robthebuilder — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:49:33 +0000

Thanks compwolf for the imput. I still don't have a shipping calculator figured in yet, still in the process. I've updated my site, please give it a freah look over and your comments.

compwolf — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:35:49 +0000

I generall specialize in Ecommerce sites so I hope the following comments are not too harsh since I am going to get a little in depth.

1) I must heavily disagree about frivoous graphics. They tend to detract from professionalism more than improve quality. If you truly feel the need for frivolous graphics I would recommend using them as Icons for category or headings rather than just to have them.

2) Your Home page lists multiple brands. None of them though lead to anything. I would recommend you find a way to use your search capabilities by creating Hyperlinks to the products that are availalbe by the manufacturer. This accomplishes two things for your prospective customer. a) It helps them to locate products by a manufacturer they prefer to purchase from. b) It can increase exposure of your products to perspective customers who were unaware that the Manufacturer fabricated that item.

3) Adding a little more information rather than just a map link on your contact page would give a little more credibility to your store. People are generally wary about sites that do not offer information about themselves. A store willing to talk about themselves is more likely to be trusted.

4) When you click the purchase link on an item all you get is a generic form where the person needs to have the technical information about the product. Also you are asking them to give you a lot of information for payment without giving them much reassurance about the procedure. Online shoppers are not usually comfortable with offline payment processing. You may want to look into some form of online processing. You may want to check with your current Merchant account people about online processing avalability.

5) Since you apparently deal on Ebay you may want to look into the PayPal shopping cart integration for your site. this will give you many of the things I mentioned above as well as trust generation for your clients who are most likely familiar with the PayPal payment method and their protection plans for purchases.

6) You may want to look at some of your more successful competitors sites to give yu some ideas on your site.

You have a good start going ... keep at it and I am sure eventually you will have a site to be proud of to tell your customers about.

wcys — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:53:34 +0000

its alright... try centering the table and change the background....

robthebuilder — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:27:31 +0000

Thanks for all the input, I am currently trying to update the site, thanks for the details regarding the serach box. Someone else from another forum mentioned that they had problems in Firefox with the serach box.

lopingnolag — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:59:03 +0000

Hey there, nice site.

Good points;

1. Clean and easy navigation
2. To the point information
3. Constant theme trhoughout

Improvements;

1. As somone already mentioned it needs that little kick, so pictures. Pictures are easier to remember than words, so maybe if you have a cool cartoon mechanic or something giving his tip of the day, it will trigger something and will be good pub talk

2. There is a search our site box, it could be just fire fox but its not inline with the site it comes across the main content.

3. Just a personal preference make the site centered, that not really an improvement its just how i prefer to see sites.

All in all nice looking site and great job just a few things and itll be perfect .

UmutH — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:11:39 +0000

1. The squared bg will decrease the text readibility.

2. Text on the buttons may be more gentle. Plain text instead of bold etc.

3. You may try to change the default font and use a more corporate style font for example tahoma or verdana.

So far so good, consider these 3 options.

tobyfrost — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:33:15 +0000

Oh, also. Is it not a little risky to have your 'specials' section linking to ebay? could people not take that opporunity to look for the products from someone else at a lower price/other? I would see it as you advocating getting these parts from ebay in general... maybe i'm wrong though!

tobyfrost — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:29:09 +0000

Hey mr Builder, Thatis a nice and simple site layout.
I found it easy to navigate and inoffencive.
My only critique really is that there is very little frippery - no pictures, no company profile, no usefull links or anything.
To keep me going back to a site I need to have some other resources to keep it in my subconcious. like a conversion calculator or something so people have a reason to bookmark it!
as you have relatively few actual products I would think that usefull links would be a good way to enable more traffic through the site.
(and I would have liked a little less vaguity about the billing/transport so I hope someone can help with the shipping script!)

Overall though I liked the squared background (very suitable) and type and stuff so little to really get at!

Good luck with it!