Joanne, I can really help you turn more conversions from this site.
First of all there is too much text to wade through on the home page, plus it is centred. This is extremely off putting to customers who want to land and see instantly if you can help them.
You need to think like a customer - what can you do to answer their questions right away? Don't try to be too different from other websites because your customer spends most of his or her time on them, not on yours and they won't want ot have to work out what it is you are offering.
First off you need a bold strap line to go with your logo. It should not be clever, just tell people what you do in as few words as possible.
I.E Quality hand made scented candles
All the images on the home page are the same giving the impression that you only have one image. If a candle smells of something, perhaps feature a photo of the thing it smells of, or evokes - like a fresh green apple in the background or on a dappled shaded garden table.
Your first fold - the bit you can see without having to scroll, is the most valuble part of your site and you are currently filling it a too large banner/header and a paypal button which looks a little naff.
I could see no link anywhere to tell me about your shipping.
When I do find info about it, it looks confusing and seems to imply the more I buy the more it'll cost me. This is quite off putting.
When I was trying to find out about shipping I put a candle in the basket, but the site didn't take me to the basket so I had to click checkout (finding it first of course) only to discover I have to sign in to get any where. This is an absolute killer, particularly for a shop which, in all honesty I'm not going to want to buy from many times a year, and will cause you endless abandoned baskets because, remember your competitors are just a couple of clicks away.
If someone is mooching about in your basket you don't want to do anything that will put them off completing a sale as they are the best prospects you will ever get.
You have your privacy polcy well displayed which is great, but I failed to understand the relevance of 'shop progress'. This was a wasted click to me as I'm not interested in your shop, I'm interested in buying candles and I think this would be better placed in your 'about us' section - which is a section that customers expect to see, not shop progress - it almost sounds like a call to checkout and is therefore confusing.
Your search button should be at the top. Customers shouldn't need to search for the search :biggrin:
The menu items should have alt text so the customer can get an idea of what they will see should they click it.
There's plenty more to say which would help you, but I'll leave you with that for now.
I think the main reasons you are not making more sales are
No clear p&p policy.
Registration requirement to shop.
Images not of sufficiently good quality and repetitive
too much waffle to get through before the customer can see what you do.
I wish you well with the project. It's great to know there are things you can do to improve.
