My first store just need to get more products on but any feedback good or bad please review thank you for your help.
www.personalgifts.me.uk.
Congrats on creating your first OpenCart store. I have some critique for you which I hope will be taken as constructive and not an 'attack'
Firstly, I think you need a catchier name. Personal Gifts is very non-descript and given you appear to specialise in gothic/fantasy/horror I would expect a name more along those lines.
I understand the use of purple given the nature of the 'gothic' products on sale (similar to http://www.gothiccollectables.co.uk/) but I don't think the lilac contrasts well with this. I also think more emphasis should be put on the logo, to tie the rest of the website design in. Perhaps use a textured background as apposed to a solid purple. The structure seems very 'blocky' and doesn't leave much to the imagine.
Have a look at some of your competitors for ideas (and to better them). Here are a few I have found:
http://www.gothic-gifts.com/
http://www.the-gothic-shop.co.uk/
http://www.spiraldirect.com/
http://www.alchemygothic.com/
http://www.grindstore.com/categories/gifts/gothic/
http://www.onlinegothic.co.uk/
You could also look for a template to give it a bit of a more custom look and feel.
Best of luck with the store whatever you decide!
Firstly, I think you need a catchier name. Personal Gifts is very non-descript and given you appear to specialise in gothic/fantasy/horror I would expect a name more along those lines.
I understand the use of purple given the nature of the 'gothic' products on sale (similar to http://www.gothiccollectables.co.uk/) but I don't think the lilac contrasts well with this. I also think more emphasis should be put on the logo, to tie the rest of the website design in. Perhaps use a textured background as apposed to a solid purple. The structure seems very 'blocky' and doesn't leave much to the imagine.
Have a look at some of your competitors for ideas (and to better them). Here are a few I have found:
http://www.gothic-gifts.com/
http://www.the-gothic-shop.co.uk/
http://www.spiraldirect.com/
http://www.alchemygothic.com/
http://www.grindstore.com/categories/gifts/gothic/
http://www.onlinegothic.co.uk/
You could also look for a template to give it a bit of a more custom look and feel.
Best of luck with the store whatever you decide!
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Thanks for taking the time to look at our site, any criticism is welcome as it will help us to make things better.
I understand what you are saying about it being block y, but i struggle with design and imagination.
To make matters worse altering open cart requires some coding, a coder i am not but im try to self learn to help improve our site.
On the name side my wife has also commented on it not being apt for what we are doing,but the issue i have with changing it are thus, please comment if i am wrong.
1 we have ssl installed would this effect it and how, is it a big job and cost to change to a different name.
2 will we have to start again with Google finding and indexing our site and products?
Keep the helpful advice coming
I understand what you are saying about it being block y, but i struggle with design and imagination.
To make matters worse altering open cart requires some coding, a coder i am not but im try to self learn to help improve our site.
On the name side my wife has also commented on it not being apt for what we are doing,but the issue i have with changing it are thus, please comment if i am wrong.
1 we have ssl installed would this effect it and how, is it a big job and cost to change to a different name.
2 will we have to start again with Google finding and indexing our site and products?
Keep the helpful advice coming
Glad I could offer some critique 
As for the SSL/indexing, you can keep the domain name but I would alter the actual name on the website (i.e. logo) and then you can always purchase a different domain name more appropriate to the type of products and set it up as a domain alias so that when typed into a browser it still displays the website. Alternatively, you could duplicate the site on a second domain hosting and use a 301 redirect for the SEO/indexing purposes.
(although this is not my area so I would check with someone on this first - I am sure others on here will point out ways of achieving your goal with as little adjustment as possible)
As for the SSL/indexing, you can keep the domain name but I would alter the actual name on the website (i.e. logo) and then you can always purchase a different domain name more appropriate to the type of products and set it up as a domain alias so that when typed into a browser it still displays the website. Alternatively, you could duplicate the site on a second domain hosting and use a 301 redirect for the SEO/indexing purposes.
(although this is not my area so I would check with someone on this first - I am sure others on here will point out ways of achieving your goal with as little adjustment as possible)
Payment Gateway for UK Merchants - PCI Level 1 Compliant - Free OpenCart Module
Accept Credit and Debit cards for less (from just £12.00 per month with 500 transactions included)
Preferential Merchant Account rates from several leading acquiring banks.
Visit http://payments.totalwebsolutions.com/
Hi there,
I would just like to say. Your phone number on your site is a fake number. I would either remove it or get yourself a land line number. If you don't have one there are a range of VOIP phone companies that can supply one.
