Thread: open to crtisism-jewellery site

Hi all,

just completed our site and would like your thoughts and comments please.

www.silverholiday.com.au

Thanks for visiting


As per request number 2 our main domain rjd.com.au

I really enjoyed visiting your site. The only thing I would change is the fact that so many links open in a new window rather than in the same window.
Well Done!

Well done rinaldi you've gone to a lot of hard work.

Your site looks very clean and crisp and easy to view. I agree with Alex, its better to open the pages in a new window. You should place navigation bars back to your other pages for your collections pages. Pretty well much what you've done for you Catalogue page.

Are you thinking of adding a shopping cart, I think it would be great to be able to buy directly from the site.

It was also easy to Navigate, Great Job.

Hi,

Very nice looking site. I was thinking along the lines as Phil. Right now it looks like your site is just an information site, with very little content--more pictures than anything else. It looks like someone has to contact you to get information on ordering anything. I do know that most visitors would rather exit the site than take the time. Well done though.

Hi Rinaldi,
The visual design of your site is excellent: the use of colour gives a joyful feeling that is missing from other jewellery sites I have seen.. So, visual impact is first class.
Now site navigation: needs much work. You have an "enter site" page. Why? It does nothing and it is just a needless hurdle to negoiate. What is absolutely wrong is that it is designated your home page so when home is clicked you are back to "enter site". Address this because it it not what a visitor wants. When people are in your site do everything you can to keep them there. Also, the fancy image changes here; why bother people do not tarry on an enter page (remember, they may be just a little irritated already).
When a site visitor gets into the collections there is no way back other than "contact us" which takes one "home" which takes one: guess where? The dreaded "enter site". The same sort of problems occur in the catalogue section when one has clicked on an item and a larger image comes up. Nice, but you need a "go back to thumnails" link because otherwise the visitor is stranded and she will say to herself that's enough: and there goes another potential customer. So, navigation needs sorting big time.
Your pages are loaded in the default position in the left of the browser window. Sort of! Positioning is not consistent. Would look a lot better centered which is an absolute breeze to do by clicking the center box in page properties.
A style point; in your "catalogue" why do your page links read from right to left. The site is in English and the convention is the other way round.
So to summarise. The bit that most people find really hard, the "look" of the site is wonderful. You just have to get it functioning smoothly. Good luck.

Good job!
Colors are elegant. Pages are titled and no problem with navigation.
Nice touch for the welcome screen with the changing products. What program did you use to make it?

Two suggestions:
-consider centering your pages
-on this page "splashing" seems a bit pale.

Good luck

Hi rinaldi;
It looks like you have put alot of work into this site. I think it looks great! I didn't have any trouble navigating, and the back to the collections works well. I do agree that the pages look a little off to the left. It looks like you tried to center them but check to se if your page width is set at 900 instead of 800. I had that same problem once. Very impressive though, keep up the good work!!

I'm with everyone else about the look of the site being very clean and bright and lovely. Well done! There is one thing that I notice when going from one page to another, in viewing the different types of jewelry: The header's move just a touch. Did you clone your first page to make the others? If not, you should choose which page gives you your best header positioning, and then try to make the others be exactly the same.

Hi, it all looks great, but you have a massive amount of goods on your site & think its going to be hard for a visitor to find something without a lot of flicking through pages. (Which may be good)
I would imagine you have 6-700 items that I assume you are going to sell? You will need to somehow give each item key words & put in place a search facility, but I don’t think this will be easy with this type of set up. It really needed a database style of catalogue, so if I was looking for ???? an opal & diamond ring, I would place these three words in a search & the database would bring up every ring that had these type stones. This can also search by colour or price.
This would all be achieved by you describing each item in a way that a search facility would be able to go & get what the customer wants via them typing in key words.

Good luck with the site.

Thanks everyone, you are all helping me build a better site for my customers, I really appreciate the comments that have been submitted.

I have fixed the new windows opening when looking at individual collections and have also included the link back to the collectons page as recommended.

As for the changing products, a friend of mine gave me a script in html which took me ages to figure out, but I am a happy chappy that I did it.

I am also looking to whether to amalgamate the first page with the changing products with the home page, I will publish soon to get your opinions.

With the pages on our full catalogues, for example rings, yes we start at page 29 and go backwards. Page 29 has our latest additions and when we add more we then make page 30 and have to modify all the other ring pages to allow page 30 and then re publish all 30 ring pages. Its a bummer, but is there a better way? We prefer to have our latest designs first hence beginning at say 29 and going backwards. What I will be doing though is swapping the previous with the next as I think they may be in the opposite position at the moment in my opinion.

I included links from the small images to the large images via a folder in the ftp which contains the jpg. Otherwise I would have to make and publish an additional 2500+ pages for these larger jpgs. We save a hell of alot of time doin it this way but I do understand that it would be helpful to have a back to thumbnails page, but how without making and publishing over 2500 additional pages?

