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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

My First On-Line Shop


adrian.pearce

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Your product descriptions are a bit light. For example: http://www.rutlandsofoakham.co.uk/shop/pro...products_id=127 would probably sell better if you did a descriptive sales paragraph with 3 concise sentences, and then had a bulleted list of the features, construction materials, etc.

 

When I tried to create a test account on your website, it took 58 seconds to to reach create_account_success.php. Now some consideration needs to be taken that I am in the US and you are in the UK, but that's still way too long. You can't expect your customers to wait over 20 seconds without feedback when they are on broadband. There is more than likely an issue with your database inserting the customer record for it to take this long- the rest of your site is pretty fast all things considered.

 

You don't have SSL on your checkout. That's a big turn off when asking customers to put in their credit card number.

 

You can delete the Chance Test Account and its subsequent order I placed.

My advice comes in two flavors- Pick the one that won't offend you.

 

Hard and Cynical: How to Make a Horrible osCommerce Site

 

Warm and Fuzzy: How to Make an Awesome osCommerce Site

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Your product descriptions are a bit light. For example: http://www.rutlandsofoakham.co.uk/shop/pro...products_id=127 would probably sell better if you did a descriptive sales paragraph with 3 concise sentences, and then had a bulleted list of the features, construction materials, etc.

 

When I tried to create a test account on your website, it took 58 seconds to to reach create_account_success.php. Now some consideration needs to be taken that I am in the US and you are in the UK, but that's still way too long. You can't expect your customers to wait over 20 seconds without feedback when they are on broadband. There is more than likely an issue with your database inserting the customer record for it to take this long- the rest of your site is pretty fast all things considered.

 

You don't have SSL on your checkout. That's a big turn off when asking customers to put in their credit card number.

 

You can delete the Chance Test Account and its subsequent order I placed.

 

Thanks again for your information, i have deleted your account which seems to work well

 

My customer hasn't got a computer and only wanted orders phoned through. Even though i have got the shopping cart, this enables the customer to print out the order before the phone call.

I have been trying to convince my customer that they need to purchase a computer and go online, as this would be a benefit to them. The shop is very powerful and the business could be run from here.

 

I have no SSL as transactions aren't being done over the net only by phone, but i think i should remove the credit card facility so no one inputs these details.

Maybe i should indicate on the front page that orders are by post or phone.

 

What do you think?

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Thanks again for your information, i have deleted your account which seems to work well

 

My customer hasn't got a computer and only wanted orders phoned through. Even though i have got the shopping cart, this enables the customer to print out the order before the phone call.

I have been trying to convince my customer that they need to purchase a computer and go online, as this would be a benefit to them. The shop is very powerful and the business could be run from here.

 

I have no SSL as transactions aren't being done over the net only by phone, but i think i should remove the credit card facility so no one inputs these details.

Maybe i should indicate on the front page that orders are by post or phone.

 

What do you think?

 

Does anyone know where i can get an SSL certificate reasonably priced please?

 

I have removed the credit card payment option from the site now, take a look and see if you would prefer this.

 

Shop here

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We can't post commercial links here, but there are numerous options out there.

 

LiteSSL is super cheap, ev1servers has Geotrust SSL certs for half price on their site, etc.

 

Remember to shop around.

My advice comes in two flavors- Pick the one that won't offend you.

 

Hard and Cynical: How to Make a Horrible osCommerce Site

 

Warm and Fuzzy: How to Make an Awesome osCommerce Site

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We can't post commercial links here, but there are numerous options out there.

 

LiteSSL is super cheap, ev1servers has Geotrust SSL certs for half price on their site, etc.

 

Remember to shop around.

 

Thanks again for the information, i have had a look with quite a choice, not sure which to choose so i will have to look into further.

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sorry, its too 'oscommerce' like, too stock....

 

try using your imagination or use a template

Upon receiving fixes and advice, too many people don't bother to post updates informing the forum of how it went. Until of course they need help again on other issues and they come running back!

 

Why receive the information you require in good faith for free, only to then have the attitude to ignore the people who gave it to you?

 

There's no harm in saying, 'Thanks, it worked'. On the contrary, it creates a better atmosphere.

 

CHOOCH

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sorry, its too 'oscommerce' like, too stock....

 

try using your imagination or use a template

 

Yes i agree, but my customer has already ok'd the site so i won't be changing it now. I will be using one for the next shop.

 

Do you know of any good template sites, i know of a few?

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Yes i agree, but my customer has already ok'd the site so i won't be changing it now. I will be using one for the next shop.

 

Do you know of any good template sites, i know of a few?

 

I have tried to optimise my site for the words camouflage outdoor clothing, hunting clothing, fishing clothing and some others. I still don't seem to be able to get very high up in the rankings. Does anyone know why?

 

Shop Here

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Looks Good so far. A lot of great tips. Here's another...

 

You probably want to keep your top banner pic the way it is although improving the readability.

 

This is one I discovered a while back and it works great. Create the text on two new layers above the background, The top layer being your visible colour layer and the duplicate layer below being a dropshadow or blurr layer. You can also just use a drop shadow text effect with a 0px offset and a high blurr value. The "blurr" layer creats a high contrast around your text making it stand out stronger against the background.

