Jump to content
  • Checkout
  • Login
  • Get in touch

osCommerce

The e-commerce.

Finally! My HEAVILY modded store is live..


Guest

Recommended Posts

Hi,

After 3 months of hard work my site is now finally live with OSCommerce. I have been a successful retail shop for a year now, but decided to switch carts because Paypal's cart is terrible. This site is live so no test purchases please. Feel free to comment on the layout and general look of the site or point out any coding errors you find.

 

The only 2 problems I am currently aware of are:

1. a few items are missing the new add to cart link

2. Any test emails sent through the site have the incorrect website link at the bottom

 

I would like to thank Simplyeasier for helping me out with my difficult SSL Cert problem. and everyone else whose comments here on the forum helped me figure out the hundreds of problems this novice php coder ran into.

 

http://www.mechanicalbunny.com

 

Thank you for your time! =)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm viewing in IE 6.0 on Windows XP, and there is an enormous gap between your left column and the center section when I view any specific category - we're talking half the screen is just black space. Doesn't happen on the home page. Seems like a major issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At first glance its hard to know exactly what you are selling .. you shouldn't force casual "surfers" to click all over the place to find out .. cos they won't.

 

The black is depressing and doesn't put me in a mood to buy .. this has been researched by marketing companies .. they have found light open colours are best to "calm" buyers and make them feel more in a mood to buy.

 

:huh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont have the problem above but it does appear that the top of the page is quite away from the top, I kept expecting something to load in and it didnt.

 

I too have no clue what you are selling, maybe just having a picture of one product on your main page would help.

 

the links on the right are in TNR by the look of it, doesnt look in keeping with the rest of the site..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm viewing in IE 6.0 on Windows XP, and there is an enormous gap between your left column and the center section when I view any specific category - we're talking half the screen is just black space.  Doesn't happen on the home page.  Seems like a major issue.

Thank you, I did a code fix this afternoon and it must have messed stuff up, ficxing that now.

 

At first glance its hard to know exactly what you are selling .. you shouldn't force casual "surfers" to click all over the place to find out .. cos they won't.

 

The black is depressing and doesn't put me in a mood to buy .. this has been researched by marketing companies .. they have found light open colours are best to "calm" buyers and make them feel more in a mood to buy.

 

:huh:

 

Thanks, but I have actuallly been selling very suuccessfully. I have a gothy/punk/alternative site and my colors appeal to that genre as my own market research has shown.

 

Same 'huge' gap when i visited the site. The gap is between your left menu area and the body content. You also have an image missing in the "head" category...

 

But besides that, nice site :-)

 

 

Thanks fixing it now..

I dont have the problem above but it does appear that the top of the page is quite away from the top, I kept expecting something to load in and it didnt.

 

I too have no clue what you are selling, maybe just having a picture of one product on your main page would help.

 

the links on the right are in TNR by the look of it, doesnt look in keeping with the rest of the site..

 

Thanks.. looking in to it.

I have been a successful retail site for a year now and most of the market research I have done has shown my site to be easy to navigate and fun to shop on (at least for my customer base). I appreciate the info though. I was looking more for coding errors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK.. that huge gap is gone now. I was an idiot and broke it earlier this evening by adding an additional table that it didnt need.

Sorry, please continue with your opinions, though i should mention that 95% of my hits come from sources who already know that I sell clothing, books, religious supplies, and accessories. People know what I am selling because they find my site through advertising. I get alot of daily unique hits and alot of daily purchases. I think if I had any more business I would probably not be able to continue my life as a student. :P

Thanks everyone for posting, it would have been days before I caught that gap since I don't use IE. I am going to make it a point to check all browsers now after an update.

 

I am sorry if any of my replies seem short, I just got home and its VERY late here. I wanted to fix the site and reply before I crashed out. I really do appreciate every single comment.

 

PS.. Cymungok..what does "TNR" mean?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Between, your center column and right column is another gap, with 2 links on top of each other to oscommerce. Don't think that was made like that on purpose. Your css needs some work, plane jane fonts and font colors. Congratulations on managing to integrate cutenews on your index but the styles cutenews uses and the rest of your site kind of clash. If you could work on your osc stylesheet and the styles used by cutenews, your site would flow a little better imo.