I agree a shopping cart would be great, I looked into SOHO, but got frustrated, I may need help with this one (anyone :)) but as we are a wholeale site for trade customers only this is mainly a catalogue site for our trade customers.

As with your comments collectors-info, Thats an awesome idea but a hell of alot of work, any easy ways to achieve this :(

Thanks all,
Regards
Rinaldi jeweller

A lot of shopping carts have all these facilities built into them.
If you carry on with the way that you are doing it, I can only think of adding a Google search to your site or a free find http://www.freefind.com/ (which are both free)
But you would have to give either of search engines some text to find. You maybe able to add this text to the alt text on each image & it’s possible that this will be found by the searches. (But let someone confer this or get the free find & test it on a few images)
What you would do is enter two or three key words into each image for the search to find.

Good luck.

It's gorgeous! I'm new to site building, but as a seasoned consumer....very nice work!

Thanks everyone for all your feedback, its been helpful.

Ben.
www.silverholiday.com.au

Hi Rinaldi,
I think your web is very nice.
Only one suggestion, why you don't you use the light box to display your collection. It will give a more professional look, but you can use it only to display 10 or so picture per page, like in your collection page.
Ex: on the link on "golden sunset" you use the light box to display the tumbnails, and pictures of your products.
Which program did you use to make the slide show in your home page?
Ciao
Alas
www.mediterraneotanzania.com
Tanzania hotels

Looks great

Your site is very pretty.

Ditto to what everyone else has said but I wonder if you could use pictures of real merchandiise?

Very nice site bty.


http://koolspaces.com

Im sorry, I dont understand what you mean when you say pictures of real merchandise?? Please explain.

Love your website ... love the colours ... love the jewellery ... in fact your website made me want to buy your creations and converted me to silver .. lol ... I know this is a wholesale site but why not capitalise on your visitors to the website and have a buy online store and wholesalers should contact you for wholesale prices ... or something like that ... it would be a shame for so many visitors to miss out on buying the beautiful work you are producing. Just a suggestion.

Another thing there were a lot of pics not showing up on the collections page ....

Keep up the good work and I hope it all goes well for you.

Thanks for that, I have been uploading new images in new folders and deleting existing ones, Its a big job and still not done yet.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

Love your site, it looks clean and fresh and very inviting. Made me want to know the prices of your beautiful jewellery. Well done.

Originally Posted by rinaldijeweller

Im sorry, I dont understand what you mean when you say pictures of real merchandise?? Please explain.

When I look at the flashing pictures they appear to blend inwith the white background. This makes them look less real. Why not consider a black background that would serve to illuminate your collection.


www.Koolspaces.com
The Best myspaces on myspace.com

A.
I question your use of the Registered Trademark symbol: according to TESS (Trademark Electronic Search Service) at the US Patent Office (which solely issues legal authorization of this symbol) there is no such registration for : 1. Goods or Services; 2. International Registrations; 3. Assignments or Applications; 4. Live/Active Registrations to your name, domain, personal or corporate registrations associated with you or any offical address you reference.
I would suggest removing this unauthorized use of this prestigious symbol unless you have in fact properly been assigned use of it. You can, however, use the "TM" designation to properly assert your Mark.

B.
Additionally, your lack of a compliant Privacy Policy accessible from every page of your site is an omission that may cause you grief later. Whether you service wholesale or retail commerce, it is something that is not optional nowadays. (As long as you are browsing the USPTO via the link above, you can use theirs as a fine example to model yours after)

C.
As far as the design and layout issues mentioned above, I would tend to agree that conforming page size should be 800 wide, and that the presentation of your catalog page numbering system be reverted to the common method as well (1-30 instead of the 30-1 as you have now).

D.
The suggestion of having some representation of each "collection" as an introductory image (or collage) is quite valid as well, as it would only serve to pique the interest of visitors to "drill in" to view items of interest: forcing visitors to enter each collection "blind" is an obvious logical obstacle to the processing of navigation to conversion.

E.
To better balance the pastel-like color schemes (a proven means to highlight the product via natural contrast), I would think your image resolution should be as crisp and presentable as possible: each picture is less than the quality even the most casual visitor might expect, and show signs of distortion. Hopefully they are not images scanned from a catalog of another, and the original images can be "cleaned up" and properly presented.

F.
And, as one prominently involved "in the trade" myself, I find it very unappealing to have no information about the proprietor of the site, any credible association or attainments lacking, and the "invitation" to inquire further with regard to a professional relationship sorely unprofessional. I deal with providers across the globe, and none have these crucial elements missing or hidden whatsoever. If you expect to deal with fellow trade professionals, you need to ante up accordingly.....


IMO, of course!