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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

New Store Looking for Love


themostred

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Hi folks. This was my first go 'round with osCommerce. Not too shabby but I'd appreciate any feedback as it relates to functionality, security, UI and visual design...pretty much anything you'd like to point out. The footer "powered by" exists on the shopping cart pages; not on the content pages that are hosted separately.

 

w w w dot s o h g a v e dot c o m / s h o p

 

thanks in advance for your critique!

 

 

s

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sooo...i see people viewing this post, but no one has yet to comment on my store. Is there something wrong with it?? Please let me know so I can address it promptly. I do wish to engage this community properly and under the stated rules.

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The rules allow you to link to your store here. Most people will not try to decipher your store URL and type it in by hand, so you won't get many comments this way.

 

The front page of your store looks very sparse, and it doesn't tell me what you product is. That's a marketing failure. You seem to assume that customers will come in on your site's front page. You should assume that most of your customers will find you from a search engine or social bookmark and can land on any page. Give all pages a clear route to your products, and get rid of any that don't have a clear function.

 

You have many pages outside the osCommerce structure. Customers who add an item to their cart and then visit one of these pages can lose their cart contents. I see no reason for this design. Maybe osCommerce is an add-on to an existing store. This is still a bad structure to use.

 

I see very little information about your company. I would want to know more before I risk doing business with you. No, I'm not going to email you for that information; I expect to find it on your site. I can easily find similar products elsewhere, including my local grocery store. Even finding your contact page took a bit of work.

 

This looks like a site created by a designer: it is very pretty and not very functional. It looks like the osCommerce cart functions were bolted on as an afterthought. Maybe they were, but it shouldn't be obvious to the customer.

 

Your customers do not want to "create an account." They didn't come to your store for an account; they came for your product. There are several ways to fix that, including a couple of Addons that work reasonably well. Clean up the checkout and reduce the number of steps it takes to buy your product.

 

Sorry for the harsh review, but you did ask for my opinion.

 

Regards

Jim

See my profile for a list of my addons and ways to get support.

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Thanks Jim. I concur with your review. We adopted a Wordpress site that was indeed originally done by a designer. The budget simply allowed for correcting some content architecture, and getting a phase I storefront up.

 

There are conflicting remarks in the forum about typing out proper urls and I'm not sure we want the store listing in search results for osCommerce just yet. We're still getting to know each other...all in good time. So if that means sacrificing reviews than so be it. I do appreciate your honesty and the time it took to provide your critique.

 

The front page declares in a tagline just under the main logo, "The Gold Standard Blue Agave" and the first line of the first paragraph states, "the surprising sweetener that’s healthier than many other “natural” alternatives." Speaking as an internet user myself, this alone would suffice for me (describing what the product "is"). However, I can see where some might need a little more; especially if they do not know that the "agave" plant has sugar derivatives that are used in every-day cooking.

 

I also agree that the site needs clearer "routes" to products. Most of the site's pages are recipes. Obviously, each recipe uses one of the products in some capacity. I believe there are plans to link and emphasize these product references in the future.

 

You are also correct that most of our visits do come from searches. However, over 90% of these searches surround "recipes" in some way. That said, we feel confident that offering a recipe full fills the visitor's landing page expectations completely. Allowing the user's curiosity to travel beyond after landing, is not the worst strategy I've ever heard of. Accommodating other search phrases and landing page expectations is certainly I good idea to expand on in the future. This would allow for different types of granular drive marketing campaigns as well.

 

And you bring up the "stealth marketing" element of the "about us" information. Good observation. I've encouraged the stakeholders to provide more...we just haven't gotten to it just yet. Please pick up the product in your local store :). We couldn't be happier. I won't list where you can get it here because that is against the rules.

 

We do have a lot of information outside of the store and it does effect the top right corner links and the ability to move seamlessly between the environments.

 

I believe capturing customer account data was important to build a new contact pool. I also believe that this capture campaign will only last for a few months and then plans are to turn it off.

 

Jim, let me give you a piece of advice now. If you believe your critique to be so harsh that you have to apologize for it...you might want to consider revising it. Also, don't put your critiques so high on a pedestal that you feel they might be too "harsh" for someone else. You would be surprised at some of the board rooms the people in these forums might frequent and the audiences they entertain.

 

Thanks again for your time.

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Why have it installed in /catalog/ ?

 

It's nicer than 99% of shops I see, but has some issues;

 

1. Blue space at top.

 

2. Take a look with javascript off. Not ideal. Unimportant in the main scheme of things as most people browse with JS on.

 

3. Buttons - standard osCommerce

 

4. Checkout procedure should be rethought if you want to maximise sales.

 

5. Some issues in the megamenu - blank li here and there.

 

Overall, good. Needs polishing to make it great.

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@burt Thank you for your time and comments. I will be taking a closer look in the next few days. That[s two of you now that have suggested taking a closer look at the checkout process. We may bump to the top of the list for phase II. It also sounds like my directory structure is not ideal (subdomain, catalog). thanks again!

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Design looks good.

 

Not much content found on home page.A must for a better seo chance.

 

Why checkout pages go to subdomain will confuse some visitors.

 

home page title needs to be modified.

 

Some product URL does not appear to be seo friendly.

 

Need multiple images on product info page.

 

Satish

Ask/Skype for Free osCommerce value addon/SEO suggestion tips for your site.

 

Check My About US For who am I and what My company does.

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