 

The left column is waaay longer than the right column at the bottom, kinda lop-sided. The header image is missing something on the right side. Just two dice sitting there out in the open for no apparent rhyme or reason...

 

Big humongous gap at the top, dead space, blah blah. I think the center column could use more content, kinda looks incomplete and empty. Your "contact us" page (or the rest of the top left links for that matter) does not integrate with the rest of the site at all.

 

Bonus points for actually having content under shipping and returns.

 

That's about all I can come up with for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote .. "Thanks, but I have actuallly been selling very suuccessfully. I have a gothy/punk/alternative site and my colors appeal to that genre as my own market research has shown.

 

Your right .. I realised that just after I posted and had a second look to find out what you were selling.

 

PS .. you really gotta get rid of the Times New Roman fonts in the side columns .. doesn't match the rest of the site and is a pretty "straight" non alternative type of font.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am viewing on Safari on Mac OSX on a laptop and there are a few little glitches:

 

The links are very faint and hard to read - maybe a slightly darker grey? I found the following page really useful in choosing colours http://www.somacon.com/p142.php

 

There are two links to OSC between the centre and the right column - throwing out your layout

 

This email page is called osCommerce on my browser. The others your site name.

 

I'm another who finds serif fonts to busy, but thats just personal preference.

 

The background above the right hand column is a different black to the rest of the page

 

And ditto the other comments about the space at the top, rogue osc links, etc

 

I think TNR refers to Times New Roman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I.m not sure .. but if you got rid of all this rubbish in your header.php .. it may help in the blank space.

 

</head>

 

 

 

<!-- Yarr! matey, this be the beginning of fresh code, part 2 -->

</td>

 

</tr>

 

 

Its not doing anything .. there is a table ending with no table beginning.

 

:blush:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote .. "Thanks, but I have actuallly been selling very suuccessfully. I have a gothy/punk/alternative site and my colors appeal to that genre as my own market research has shown.

 

Your right .. I realised that  just after I posted and had a second look to find out what you were selling.

 

PS .. you really gotta get rid of the Times New Roman fonts in the side columns .. doesn't match the rest of the site and is a pretty "straight" non alternative type of font.

 

Ahhhhh TNR, Times New Roman.. You got it I will change that up ASAP!

 

How to get back to the store after I've added a product to the Wishlist?  :blink:

 

OH! You're right! I will get a link added asap!

I am viewing on Safari on Mac OSX on a laptop and there are a few little glitches:

 

The links are very faint and hard to read - maybe a slightly darker grey? I found the following page really useful in choosing colours http://www.somacon.com/p142.php

 

There are two links to OSC between the centre and the right column - throwing out your layout

 

This email page is called osCommerce on my browser. The others your site name.

 

I'm another who finds serif fonts to busy, but thats just personal preference.

 

The background above the right hand column is a different black to the rest of the page

 

And ditto the other comments about the space at the top, rogue osc links, etc

 

I think TNR refers to Times New Roman

 

Thank you! The gap was again a thing I did last night when trying to fix the first gap. I was So exhausted I wasnt paying attention very closely. It should be repaired now on all broswers.

 

I have been able to fix a few of the Title pages, but having a problem finding the info on the others. If I cannot figure out where to chnage all of them i will post for help. Thanks!

 

I just noticed that the color was grey, it's suppossed to be black. And that the black is diff from the rest. On that right now too.

 

So because the OSC pages do not have the exact same look as my own site that is bad? Man it's going to be difficult to integrate it, but will do my best. I assumed that if color schemes were similar, buttons and such that it would make up for not having the includes that are on all the other pages. But I will play around with it. After I fix the font, header, and other stuff that will be my next big project.

 

 

I.m not sure .. but if you got rid of all this rubbish in your header.php .. it may help in the blank space.

 

</head>

<!-- Yarr! matey, this be the beginning of fresh code, part 2 -->

</td>

 

</tr>

Its not doing anything .. there is a table ending with no table beginning.