 

Also setting the layer blend mode changes how strong the contrast is. I use two blurr layers and used Dodge blend mode in Paint Shop Pro 9

 

Here's an example

 

Plain

FlatText.png

 

Enhanced

ClearText.png

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Looks Good so far. A lot of great tips. Here's another...

 

You probably want to keep your top banner pic the way it is although improving the readability.

 

This is one I discovered a while back and it works great. Create the text on two new layers above the background, The top layer being your visible colour layer and the duplicate layer below being a dropshadow or blurr layer. You can also just use a drop shadow text effect with a 0px offset and a high blurr value. The "blurr" layer creats a high contrast around your text making it stand out stronger against the background.

 

Also setting the layer blend mode changes how strong the contrast is. I use two blurr layers and used Dodge blend mode in Paint Shop Pro 9

 

Here's an example

 

Plain

FlatText.png

 

Enhanced

ClearText.png

 

Thanks for the tip, it cerainly looks alot better, i will try this out some time when i get chance.

 

Does anyone know how i can improve my rankings on Google especially with the keywords camouflage outdoor clothing and accessories, i have tried and still i can't find it on google very easily.

 

Shop

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pay per click is the best

get your site listed in directorys

get recipricol links to similar sites

 

Pay per click sounds good but what is the cost for this?

 

I have already tried to get recipricol links and have listed in some directories but still no joy.

 

Does anyone know of a directory listing that might be good.

 

As i have installed one of the meta tag contributions, this shows up in the admin panel for all the products, should i be putting in all the keywords etc for each product. Would this list better in google.

 

Shop

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Pay per click sounds good but what is the cost for this?

 

I have already tried to get recipricol links and have listed in some directories but still no joy.

 

Does anyone know of a directory listing that might be good.

 

As i have installed one of the meta tag contributions, this shows up in the admin panel for all the products, should i be putting in all the keywords etc for each product. Would this list better in google.

 

Shop

 

Does anyone know where to get good Oscommerce Templates from?

 

STORE

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Does anyone know where to get good Oscommerce Templates from?

 

STORE

 

Pay per click sounds good but what is the cost for this?

 

I have already tried to get recipricol links and have listed in some directories but still no joy.

 

Does anyone know of a directory listing that might be good.

 

As i have installed one of the meta tag contributions, this shows up in the admin panel for all the products, should i be putting in all the keywords etc for each product. Would this list better in google.

 

Does anyone know of any good oscommerce template sites please

 

Shop

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Pay per click sounds good but what is the cost for this?

 

I have already tried to get recipricol links and have listed in some directories but still no joy.

 

Does anyone know of a directory listing that might be good.

 

As i have installed one of the meta tag contributions, this shows up in the admin panel for all the products, should i be putting in all the keywords etc for each product. Would this list better in google.

 

Does anyone know of any good oscommerce template sites please

 

Shop

 

Search engine optimisation for oscommerce sites can anyone advise.

 

I need to get better ranking in google, have tried optimising meta tags, description etc even tried google

 

sitemaps to see if this helps.

 

Has anyone any ideas?

 

Rutlands of Oakham

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  • 3 weeks later...
Search engine optimisation for oscommerce sites can anyone advise.

 

I need to get better ranking in google, have tried optimising meta tags, description etc even tried google

 

sitemaps to see if this helps.

 

Has anyone any ideas?

 

Rutlands of Oakham

 

Still having problems getting any traffic to the site, does anyone know of good methods please.

 

Shop Here

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I haven't read through all of the replies in here, so don't know if anyone has said it before, and sorry if they have.

 

The front page of the site is a variable width layout, but all of the actual shop pages are fixed for 800x600. Personally I think it would look better and more consistent to stick with either the variable or the fixed across both the front page and the shop pages, I'm viewing at a much higher resolution, and the sudden jump from filling my window to only being in the middle looks a bit odd.

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I haven't read through all of the replies in here, so don't know if anyone has said it before, and sorry if they have.

 

The front page of the site is a variable width layout, but all of the actual shop pages are fixed for 800x600. Personally I think it would look better and more consistent to stick with either the variable or the fixed across both the front page and the shop pages, I'm viewing at a much higher resolution, and the sudden jump from filling my window to only being in the middle looks a bit odd.

 

OK thanks, i will look into it.

 

Shop

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Yes you would be redirected to paypal secure page, but i would still not use a site that does not have a SSL, the reason is i like my private details to stay private, it also looks like you care about the customers security.

 

Regards

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Yes you would be redirected to paypal secure page, but i would still not use a site that does not have a SSL, the reason is i like my private details to stay private, it also looks like you care about the customers security.

 

Regards

 

Thanks for the reply. Do i have to buy an SSL certificate from my host or can anyone do.

 

Shop

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you can get any where you like, i got my one from my host and they install and test it for me.

 

regards

 

That sounds good, but my host wants to charge me ?230.00 for one and i know i can get them cheaper else where and as good. Are they difficult to install and where would you recommend to get a good one from.

:thumbsup:

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