Site review please

[Ruckshop.com]

Hi everyone

A few months back, i asked some of you to have a look at my site and give me advice, as a 20 year old it is my first site and i have not had any external help with it.

Well since then it has been changed alot and we have gone towards one product per page and added several add ons that improve the look of each product page

Would be great if you more experienced people can have a look to see what you think.

Sales seem to be going very well, and we are happy with this, we are also getting a lot of hits from Google so this is always a good thing.

The site is www.ruckshop.com

Any comments are welcome
Thanks

[leehack]

The fluid layout doesn't look good on my large screen, switch it to a fixed width.

[Ruckshop.com]

can i ask you how to do that please?

[leehack]

Instead of the outer layout being set to a % width (usually 100%) so it expands to fit 100% of each screen size on which it is seen. You set it to have a fixed width instead, usually 1000 so as to fill a 1024 screen. The 1000 being 'pixels'. If you download firefox and firebug and click on 'inspect', you can have a mooch round your live site and change code on the fly to see what needs changing and how it looks after it is done.

[Ruckshop.com]

thankyou for your help will have a look at that tomorrow, have you got anythin else to add about other parts of the site positive or negative
Much appreciated

[Duncan Rounding]

A few things Anthony:
1. Make the logo clickeable to go to the homepage
2. The images and navigation seem to float on the page - fixing the width will help but I would also consider making the backgrounds much lighter
3. Using a PO Box is never a good idea as it immediately gives the impression that you don't want people to know where you are.
4. Make the add to cart button more prominent and move the add this share link away from it
5. This needs changing:
Remittance Terms Goods will be charged to your account on the same day as shipping, and not before this point.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

The image banners on the home page seem to be a mixture of grey and white backgrounds. This should be easy to fix in your image editing software.

The product images on the Single Product pages look a little small at just 170x170px.

[Ho Ho Bird]

It is much improved over the original effort. Well done.

It still feels a little unconventional; I'm not sure if that is intentional or not? It doesn't give its Actinic origins away too easily.

A few small points:
- I sometimes struggle to understand the section headings......the photos don't necessarily give you enough info and the title of the section 'floats' above the photo. Taking 'boot locker' as an example. The photo is a rather generic snap of a rugby player (granted missing a boot). The 'accessories' photo is much clearer.
If I'm further down the page it takes a bit of studying to establish if the section photo relates to the words just above it, or the words just a little further away below it. http://www.atlanticshopping.co.uk/ shows a couple of ways of 'grouping' a photo with its title.

- The text size on the left menu is very small. It could be increased to match the text used in the centre section...to help functionally and improve the look.

- Again in the left menu, showing the all the subsections makes it a bit difficult to use. I know you've identified the major sections in CAPITALS. Perhaps if you change the text sizes you can try and increase the contrast between the sections and the sub sections. The other route to go is to drop the subsections or use an add-on when they only appear 'on command' (Normans?). This will become increasingly important as you grow....you've already got 8 subsections under the Team Store.

Hope that helps

[Ruckshop.com]

Hi thanks for all this it is very helpful
Could you please tell me how to change the text on the left sidebar i can't figure out where to change the size or colour of each indivual phrase
Thanks

[Ruckshop.com]

Also can someone please tell me how to change the outer layouth width
Thanks

[Duncan Rounding]

Try changing atcxxsmall class in actinic.css to 12px or 11px instead of 10px. Backup first and be aware that this will affect other parts of your site.

It is possible to only change the part you want but to do this you will have to create another class for that purpose.

[Ho Ho Bird]

Hi Anthony, I'd struggle with the technical side so I'm glad Duncan is helping out!

Just spotted 2 examples under the V9 thread to illustrate my points on the left hand menu.

http://www.aspak.co.uk/ shows the subsections but uses colour and layout to group them.

http://www.makeitnow.co.uk/ uses the expandable menu option (Normans I think).

[Ruckshop.com]

ye i see what you mean, im aware the make it now website uses an add on that can be bought off drillpine (correct me if i am wrong) however i would live to know how to do something like the packaging website on the left hand navigation bar

[leehack]

Here's a screenshot of how I see it on one of my screens to illustrate what I mean.

I think you have a basis for a really nice site here, but you clearly lack that bit of web knowledge to do the finishing touches and add that bit of class it needs. This is your second attempt after a previous review and I think it's showing that you need to seek some professional help. You have done a large part of what is needed, so it shouldn't be too expensive, a few hundred pound spent with a designer will elevate the site tenfold. If you don't do this, you are in danger of limiting what the site could achieve. £500 or £1000 tops spent with the correct designer could transform both the future and look of this site. There's a host of things to sort out, but all easily possible given a bit of correct guidance.

Product imagery is woeful, images are really small and I see no alternative images available - something that was key a few years ago on clothing sites, nowadays it's essential. Menu really is the worst you could have added, the fluid layout doesn't work as you'd want, the right sidebar is pointless. You have no upsells and product information is lacking.

Despite all of these problems, I like the look of the site and think it has potential, if you have any spare money at all, please spend it with a designer and get some professional advice and work carried out, it will pay for itself in weeks and take the site to where it needs to be. At the moment it's like when your eyes catch a great looking girl and then you start to talk to her (browse the site) and find there is nothing really interesting inside. It's a disappointment once you enter in other words.

I wouldn't link to it had it not already been mentioned in this thread, but take a look here - http://www.atlanticshopping.co.uk/ac...ool-Cream.html - and note how a simple £60 bar stool is presented. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the direction in which you should head IMO.

Hope you take this feedback in the way it is meant.

The actinic website will show you recommended designers in your area, take a look and give one of them a call. If you get the right designer, you will look back at that decision one day and say thank God I listened and did that.