 

:blush:

 

LOL.. it actually needs to stay for a short time. I have a very difficult time getting my tables right when I added that right column. A friend of mine emailed me the new code and those were her additions. I need to leave that so I know what she changed, at least for a little while. That section of code inside it is actually important and keeps the right column from floating to the left.

 

I think it's a bad site navigation...

Personaly I like to surf in full screen mode with auto hide.

No "Back" button  :'(

I had a problem with the back button and integrating it into the site. I will try to add it back in when I have time to play around with it.

 

Yeah .. I know .. I was joking .. sorry about that chief! :'(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Between, your center column and right column is another gap, with 2 links on top of each other to oscommerce.  Don't think that was made like that on purpose.  Your css needs some work, plane jane fonts and font colors.  Congratulations on managing to integrate cutenews on your index but the styles cutenews uses and the rest of your site kind of clash.  If you could work on your osc stylesheet and the styles used by cutenews, your site would flow a little better imo. 

 

The left column is waaay longer than the right column at the bottom, kinda lop-sided.  The header image is missing something on the right side.  Just two dice sitting there out in the open for no apparent rhyme or reason...

 

Big humongous gap at the top, dead space, blah blah.  I think the center column could use more content, kinda looks incomplete and empty.  Your "contact us" page (or the rest of the top left links for that matter) does not integrate with the rest of the site at all.

 

Bonus points for actually having content under shipping and returns. 

 

That's about all I can come up with for now.

 

Thanks, gap fixed!

It's odd, some people see that I use serif fonts on all my links and text, even on the columns, and other people do not see the serif on the columns. It probably has something to do with my includes and I am going to fix that right up. As well as hunt for a better font. I wanted a change anyway. =)

 

I didn't even think of changing up the stylesheets for either of those! I will get that done with the rest of the font stuff today.

 

I fixed the columns.. I have a few more button links to switch out, but at least now they are the same size. (it did look odd)

 

The header images are all fixed now.. but I have that large blank black space above the right column because of a lack of knowing what on earth to put there? I was thinking perhaps a blurb (drawn well in a font that matches) that says what we sell? Since I do have a few random visitors to the site, it might be cool to let them know. But I don't want the site to look too busy. Also, if I add something in the right section, I will probably take out the rolling header images all together and center the title image.

 

Integrating the OSC links with my own includes will be a long and arduous task. But it is in the plans. I will definitly change up the font schemes and I have a few more images to change up too. For now I was thinking of putting my banner in the application_bottom page so it helped people remember where they were (plus fixing all the nav bar titles)

 

heh.. Shipping and Returns were the first pages to be written before I even opened the store. I know what I hated when I was a customer and I made sure to not be one of those companies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just had a quick look in for you...

I hope these comments help.

 

http://www.mechanicalbunny.com/layout/top-right_color2.jpg

Looks about 100 pixels too high leaving about a 3cm gap to scroll past, id suggest making that smaller to get rid of the scrolling.

 

Column left

"Web Design By:"

Then no info on some pages. If you running the site on a cpanel linux host you can get rid of the site meter at the bottom of the column too as there are better invisable stats applications in cpanel which are free.

 

Column right..

Id make http://www.mechanicalbunny.com/layout/menu-bottom2.gif a little narrower to get rid of the big white space alongside all your navigation links, id also consider shrinking the gifs etc in column left to make the columns the same width.

 

Some of your images have hardcoded http paths leading to a security warning if you view your site at https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/

 

I would delete "Thanks to everyone for your patience with our 2 day downtime." As a new customer id have no idea there was any downtime if I just came across the site, I dont think theres any need to inform all would be customers you have had problems in the past, it hardly builds customer confidence.

 

I would delete all the links in both column left and right, and put them on a links page or something if you wanted them.

 

Your reviews all seem to be https for some reason... again the security warning is there.

 

Your ssl certificate path doesnt seem to be right...

https://chesera.ath.cx/catalog/order_info.php

Gives me a page not found error when I clicked the pwo button.

