Thread: Opinions Please!!

Hi guys,

I just finished (hopefully) building my ecommerce website, but before I declare it "done" I would love to get some creative opinions on the site:

http://apwatw.com

Feel free to criticize as well as comment, all feedback is appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Eli

cool site, you have done a very good job. 3 cheers and lots of drinks

ditto

haha thanks guys!

Well i couldnt find anyway to pay or buy anything, not gonna sell much if you cant click a buy button somewhere. I found it rather confusing like gee.. pretty pictures.. dunno what the frames were about either

Karen

Hi Karen,

First: to purchase something, there is a sidebar on the left side that has the respective names of each piece that when clicked will bring you to the purchase form. The reason that I had to do this as opposed to using PayPal integration or something of that nature, is this: shipping prices for things like 3ft by 3ft large pieces of original artwork varies, a LOT. As such before any order is processed, I go to my nearby custom framing store, get the shipping price, and then reply to the form generated email with the item+shipping invoice.

Secondly, the website isn't just eCommerce, it's primarily to provide information about the actual store located in NH. The store focuses on used books, fine art, and custom framing. That's why the framing page is there or if your referring to the frames around the pictures, it's because thats how you buy the artwork. It's fine art and primarily original pieces, as such all artwork has custom archival framing.

Thanks,
Eli

Just pointing out that customers gandering there are going to be confused as well. Those buttons down the side should be UNDER the paintings.. and a INFORMATION page should be included about HOW TO ORDER etc.

Not to mention you will need a privacy policy which clearly states HOW you keep the information and how you SAFE GUARD IT.

Karen

I have to agree with Karen, that I didn't really make it to the buy section at all! The things I saw, were sort of random, but here you go(:
1. Home page. Perhaps move your contact link down to the last link. You want people to peruse your site.
2. Move your pics up on your books page. There is a huge white gap b/w the photos and writing.

I would try to make the purchasing a little more easy though(:
Tracie

Looked good to me. Really liked the graphics! You should be proud of it! I would suggest that if you are trying to market a "widget", you should make the "buying" process as user friendly and as simple as possible.

Thank you both for your points, yes I definitely do need a privacy policy but it shouldn't be to bad to write, should it? It's really just a php mailer I wrote that redirects the textfield's text to a hidden email address.

As for purchasing; I am not happy with the "purchase side-bar" but I tried putting each button below the thumbnails as it should be, but regretfully as BlueVoda uses absolute values for it's positioning, the buttons displayed with such variety it made it impossible. By that I mean that when it looked good on my laptop, my dektop displayed the buttons directly on top of some of the pictures, or far below, etc. If you could provide me with some solution to that problem it would be greatly appreciated.

Regarding organization, could you explain that a bit more? I feel like the main menu at the top is clear; and I decided not to put the artists/categories menu on every page because it's large and overpowering, and if you want to see the artwork I'm sure most people would click "galleries" in the main menu anyways.

The white space on the books page only occurs in Internet Explorer. This is very bothersome and I intend to fix it, but there was no obvious problem and it works in the other browsers, so I guess I'll have to do some thorough debugging.

I will add an info page Karen, thanks.

Lovely! Nice muted colours that sit in the background and don't distract from the artwork.

I think an 'About' page would be good to include - I was a little confused at the book page until I realised that there must be a physical store stocking the books (because there were none for sale on the page.)

Very nicely designed site :)

Thank you bluedays and tyler! Both of you are definitely right an about page would be good and I'm trying to get the buying process simplified!

How about Using a form?

Karen

http://www.apwatw.com/purchase.php

I have a purchase form, what do you mean?

You can make a form to host your image and button to actually purchase as well.. or linked to the PURCHASE FORM

Karen