New site review requested

[ShowMakeup]

Our new V8 site www.showmakeup.com is now live and taking orders. Thanks to all the contributors who helped with advice on the way. I'd be grateful for all comments and suggestions.
Graham

[gabrielcrowe]

i'd be put off initially by the shocking colours.

i very much think that other people will be too.

try something other than salt and vinegar blue. your css looks bad in firefox.

sadly, colour me unimpressed.

[TimBob]

Have to agree that the layout needs some work and the colours need alot of work. Don't find the right hand menu that easy to read, not the one on the home page but the one on product level.

Also your wig images arn't showing.

If you find any of these comments usefull I can definitly see myself with a Wing Commander Moustache 10 4 Roger Roger, Over and Out

[acompton]

Echo the above comments I'm afraid. Also: the best sellers are a long way down from the main image on the home page. I clicked on one of them and got this error:

Error seeking in the index "/home/showmak/public_html/acatalog/oldprod.fil". . The index is corrupt.

Its common practice to make the top left shop logo a link to the home page.

Found this in the T's&C's:
Delivery by Royal Mail 1st Class Post is currently £3.85 for all orders to UK destinations. Delivery time is typically up to three working days.
1st class delivery time is typically next day, but can take 2 days. I.e. better than what you are stating

Finally: No Leichner 5 & 9

[RuralWeb]

Sorry - not good - I could spend ages detailing all the problems but imo you should apply a standard theme and keep it simple. Something is breaking the layout for me and making the site HUGE resulting in scrol bars and very poor usability.

[pinbrook]

oh dear its a flash back to the old days of V3. with fudged colours and bad buttons...

this page http://www.showmakeup.com/acatalog/blood.htm - it takes a very experienced/determined buyer to find and use the single add selection to basket button

[jont]

Sorry Graham - it is a nightmare in colours and the layout is all shot using Firefox

[leehack]

OH my Graham, that is the worst i have seen for a couple of years, either apply a standard actinic theme and keep things simple or contact someone who knows what they're doing. That sort of design in todays marketplace will do nothing but hold it back. It may be hard to take, but remember you are online to take money and you are not a designer. A standard theme will look infinitely better and that would be free to apply for the short term.

When I try to build a brick wall it comes out equally as ugly because i have no idea in that area. At that point my wall goes in the skip and a professional comes in and sorts it out. By all means have a go and you will learn over time, but that site would currently score about 5/100 as it stands.

[jont]

apply a standard actinic theme

This has to be one of the very few times when a default Actinic theme would improve on a custom built one... an out of the box executive theme would improve the site dramatically for the sake of a few clicks.

[leehack]

I concur, that theme is the best of what's on offer IMO.

Just a theme change would give you a score of 50/100, which is a massive improvement. You have got to look at the WWW with your eyes open, no successful sites in your marketplace will look like yours, there is a reason for that.

[gabrielcrowe]

how about i re-design it for you?

how much would you be willing to pay for a quick redesign?

[jont]

You pimping yourself again Gabe? Get down the Town Hall steps with the rest of 'em....

[ShowMakeup]

Phew!!

First of all, a big THANKYOU to all of you who took the time and trouble to review my new site. Yes the colours looked groovy in 1999 when we had our first site and they sort of got to be corporate style. Maybe the time has come to re-evaluate. BUT a lot more work to do before then.
Swallowing hard - but still trading. Maybe it was a mistake to try to bend Actinic to look like my old (and profitable) Miva site!

I'm going to revert to factory settings throughout and apply a standard theme. Let's see how that goes.

Thanks again

[gabrielcrowe]

You pimping yourself again Gabe? Get down the Town Hall steps with the rest of 'em....

pimpin'? moi?

[RuralWeb]

I'm going to revert to factory settings throughout and apply a standard theme. Let's see how that goes

V9 has some good new design options via the wizard so I would have a play with that