 

I dont think you need to know my gender, or my dob on the create_account, you could also automatically chose one country where most of your customers come from to save a little bit of time in the country drop down list.

If I click the "click here to join" the newsletter link it takes me away from the create account page, id suggest changing the link to target=_blank

 

Some of your gifs are based on a white background which doesnt look so good...

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/catalog/ima...round_login.gif

 

I also had no idea what you were selling until I clicked about a bit.

Whilst most of your customers who have clicked advertising links might know what theyre buying for casual browsers, and search engines searches it might not be so clear.

 

The oscommerce copywrite in the footer only appears on some pages.

 

I hope this helps, the bunny looks quite funky :)

Good luck with your store.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phew.. You are keeping me busy..

 

OK, so All titles have been fixed. A banner has been added to the bottom to temporarily help show the cart is a part of mechbun and to get back to the main page on any pages that are do not have a continue button.

 

The header images are repaired, the black is now the same black, the columns are the same length I just need to replace the buttons on one side with new ones.

 

The fonts are fixed, I realized that when I moved over to my new server, I never uploaded my css file. I still havent played around with the OSC stylesheet, that will have to wait until tonight. (how does the selected font look now?)

 

Thanks muchly!!

 

Anyone find anything else?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just had a quick look in for you...

I hope these comments help.

 

http://www.mechanicalbunny.com/layout/top-right_color2.jpg

Looks about 100 pixels too high leaving about a 3cm gap to scroll past, id suggest making that smaller to get rid of the scrolling.

 

Column left

"Web Design By:"

Then no info on some pages. If you running the site on a cpanel linux host you can get rid of the site meter at the bottom of the column too as there are better invisable stats applications in cpanel which are free.

 

Column right..

Id make http://www.mechanicalbunny.com/layout/menu-bottom2.gif a little narrower to get rid of the big white space alongside all your navigation links, id also consider shrinking the gifs etc in column left to make the columns the same width.

 

Some of your images have hardcoded http paths leading to a security warning if you view your site at https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/

 

I would delete "Thanks to everyone for your patience with our 2 day downtime." As a new customer id have no idea there was any downtime if I just came across the site, I dont think theres any need to inform all would be customers you have had problems in the past, it hardly builds customer confidence.

 

I would delete all the links in both column left and right, and put them on a links page or something if you wanted them.

 

Your reviews all seem to be https for some reason... again the security warning is there.

 

Your ssl certificate path doesnt seem to be right...

https://chesera.ath.cx/catalog/order_info.php

Gives me a page not found error when I clicked the pwo button.

 

I dont think you need to know my gender, or my dob on the create_account, you could also automatically chose one country where most of your customers come from to save a little bit of time in the country drop down list.

If I click the "click here to join" the newsletter link it takes me away from the create account page, id suggest changing the link to target=_blank

 

Some of your gifs are based on a white background which doesnt look so good...

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/catalog/ima...round_login.gif

 

I also had no idea what you were selling until I clicked about a bit.

Whilst most of your customers who have clicked advertising links might know what theyre buying for casual browsers, and search engines searches it might not be so clear.

 

The oscommerce copywrite in the footer only appears on some pages.

 

I hope this helps, the bunny looks quite funky :)

Good luck with your store.

 

Thank you SOOOOO much!!

 

First off, the PWO was a MONDO mistake, it had the old link, that is fixed now.

 

I was really confused about the sizing of that top right image, so thank you!

I do like Cpanel's info, but I also like Site Meter so it'll probably stay.

I was also confused about the size menu bottom image so thank you again!

 

Ah, most of my customers are repeat people and I got some emails concerned about why I was down. I thought it would be best to post that, but perhaps not. I will go ahead and take that down now.

 

I will have Dream Weaver hunt for all instances of http and change it to https. That would definitly be best.

 

I didnt think about taking countries out of the list, great idea, I will do that tonight. And youre right about the gender, most of my customers are women. BUT I do want the DOB. I am very curious what my market is. All my research has shown 16-21, but I'd like to see for myself.

 

Ug yeah the white backgrounds will be changed, heh. My husband is making about 10 new images to replace some of the last stock images and he said he would chage the backgrounds of the others to black while he was at it.

