I agree with Melanie, the landing page is confusing. Honestly if I was directed there by a search engine I would probably just move on. I think I understand what you are trying to achieve, but really think there should be more info on the landing page or you are likely to lose a bunch of people at that point.

I am trying to get away from the over cluttered first page that so many sites have.

They just bombard you with so much information it is so confusing, and people give up before they even start. If they want more information they should be given the option and able to find it in a precise and direct way, on another page.

My front page is simple and with one or two clicks you are straight in with the action. Either get more details, start buying from ebay or start buying from my online shop.

Rather than scaring them away I really think it pulls them in straight away. Everyone that goes to a home page clicks on at least one thing out of curiosity.

This way they are straight in rather than the common information overload that so many sights have fallen in to. I hate the sites that have 3 columns with loads of small text, or you have to scroll and scroll. It is just to much on one page, it looks very oldschool, cheap, amateur and nasty. Which is the exact opposite I am trying to achive.

Not that I want to see an arguement ensue here, but I tend to agree with the posting above... And disagree with your statement (which I've bolded to accentuate). If I arrive on a "landing page" that has little to no useful information about the company/product for which the site is maintained, I simply leave. I know of quite a few people who follow that practice. Something you might want to keep in mind as your site progresses.

I agree with all of you to one extent or another (how's that for a non-committal-smooth-the-feathers-with-a-smile comment?). However...if I had landed on that page, I would have had absolutely no idea what was being sold and if I were not checking out the cart and CC integration, I likely would have clicked no further at all...and the button which says "Buy Now" likely would not have been a button I would have clicked on...having no idea what I was committing myself to do "NOW".

Again, no argument intended here, either. I have just been in e-commerce for ten years...and web design for nearly as long...and I certainly don't have all the answers - and in this economy...well, I am glad I also do web design because my e-commerce site would not sustain my dogs' lifestyle at the moment! But I do read a LOT and I do know what works...in a good economy - and thinking I'd be better off selling soap supplies than soap these days!...have a web design customer I am working with right now who sells soap supplies and she is swamped...but I can hardly give away soap I used to sell $5000 worth of in a month! And not for a lack of good positioning. I bounce back and forth from page one to page two and have the lowest price out there...but that product is a stinker...I cannot seem to get to the top spot...even though most other items I sell on that site are on page one in Google and many with a number one position (Worry box - though I am out - Lunch Mail, Friendship Ball - all in top spots)...it is just a tough sell out there these days...

It is just that the Internet is VERY competitive...perhaps clutter is a bad thing...but too little information is just as harmful. We are only sharing these thoughts to help, not to criticize. Please take them in the nature intended. There is very little of what I call "search engine food" on that front page. Feed the bots

You're not thinking of becoming (uggghhhh, the horrible thought of it) a POLITICIAN are you? I hope not


I love the way you stated this. If you don't mind, I may "borrow" this when talking to some of my clients.

Um, no But I'd be better than some I can think of at the moment....'nuf said....




Go for it.

True the bots need feeding and I have done little to get the site promoted yet, it is still really early days for this site and I just really wanted to show people how shopping cart V3.5 can be implemented.

I must admit that I do have a background in web commerce and 25 years experience in computers (only the last 15 or so in internet).

Two sites that I completed in the last few months are www.bensonsforbeds.co.uk and www.harveysfurniture.co.uk. Now these are .net, sql and flash based (among other things) and on a much grander scale. They each bring in 3 million £ worth of sales a month.

But one thing we did before they were launched was market research with specialist companies and test sites. This included over 400 test subjects. Plus special glasses that recorded where people looked on the page and where they went in the site.

Very strong aspects that came out were that people did not want to much text to read unless they asked for it (they did not want information overload). They preferred bold and eye catching items. They did not like having to scroll but preferred to click on items. They never looked at the front page and just went away, they always tried clicking (even on some very bad sites we showed them where it was not obvious what to click). They did not like slow loading pages. Many other items were lower down the list but it is a 40 page report so probably not best if I go in to it all here.

This was an expensive exercise to carry out (in the £ thousands), so luckily I did not have to foot the bill .

Using this information is the way that my site was designed.

Everyone has different views on what is the best site. Certainly a lot is based around what we have done in the past or what we do when we go to a website. But that is not always the best way forward. I certainly had to rethink things after getting the report.

I am not trying to say that other peoples ways are wrong in others eyes or that my way is right in others eyes. Just that it is based on solid research rather than a belief that what I am doing is right.

One of the joys of the internet is that different people do things in different ways. Its a bit like buying magazines. Many cover the same subject but they may be different styles, we pick the one that appeals to us. It would be boring if all the sites looked the same style.

Wow...those are some nice sites...you oughta add them to a samples page on your web design site.

Will be when I get a chance to actually finish it.

Always seem to be working on other peoples stuff rather than getting round to finishing off my own stuff (those sites took best part of a year). Get most stuff by word of mouth at the moment.

Mind you get paid for others stuff The Kilabitzzz site is just for selling stuff I sort of fell in to as a hobby.

I just wanted to find a cheap way of doing ecommerce sites for customers, that I could put together quickly. Shopping cart seems to do ok for that. So they would cost only a few hundered £ rather than a few hundred thousand £.

Lasercrow,

I really like your site. Very professional. Can you tell me what image gallery script / program you used?