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Scooter Store Now Open! - Please Review


ScooterProShop.com

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I really like your site,

 

I was wondering why do don't have more information about what forms of payments you accept?

 

as far as the indexing, I started out with www.adwords.google.com, I just set it to a nickel a click and a dollar a day, right after I did that ( a few weeks) google bot stopped at my site. then it took about three to four months and it hit my site some 300 times in a month. soon after that the site was indexed.

 

also, I would add your site to

 

http://froogle.google.com/

 

its in beta testing

Bill Horton

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Can anyone else confirm this? Any proof that they will index without fear of getting stuck in dynamic links?
Open two browser windows. In one, open wizardandwars.com (or another successful site); in the other, open google.com. Search for the products on wizardsandwars' site. Note: you will find them easiest if you copy from the title bar (which says something like Buy Warcraft III Frozen Throne... on his product pages).

 

Cheers,

Matt

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HAHA! - The colors - I was just playing around.

I do want to add some colors, but that was a bit much. I am just getting bored with the plain white BG ... looking to do something creative. Artsy-Fartsy.

"but fact of it is .. I am really not in the entertainment business and wouldn't want to distract a customer from the main pupose of the site."

 

Must have been the Christmas spirit that made you change your mind, eh? :P

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Ok .. I think the site is done for now.

 

I have got no complaints on the splash page in a few days. Just keeping it simple.

Load time is alot more acceptable now, and I have made the colors far more attractive. (neutral soft blue color)

 

If anyone else has anything at all to say ... good or bad, please do.

My normal customers won't say anything, and this forum is the largest source for feedback. The most valuable feedback and advice comes from YOU!

 

Please Rate on: (most important first)

 

Functionality:

Appearence:

Performance:

 

Does the site look professional and well kept ?

Did this site take too long to load ? (even on 56k)

Was the site contact us information easy to locate ?

Was Warranty and Shipping Information easy to find ?

Is there enough product images, descriptions or videos?

Would you feel comfortable buying from this site yourself?

Was the Live Help easy to use ? (if available att hat time)

 

 

Just a few things I think are important to me as a customer.

Scooterboy

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Looks good man...only minor thing I see is your "click to enlarge"...the popup image is smaller than the product info picture so why even enlarge it? Plus some of the multi images overlay each other with the stock osc layout. I just started using the sts template system to get rid of the stock look and make some room on my pages and I love it.

The Wiki Docs: Read them, live them and be thankful for them!

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Thats only temporary. Trying to fix the images sizes so they load faster.

Thumbnail / Popup Issue. I have been trying to get Big Images, or Sml Med Large image contributions to work. What a pain in the A$$!

 

The authors just gave the changed files and didn't bother to do the step by step changes in the readme. I can't overwrite the files, so I have to sift through the code and make the changes and hope I get it all right the first time around.

 

The Sml,Med Large contrib at least comments the changes in the files... but scattered. Arrgh!

 

If this is such a known issue and lack of feature, why hasn't the community made this change in the MS2 code? This is rather lazy programming that the thumbnails aren't seperated from the big popup images.

Perhaps they will include this code in the new release? - We can only hope.

 

Load time on 56k is 3 minutes. VERY BAD. I am losing sales for sure. Not to mention, a 56k user clicks on my PPC ad it costs me $$.

 

So this load time issue will be fixed today.

Scooterboy

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You added the auto thumb v1.0 right? Be interesting to see if sm,med,large will work with it. I read on another post from the author of auto thumbs that it will work with Mopics addon but thats all he has tried.

 

Is your catalog/index.php the big load problem or is it products listings and site in general? I cant tell cause your load time is super fast for me right now on cable. You can limit the available products cant you in the db. Say maybe have 4-5 per page instead of 17

 

Weed all the bells and whistles out too. Osc has way to much fluff and you get all caught up in using it cause it is cool stuff. Look at what my site has become....very empty but functional...Note..I am working on categories and page layouts so there are tons of errors and empty space and the navigation is not right yet but you get the picture. If you can make your way to one of my product listings you will see very empty, quick load(my host has been slow last couple days) keep surfer focused on product not fluff. My Webpage

The Wiki Docs: Read them, live them and be thankful for them!

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Your right! It didn't work. Parse errors and other issues.

I removed it and used the Sml, Med Large contrib instead. I can add images via html code ... no biggie.

 

OK 56K Users!

Please give the load time test again. I think I have this load time issue beat.

Please post results here.

 

I could be losing 36% in PPC and sales due to this load time issue.