 

The search engines atcually do make it pretty clear. Most peopleget to my site by typing in searchs for specific articles of clothing. this takes them to that page. When people search for Mechanical Bunn,my header comes up with a blurb about Fashion for goth, punk, etc etc etc. I did however have an idea for that blank space on the right. I could take away the rolling header image in the middle, center the title and in the right have an image with a "what we sell" statement. Of course not something lame and plain sounding. BUT I am worried this will look too busy. What are your thoughts?

 

The footer was messing up my main pages, so I took it off temporarily until I can figure out what the heck it is doing.

 

Thanks for all your help!! I appreciate it so much!

=)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK.. added a BASE href command so all links should go to https pages now

fixed the PWO link on the login page

Took out gender from the account section

edited cute news

corrected the "join newsletter" link

 

--fixes to be done tonight--

upper right image and bottom right menu image

All the white behind the images in the shopping cart

replacing the very few osc stock photos that are left

adding 4 new button links to the right so there arent duplicates

stylesheet for OSC will be changed

Cute News font will be changes

countries will be removed from the drop down list

 

You are all so much help! I am so glad I posted my site!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hiya,

Glad I could help... heres a few more comments you might like to consider as I had another look...

If you click the subscribe button in column left or the Mailing List text you go to

http://mechanicalbunny.com/mailman/subscri...anicalbunny.com

Which is a page saying theres a bug and gives all sort of server info.

 

Your visited link urls change colour after you click them, its usual for them to stay the same colour (click a few links on this site to see).

 

The 5 gifs on the homepage for the different areas of your shop have a blue border around them which changes colour once clicked, I think it would look better to remove the border.

 

Changing all http to https was a mistake, if you now click any link it takes you to a https page which will not do your server any good it`ll cause a higher load depending on how many customers you have and slows your store down a little. The easiest way to remove the security warning is to find the hardcoded http: image and remove the http bit so it just says mechanicalbunny.com/images/imagename.gif or similar.

 

It looks like you have recently moved your store from /catalog/ to route, some of your pages are pointing to the catalog directory still eg

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/catalog/contact_us.php

 

On some pages you have column left and right in place, on others you seem to have removed them and have the banner link as the only way to get back to the homepage. It looks much better to have column left and right in place than the banner pages imo.

 

On some pages you have some kind of fade affect...

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/recycle/

and on others you dont, id remove the fade affect personally as its bugging!

 

On some pages you have the previous/next links at the bottom and on some you dont.

eg

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/body/

 

Your ebay links take customers away from your store... I guess you like paying ebay`s fees ;)

 

You definately need some blurb on your homepage somewhere about what your selling and shouldnt rely on header tags, not all search engines use them.

 

Id recommend installing some other payment processor other than paypal and bidpay, something where I can just enter my card details to pay. 2checkout or similar comes to mind.

 

Thee Basket Boutique gif is VERY bugging with it flashing all the time, and id still remove all the affiliate links personally. You want people to buy from you not your affiliates/friends dont you?

 

HTH and the very best of luck with your store.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hiya,

Glad I could help... heres a few more comments you might like to consider as I had another look...

If you click the subscribe button in column left or the Mailing List text you go to

http://mechanicalbunny.com/mailman/subscri...anicalbunny.com

Which is a page saying theres a bug and gives all sort of server info.

 

Your visited link urls change colour after you click them, its usual for them to stay the same colour (click a few links on this site to see).

 

The 5 gifs on the homepage for the different areas of your shop have a blue border around them which changes colour once clicked, I think it would look better to remove the border.

 

Changing all http to https was a mistake, if you now click any link it takes you to a https page which will not do your server any good it`ll cause a higher load depending on how many customers you have and slows your store down a little. The easiest way to remove the security warning is to find the hardcoded http: image and remove the http bit so it just says mechanicalbunny.com/images/imagename.gif or similar.