A good one is http://www.voipfone.co.uk
Take care,
Doug
I would just like to say. Your phone number on your site is a fake number. I would either remove it or get yourself a land line number. If you don't have one there are a range of VOIP phone companies that can supply one.
A good one is http://www.voipfone.co.uk
Take care,
Doug
Let's hit the middle. TotalWeb and I essentially agree, with some differences. You're not altogether done with it; and when you might think you are, figure out something to do to or with it, engines and people notice little stuff. Ya done good, don't abandon it, just putter with it, and pay attention to your competitors but don't resemble them, you have no idea how people will misremember what.
To my eye, among those and yours, only spiraldirect.com, alchemygothic.com, and yours are distinctively pleasant and different from the usual template-mill approach. Those two are very carefully executed (even if templated) but neither of them is OC, whereas yours is OC done NON-mundanely yet without graphical frills (which can be added later). At some juncture virtually virgin unchanged OC installations become tiresomely repetitious; yours is changed. Changing to a theme just to have a theme means (a) deviating from the functional safety of the default (you are using catalog/view/theme/default/), and (b) sharing the basic layout with an oodle of other people (you're already doing that). I see both grindstore.com and onlinegothic.co.uk as painfully ordinary, painfully templated, and simplistically short-sighted in their logos. Your logo or graphic is artistic, distinctive, and not in any way commonplace. Your fairly common name is nonetheless thoughtfully executed (in contrast to several of the others). Your color choice can be shifted a tad back and forth (graphics programs, adjust Hue) to see whether you want to change it, but as-is it is just fine (see below). Your text is nicely contrasts nicely against background; minor oversight, the Pounds Sterling L is black, you f'got. You have made initial headway in uncluttered use of space, which a carefully selected textured background in the same color might enhance, and the only glaring needs for a bit of adjustment show up in the ungreyed footer (try matching menu crossbar, see below), and in horizontal sliders appearing even in 1280x800 display (I'm looking at one, typical of Stateside laptop machines). And guess whose thumbnails are all big enough -- yours. You even neatly nudged your copyright notice and OC acknowledgment as a pair against the right margin; nice touch, most people either center it for good reason or blow it (right or left).
The others are also not even OC -- onlinegothic.co.uk is xcart, spiraldirect is on Windows and IIS (Microsoft's wannabe Apache for Windows) as .asp (Microsoft's wannabe php), and in most of them the footer links, etc., fire ordinary .html pages rather than any index.php routes (not even tediously aliased or disguised index.php routes). All six of them have dark greys calling to mind cemeteries or swatches of woolen fabrics for lawyers' suits (same difference, perhaps), but gothic-gifts.com, grindstore.com, and onlinegothic.co.uk sock the eyes with white thoughtlessly and dimwittedly sprung from the darkness. (What the hell is Gothic or spooky or happening or cool or "designed" about out of place bright white?) Only the-gothic-shop.co.uk, spiraldirect.com, and yours do not jab the eyes (till your footer). In that context, your own footer sucks, consider matching the grey menu crossbar. Toning down the otherwise limited white in yours would help it (it does not have to be #FFFFFF, you can use lesser DDs and CCs or AFs instead, just tinker and see what YOU like or dislike. I find the pastel in gothiccollectables.co.uk pleasant but overdone, except insofar as it softens the blow of the expansive white, not to mention that on this side of the Pond "collectables" ("i") is illiterate. Two of the lot appear to have been high schoolers' class projects, one worse yet resembles a month-only Halloween store in an otherwise vacant mall storefront. Yours does not have those mundane drawbacks.
Logos are for recognition and perhaps a bit of pleasantry. The logo for spiraldirect.com is very nice in design and execution but nonetheless is mundane (look at recent vintage "blade and scythe" mentality artwork all over the place). The logo for alchemygothic.com is very carefully thought through and executed as well as different. Yours is as carefully executed, and as effectively different, but just does not have a name on or in it. Look at the traditional difference between "Rolls Royce" or "Bentley" ("I am a motah cahr!") and "GM" ("Varoom, already; next."), and at the logos for some of the Italian rigs (no mere ringed stars). You've got that part right.
