11 replies to this topic

[Jarrod1937]

Hello, we have been using OSCommerce for quite sometime. However, we're always open to any suggestions/criticisms/opinions...etc anyone may have for our site.
You can visit the site here, FactoryDirectCraft.com
Please don't hold anything back and give us your honest opinion. However, please also be detailed about what you don't like so we can strive to fix it.
Thank you,

Jarrod Christman

[Between the Sticks USA]

I LOVE the way your site looks! Can I ask you to PM me on how you made your site look like that, please? That is what I am striving for!

[jhande]

Hey Jarrod,

Awesome... I can't believe it started as an osC site.

There are two things that kind of bug me though.

The breadcrumb trail breaks to three lines on a product info page.

But the biggy...
You actually show the terms of a wholesale account for everyone to see.
Usually that info is kept private until after I contact a wholesaler/distributor. I don't need my customers knowing how much of a profit margin I have for different products from different wholesalers.

[burt]

Agree with Jim about the breadcrumb trail.  Looks bad.

Also, do something about a better popup image script - at this moment it seems to load a whole new page instead of just popping up.

Add it in the osCommerce Hot 100 (hunt google for that) and let people vote on it.  Might get you a few sales too, you never know.

[Jarrod1937]

Between the Sticks USA, on Oct 21 2008, 07:18 PM, said:

I LOVE the way your site looks! Can I ask you to PM me on how you made your site look like that, please? That is what I am striving for!

Which part do you want to know about? Most of the look is simply from our template file design, i can't help you with that as thats based on your web design skill.

jhande, on Oct 22 2008, 06:34 AM, said:

Hey Jarrod,

Awesome... I can't believe it started as an osC site.

There are two things that kind of bug me though.

The breadcrumb trail breaks to three lines on a product info page.

But the biggy...
You actually show the terms of a wholesale account for everyone to see.
Usually that info is kept private until after I contact a wholesaler/distributor. I don't need my customers knowing how much of a profit margin I have for different products from different wholesalers.

Well, i just finished the dynamic page title code, and limited it to 2 levels down, then the product name, to avoid an overly long trail. Perhaps i'll do the same with the breadcrumbs, or increase the table width so more can fit in there before breaking.
As for the wholesale, i'll discuss that with my boss and see what she wants to do.

burt, on Oct 22 2008, 06:43 AM, said:

Agree with Jim about the breadcrumb trail.  Looks bad.

Also, do something about a better popup image script - at this moment it seems to load a whole new page instead of just popping up.

Add it in the osCommerce Hot 100 (hunt google for that) and let people vote on it.  Might get you a few sales too, you never know.

Yeah, the image loading for the products could be done in a better way. However, i'd prefer to avoid any type of popups, you run into too many problems with popups with all of the anti-popup browser stuff these days, some block new windows from opening, others block javascript popups...etc. I think i may go with an old school approach like an inline frame that the images load in. Unless someone here has a better idea.

Thanks for the comments so far! After my next project i'll be moving onto the changes suggested here.

[php_Guy]

Great look! Images make a site and you've made very good use of them. The thumbnails are fantastic.

A couple of things though:

Your navbar is brown and uses black text on mouseover. I can't see the text.

The textarea on your contact us page is too big and is being cutoff (in IE7/win)

The color scheme on some pages (contact us, shipping, etc) doesn't quite seem to fit. There are some blues that would look better as browns or blacks.

Login screen needs some padding around the text. Both the login and registration boxes could use a new design. The osc one is quite boring. Getting folks to register is a big deal so that whole page should be very inviting.

On the order a catalog page, the "credit card information" text and the HR both look odd. It needs better seperation from the previous fields. I'd extend the HR so it covers both the labels and the input fields and center the header text above that.

HTH

Excellent site! I think you'll do very well

[Jarrod1937]

Ok, a lot of things have been changed. Please revisit the site again to see them. Most of the more minor things have been tweaked, but things like the new way of loading images...etc will be changed later, as they require more planning and time to complete.

Edited by Jarrod1937, 23 October 2008 - 09:48 PM.

[jhande]

Jarrod1937, on Oct 23 2008, 10:27 AM, said:

As for the wholesale, i'll discuss that with my boss and see what she wants to do.

What I have come across from my different wholesaler\distributors, is that they might list some of the information needed to qualify for the discount, such as business license\ID#, tax #, etc... But they never post the pricing for all to see. Once I send them my info, they either call me, email me or give a username password to access the wholesale pricing database. A brick-n-mortar store gets a slightly better discount than just a web based shop.

Quote

Yeah, the image loading for the products could be done in a better way. However, i'd prefer to avoid any type of popups, you run into too many problems with popups with all of the anti-popup browser stuff these days, some block new windows from opening, others block javascript popups...etc. I think i may go with an old school approach like an inline frame that the images load in. Unless someone here has a better idea.

Another thing you could possibly do, forget about the pop-up image all together. What I did was I started with the big images contribution and instead of having it pop-up, I embedded it in place of the image on the product_info page. But I really don't need an overly large image. Just a thought!

[webmissey]

Jarrod,

Wow, Nice looking site.  

Looks like you are just working on the details. Here are a couple small ones:

Move  your copyright to under the the powered by oscommerce. Most search engines give extra weight for the last words on a page.

Do away with the fax number at the top right and make the 800# larger and bolder. No one uses fax much any more.

Good Luck - I will enjoy watching the changes to your site.

Missey

[webmissey]

Like how you changed the home page. Much warmer feel to the site.

Now what concerns me is all that blank space on the lower left.....

Got plans for that?

[Jarrod1937]

webmissey, on Oct 28 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

Like how you changed the home page. Much warmer feel to the site.

Now what concerns me is all that blank space on the lower left.....

Got plans for that?

I think we need to keep it balanced by perhaps removing items from the right. It starts looking cluttered after a while. That and we can't keep adding items to the left, in addition to the right, as it will increase the total file page size too much. Each page must be a balance of content and filesize, which in turn equals server load and page load time.

[webmissey]

Jarrod,

Noticed your site says copyright 1996-

Shouldn't it be 1996-2008

Just a small detail