 

It looks like you have recently moved your store from /catalog/ to route, some of your pages are pointing to the catalog directory still eg

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/catalog/contact_us.php

 

On some pages you have column left and right in place, on others you seem to have removed them and have the banner link as the only way to get back to the homepage. It looks much better to have column left and right in place than the banner pages imo.

 

On some pages you have some kind of fade affect...

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/recycle/

and on others you dont, id remove the fade affect personally as its bugging!

 

On some pages you have the previous/next links at the bottom and on some you dont.

eg

https://www.mechanicalbunny.com/body/

 

Your ebay links take customers away from your store... I guess you like paying ebay`s fees ;)

 

You definately need some blurb on your homepage somewhere about what your selling and shouldnt rely on header tags, not all search engines use them.

 

Id recommend installing some other payment processor other than paypal and bidpay, something where I can just enter my card details to pay. 2checkout or similar comes to mind.

 

Thee Basket Boutique gif is VERY bugging with it flashing all the time, and id still remove all the affiliate links personally. You want people to buy from you not your affiliates/friends dont you?

 

HTH and the very best of luck with your store.

 

 

 

Thanks Again!

My mailing list server is down right now.. should be up soon.

 

Thanks, I didnt even notice the links stayed the hover color. That's a quick easy fix

I'll get that border out too, something else I didnt notice.

 

I actually didnt change all the links, because I forgot that all my links are like this ../images/whatever.jpg. So i just added a Base href link on one of my SSI's. Will that cause too heavy a load? The problem is that if I DONT do it, then security warnings pop up. (PS I removed Sitemeter because the darn thing doesnt have a secure image)

 

Huh.. I thought I fixed all the /catalog pages. I ust did some site changes though, and I am working on 2 puters. chances are I fixed the wrong files. I will check on those now.

 

The columns on the left and right are VERY sifficult to add into OSC's PHP pages. My site is written all with html, SSI's, java, and CSS. I have NO idea at all how to integrate those SSi's into a php page. I played around with it for 2 days once with no luck. So until I figure it out, the shoping cart will look different.

 

EW! The fade!! Thanks I wil fix that right now with the link color stuff.

 

The body page really doesnt need a back or next button. There isnt really anything to go back to, same with the mind. Though I am going to change the mind section up and combine it so it will have a back and next. But the body page is just a page to hold the categories. Taking them back they would go to the index, whichthe "Shop/News" link is already for or the "Back" button of their browser. Taking them next would take them beyond the clothing into the mind section. I don't want that.

 

I sell Couture on Ebay and many of my customers come from my site into there. I may sell to a gothy punky crowd, but they have money. And if they want to go from my site to Ebay to buy a pair of $500 shoes, I'll let em. ;)

 

I hate blurbs on homepages with a passion. I won't do it. However, I think I may change the main category buttons. I plan on having the Body one say something about fashion, the mind one changed to "books/Journals" and the soul one changed as well. if people can't figure out from that what I sell then they really can move on. 95% of my vistors know alreday what I am selling. If that other 5% can't figure it out it's best that I don't deal with them.

 

I have been thining about another payment process, but I am just a student and can't really afford the $150 start up fee. Paypal has one that I signed up for but I have yet to install the contrib.

 

I do actually want my customers to shop at my friend's store. I am a very different kind of merchant. I am out there to make money, and I definitly do. However, I don't need all the money in the world and if my friends get some, thats great! This is just a company that I started to help my husband pay the bills while I quit my computer job and went to school. It cannot get too busy or I will never have time for my studies. I know, it sounds crazy, but I have been in business for the last year and it's worked out great for me. My whole family is full of people who own their own businesses and none of them understand my peculiar methods, but they all agree I have done well.

 

Thank you again for all your help and input. I will fix the simple things and take time tonight to do the major ones. Even though I won't follow all your advice I want you to know that you have been one of the most helpful people I have met. I know it took time for you to look through my site and I appreciate it so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Huh.. I thought I fixed all the /catalog pages.  I ust did some site changes though, and I am working on 2 puters.  chances are I fixed the wrong files.  I will check on those now.

 

 

OOPS.. this si actually correct. OSC is stored in a folder called catalog. It was done this way orginally for ease of uploading and less confusion for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...