After investigating logs .. I found that MANY people still use dial up connections.

Getting this fixed and reducing my load time has become my #1 project.

 

What is acceptable load time on a 56k? 1 minute?

Scooterboy

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They claim the average time a surfer will wait to see something is 10 seconds. Thats close to my wait time before I leave a site. Like I said your site booms on cable and it was a chump when you started a couple weeks ago...ah I love broadband! Maybe try the ole "Please wait will site is loading" like these forums do, kind of cheesy but I will wait as a surfer an extra few seconds to see what happens.

 

Oh yeah...here is an old trick from my porno site days :o . Your splash page is small and loads quick. The next page to display you can preload some images for it when splash page is loading. I.E say your 4 featured images or something. On the spash pages call the 4 featured images at the bottom of page and just set image height and width to 1 pixel.. They wont see image but next time its called its already in their cache and loads instantly. Can be a big speed increase if you use it right.

The Wiki Docs: Read them, live them and be thankful for them!

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Well that may help, but now that the only images loading are actual thumbnails, this shouldn't be an issue.

 

I checked with a few others online that use 56k and they say it loaded pretty fast and was very acceptable now.

 

I just hope this keeps 56k customers coming back. It is hard enough to get customers to my site, let alone turning away 56k users due to page load times.

Scooterboy

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Ok it is official. My site is 56k ready with fast load times and high quality content.

WOOHOO!

 

Wow that was alot of work ... but if that keeps dial up users happy and able to see my site, it is all worth it.

 

Does anyone else see anything out of place ?

Should I add anything ? Change anything?

 

I have a bad habit of over doing things sometimes, so if it is fine the way it is please tell me to LEAVE IT ALONE. haha.

Scooterboy

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Ok, I made some changes to the main page to match the rest of the site. The metallic theme didn't seem to go well with the rest of the site, and the text on the main page in the scrolling text box was not being indexed by Google. Now the theme matches and the text should be indexed. I hope.

 

Is the site look'n good?

 

Feedback me please.

Scooterboy

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Thats ok .. you have a right to your opinions and I respect that.

Not everyone will be happy about any color that is used. So it really makes no difference what color I use. Red, Blue, Green, Pink, Orange, Yellow .. there will always be people that don't like the color.

 

The important thing is that it is appealing to 99% of people and tolerated by the 1% that don't like it. That to me is acceptable. Blue is a soft color that is used when trying to appeal to both genders of any given market. I used the baby blue color because it isn't harsh nor is it too loud.

 

As far as the splash page ... what specifically don't you like?

I like your objections, but please do list the specifics.

 

Is the text not the right format? Is it too simple ? Does it look plain?

I really tried to keep it simple, because a complicated splash page and making it too "busy" tends to move customers away from the objective and purpose of the site. I try to give customers a simple and easy way to purchase my products and get the information they need without too much fuss.

Scooterboy

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My suggestion that I think you should at least try...make only ONE column on front page an make you thumb size bigger. Your product is cool and you need to display that. Also DONT USE GIFs for images because the GDlibs that are resizing them are making them look rather poor. I would have larger BIG images around 600 and make the thumbs around 300 width..give or take 50.

 

for proof on the gif difference...

your clearest front page thumb is BLASTER XC300GTB Xcooter which is a jpeg...you only need to take your BIG images and convert them to JPG and reupload them

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Urbluffingme,

I agree .. oscommerce gets to the point and places the options of purchasing a product NOW right in front of the customer.

 

You Said "I have to go looking for the products that you are selling. "

I am not quite sure I understand. The products on the catalog page are right there.

2 clicks and you are purchasing the product ... was this a typo?

Scooterboy

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No Typo. I think that the information on the home page is better suited for a "about us" page or something similar. I think you should prominently display at least something that you have for sale "above the fold" and make it easy for them to buy it right then and there, just in case they are returning customers. Just a thought.

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Would perhaps a larger "thumbnail" image and a BUY NOW button be a good idea?

 

Also, I don't see a WWW by your name ... are you giving me advice as a customer or a business owner? Makes a difference as consumers tend to see things a bit differently as business owners. haha.

Scooterboy

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Yes it is the splash page I am talking about. There WAS no www by my name because my site is under heavy construction and I am still trying to figure out how to customize the type of product display box I want to use. But I figure that you are right. Why should my critique be respected if nobody knows if I know what I am talking about. If that makes any sense at all :D. Also I did go ahead and browse your catalog. You should do some more customizing to osCommerce. It still looks completely like the original. Cheers.

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