. You have a site built for desktop and adapted for phones. Should be the other way round.

As to page speed, its not going to get any better while you use Shopify.

 

[Limited100]

Do you need the video?

People will only visit your site because they want automotive prints. You don’t need to explain anything. You don’t even need the hero image/slider.

And the pop up is really annoying. And something Google warns against.

The image range is getting much better but getting to them on a phone is still awkward. You have a site built for desktop and adapted for phones. Should be the other way round.

As to page speed, its not going to get any better while you use Shopify.

Thanks Fisicx, some visitors may already want automotive prints, but it's a highly involved buying process, so at this end of the market people want to know how much work goes into each print, and presumably a video would be the best way to explain this.

The popup should only appear on exit, do you still think this is a no-no?

Re getting rid of the image slider, surely this header is important for SEO rather than just showing product straight away, to clarify exactly what the website is all about?

If Shopify is bad for pagespeed, what do you recommend instead? I thought they were the market leader.

 

[fisicx]

Thanks Fisicx, some visitors may already want automotive prints, but it's a highly involved buying process, so at this end of the market people want to know how much work goes into each print, and presumably a video would be the best way to explain this.

Yes, but not one the homepage. Link to it if you want but keep the homepage fast and light.

The popup should only appear on exit, do you still think this is a no-no?

How many people fill in the form? It is annoying.

Re getting rid of the image slider, surely this header is important for SEO rather than just showing product straight away, to clarify exactly what the website is all about?

The SEO benefits are tiny. It's your category and product pages that Google cares about. These are the pages you want to rank not the homepage.

If Shopify is bad for pagespeed, what do you recommend instead? I thought they were the market leader.

They just have good marketing. Next month Google will be implementing web core vitals one component of this is performance. Which may we see any ranking you do have disappear. Wordpress is fairly easy to set up and has some excellent plugins you can use to sell products. OpenCart is alternative to consider. There are others, you need to test them and find the one that best suites your business.

 

[Limited100]

Managed to do some tweaking and got pagespeed from 3/100 (mobile), 53/100 (desktop) to 10/100 (mobile), 65/100 (desktop), still tonnes of room for improvement..

 

[fisicx]

Managed to do some tweaking and got pagespeed from 3/100 (mobile), 53/100 (desktop) to 10/100 (mobile), 65/100 (desktop), still tonnes of room for improvement..

If you continue to use Shopify you aren't ever going to get a high score. The range of images is now really good - you are just let down by Shopify. A good ecommerce platform (or even Woo) will score 80/100 out the box before you do any tweaking. Yesterday I got a client site up to 96/100. It's not difficult but you need control of your own site.

 

[Dillon Lawrence Ltd]

A good ecommerce platform (or even Woo) will score 80/100 out the box before you do any tweaking. Yesterday I got a client site up to 96/100. It's not difficult but you need control of your own site.

Nonsense. There’s nothing at all inherent to Shopify that’s going to cause low PageSpeed scores. They’re also just one of many factors in Google’s ranking algorithm so not really something to get hung up about.

Chasing scores is for the most part pointless if you’re going to sacrifice features or usability.

@Limited100 I checked your site from a UK data centre (given that’s the main audience if I’m not wrong). It loads in a very respectable time and other than images being on the slightly large side I’d put your focus elsewhere on growing your business. Your site speeds are nowhere near bad enough for it to have any noticeable effect on your ranking in real terms. Other factors will play a much bigger part. Not even going into how inaccurate PageSpeed scores can be.

I’m all for optimisation (we do it for every client and have our own ways of measuring how well it’s done) but we also state that there’s a point of diminishing returns.

Also @fisicx you state WooCommerce is much better out of the box and will achieve a score of 80. Based on what? The default WordPress theme with just about no functionality? What server? I’ve seen more WooCommerce sites run like absolute dogs compared to Shopify. I’ve seen rapid Woo sites but they take a lot of optimising to get there. I’ve also seen terrible WooCommerce themes bring a store up to double digits in loading time. At least Shopify is consistent in what server environment you’re going to get.

There’s too many variables to just state that WooCommerce is quicker. Not to mention the bloat it has which is why we only recommend it on lower budget projects and smaller stores now.

 

[fisicx]

I agree you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on the performance score. It was only that the OP mentioned it in their post. There are plenty of things built into Shopify that will affect your performance score, they are all listed in the Lighthouse report. The same can be said for Woo but less so.

You mention slow woo sites and I agree, cheap hosting, rubbish themes and countless plugins all contribute. But out the box on decent hosting with storefront and it does ok.

When you tested, did you use CWV tool? That’s the one Google uses, not PageSpeed, that’s no longer relevant. Performance is about a lot more than just page loading speed, Google now considers LCN and CLS to be as important.

I've just tested the site on both GTmetrix and Pingdom and the results are very poor. What tools did you use?

 

[thetiger2015]

I think the homepage banners are a little too wordy. If you're keeping them, I wouldn't have as many, maybe even just one hero banner for a promotion or stand out USP. The others seem to be filling space? Banner number 3 is the best, it literally says what you do in a single sentence.

There's also an error on the homepage? Error validating access token: The user has not authorized application

The video at the bottom doesn't bother me but I would question why it needs to be there? Could you pop it somewhere else, in the About Us area?

Other than that, the images look great. I wouldn't go about tweaking your website too much or moving platforms now, you're settled on Shopify and you're starting to get some customers. You'd have to learn something new and to be honest, Shopify isn't just good because of their marketing, it's good because it's so easy to use. Just one click everything, lots of apps, lots of support articles and lots of integrations. The web speed can be improved by moving up to their Plus plan. You'll be on the shared systems at the moment but Plus has lots more capability but is reserved for those with deeper pockets.

 

[WayneMarc]

Hello,

Smart looking site. the issues I have picked up are the text on the slider image on a few of them there seems to be a lot of text and from my experience is if its a more than a sharp, catchy statement no one reads it (also the slides change before you have time to read it and im a quick reader!). I dont like how the button on the image moves when it changes slides maybe have it in a static position.

also on the latest additions part all the images should be inline and so should the text just makes it look unprofessional (I know the images will be different sizes but you can still make the thumbnail the same size )

also if you press f12 on the page you will see 4 errors which basically means parts of your site is not working as it should. without proper looking into them I cant tell you what they are but it looks like there's an error with an API and the payment manifest maybe get your web developer to look into it

 

[Limited100]

Thanks all for the feedback, error fixed, I needed to reconnect Instafeed with our Instagram account