Ecommerce Gurus, Please Review my Site (all critiques welcome)!

Here my thoughts:

Main menu bar looks fuzzy in Firefox, do you have it in bold or something? Maybe add spacing to letters?

I'd move the wholesale tab further down. I saw it right off and thought commercial account only, could confuse a consumer.

Not sure I would have policies on the main menu, more of a footer type items


Self Defense has some template issues lots of white space on right hand side.



All your image sliders are being scaled up and losing a lot of quality( 630px Ã-- 450px (scaled to 980px Ã-- 450px) ) You really need some images that are at least 980px wide.

That should get started. Good job so far!

There's a lot of text on the home page also, nearer the bottom.

Nobody wants to read when they visit a shopping site, they want pictures and offers in picture and large font format.

The large amount of text is what puts me off..

Good cathc on the H1 tags,BigCommerce, by default does not include H1 tags anywhere on the site which is beyond me.

I would suggest adding more high-level categories. Pepper Spray should be its own category, batons, stun guns, etc. As it is you basically have 2 top level categories and then a bunch of information pages.

Everyone else nailed my glaring issues. But yeah build out your category tree more. Think of subcategories for your top ones, are there different types of pepper spray? How do people search for them (keywords) and how can you guide that buying experience for various entry points to your site? Maybe there are different materials used for batons (I have no clue lol) so that would qualify, etc. The more categories the more opportunities you have to drive traffic.

Can you scale down your featured products on the home page? They are taking up a lot of valuable real estate but not offering much value. Oh on that note, just checked out a category page, you should resize your product images they are taking up too much room. I usually vote for 150x150 or 170x170. Additionally... where are your narrow-bys on category pages? Move the text on your category pages under the products, the text is for organic rankings, the products for buyers.

As someone else mentioned, I would move the Youtube video and home page text under what looks to be your footer, under this here Droplr • Screenshot on 6.18.2013 at 12.10.22 PM.png.

Those are my first observations, hopefully it helps. You have a good start, keep up the work!

Awesome reviews so far!

@herdfan2005

No, I don't have it in bold. That is just how it is for the template I am using. I'm not sure what you mean by fuzzy either. I'm using Firefox as well as everything seems fine. Different version maybe?

For policies, I had thought about keeping those down at the bottom. I'm not sure how to change the footer hmtl code though, since I don't have any experience in coding. I'll have to get someone to do it for me.

Yeah, lots of white space because that category page is mainly for showing all the subcategories and nothing else, probably.

@dave_hermansen

I was thinking that having some trust seals at the top (next to the logo) would be good. You think?

Graphical representations of product categories...got it. I had that on my Magento site last time, but had WAY too many (hence why I cut it down).

I'm not sure what an H1 tag is...

I was thinking red as well. I'll have someone look into that.

@Surminga

So you don't think the text is helpful? All it is is a reinforcement of what policies and benefits you get in shopping with my company. Plus, it's sort of like a little introduction to what I have to offer. Sure, when people are shopping on a clothes site or music webstore, all they want to see is products. They either know what they want or are interested in looking. That, and they know what music and clothes are. Self defense products is a more specialized niche, one that few people know much about. I intend to have more text in other places of the site for educational purposes, probably an article section or something.

@dave_hermansen

Should I get rid of the featured products then? I could simply have that replaced with images of the main categories.

@wakeforce139

I arranged my categories that way for a reason. Instead of making tons of parent categories that would just bunch up the menu, I decided that it looked much better by making them subcategories instead (pepper spray, stun guns, etc). Sure, the footer area looks empty but that could probably be fixed in other ways.

Some of my competitors branch out by using subcategories of products, such as "pepper spray for women" or "mini stun guns." I probably should do the same (haven't gotten around to it yet). I have keywords listed for each product, but my SEO could definitely be better. I would say that I get a lot of the broad words in search engines (like pepper spray or stun gun) through my personal Google+ page, resulting in placement on the first page (usually #3 or 4).

Should I just maybe get rid of the featured products slider?

Hmm...so move them below the footer instead? I'm wondering if people would even bother to check at the bottom of the page. lol

@ivana

Thanks! It took a lot of work on my own, and this is without coding or design experience. lol.

I definitely need to work on SEO. I am still pretty inexperienced with it, but the way BigCommerce is set up...it makes it much easier to implement keywords. It's really just a matter of finding good keywords and implementing them.

Well, right now I'm mainly focusing on local advertising through high-quality flyers (see here) for two reasons. One is because there is no local competition in my city, at all (or even much in the entire state, really; which is why it would be nice if I could open a store...if only I had the capital, time and a plan). Second is because I don't have the capital (I did at the beginning, but it whittled away because of my inexperience) to do PPC ads, magazine advertisements, press releases, etc. Right now I'm gradually putting up flyers (just started a day ago) in the hopes that some people will be interested and coming to my website. That's not very targeted...but I don't have many options at the moment.

As for inventory, I don't handle my inventory. I dropship instead. If I had more money I probably would carry some inventory (all I have at my home is a few samples for product review purposes).



Awesome responses so far from everyone. Thank you!

Change "sign up to our newsletter" to "sigh up for our newsletter". Then give the customer an incentive or description of what you'll be mailing them.

I think your site looks great,,

but why not exclude some the categories menu tabs on top likes policies, contact us, and about us, hence you also include it at bottom of the page?

My son loves the UFO alarm though, "When in threat, press the panic button", that's so funny. But overall looks great, I also wanted to point out the links on top, for the "sign in and register" links, are very hard to notice, as if you use a light font.