Names are for people's convenience. If you have a name that for some reason that needn't make any sense is catchy and memorable, people will promptly enough associate it with whatever your're doing. "Google" could just as well sell chicken eggs, by the thousands of dozens. "OpenCart" has guess what; there are carts and there are carts, and one of them happens to be open source and Open to boot, people can figure it out and remember it. It wouldn't sell eggs. "WhitePages" and "YellowPages" have a certain utilitarian and familiar ring to them, and we needn't remember anything or go find it, we know what the terms mean. They wouldn't sell eggs. In your instance, if I think of Personal Gifts I can search till I'm sick of it for umpteen names that have something to do with personal gifts, most of them I would not care or even try to remember, and most of them would sell neither eggs nor gifts, but, bingo, yours I can remember without trying, and if I take a peek and like it I'll have an easy time getting back as well as telling friends to take a look at guess what it's called in the first place. And guess whom people will find by curiously trying the most obviously relevant possibility in the address bar. As-is it actually would sell some eggs -- jeweled, for example. That's convenient.
Domain names are another wrinkle. As many domains as you wish can all be pointed to the same fileset on the same server machine. If you happen to think of the world's most perfectly catchy name, grab it and point it. You do NOT want to divide your rankable content among those, you want to let engines see one final target address (careful redirects take care of that). Engines are set up to be aware of mirrors, which are commonplace for varied reasons including effective traffic backups for inevitable server breakdowns, and traffic load-sharing, for example. The mirrors are not set up to split up rankable content, just to show it alike if there's need. You don't have that level of traffic, yet, so it's not a biggie right now.
Look into what vipster247 suggested, he's quite right, but nonetheless meanwhile back on the rising drawbridge over the Gothic moat as dawn nears to force the Count back indoors lest he sizzle in situ, 0123456789 is an obvious stand-in number that would not confuse anybody or cause anyone to suspect that you're quite well established but hiding.
And so it was that on the first day I wasn't grumpy and liked it, and on the second I was grumpy but liked it anyway.
To my eye, among those and yours, only spiraldirect.com, alchemygothic.com, and yours are distinctively pleasant and different from the usual template-mill approach. Those two are very carefully executed (even if templated) but neither of them is OC, whereas yours is OC done NON-mundanely yet without graphical frills (which can be added later). At some juncture virtually virgin unchanged OC installations become tiresomely repetitious; yours is changed. Changing to a theme just to have a theme means (a) deviating from the functional safety of the default (you are using catalog/view/theme/default/), and (b) sharing the basic layout with an oodle of other people (you're already doing that). I see both grindstore.com and onlinegothic.co.uk as painfully ordinary, painfully templated, and simplistically short-sighted in their logos. Your logo or graphic is artistic, distinctive, and not in any way commonplace. Your fairly common name is nonetheless thoughtfully executed (in contrast to several of the others). Your color choice can be shifted a tad back and forth (graphics programs, adjust Hue) to see whether you want to change it, but as-is it is just fine (see below). Your text is nicely contrasts nicely against background; minor oversight, the Pounds Sterling L is black, you f'got. You have made initial headway in uncluttered use of space, which a carefully selected textured background in the same color might enhance, and the only glaring needs for a bit of adjustment show up in the ungreyed footer (try matching menu crossbar, see below), and in horizontal sliders appearing even in 1280x800 display (I'm looking at one, typical of Stateside laptop machines). And guess whose thumbnails are all big enough -- yours. You even neatly nudged your copyright notice and OC acknowledgment as a pair against the right margin; nice touch, most people either center it for good reason or blow it (right or left).
The others are also not even OC -- onlinegothic.co.uk is xcart, spiraldirect is on Windows and IIS (Microsoft's wannabe Apache for Windows) as .asp (Microsoft's wannabe php), and in most of them the footer links, etc., fire ordinary .html pages rather than any index.php routes (not even tediously aliased or disguised index.php routes). All six of them have dark greys calling to mind cemeteries or swatches of woolen fabrics for lawyers' suits (same difference, perhaps), but gothic-gifts.com, grindstore.com, and onlinegothic.co.uk sock the eyes with white thoughtlessly and dimwittedly sprung from the darkness. (What the hell is Gothic or spooky or happening or cool or "designed" about out of place bright white?) Only the-gothic-shop.co.uk, spiraldirect.com, and yours do not jab the eyes (till your footer). In that context, your own footer sucks, consider matching the grey menu crossbar. Toning down the otherwise limited white in yours would help it (it does not have to be #FFFFFF, you can use lesser DDs and CCs or AFs instead, just tinker and see what YOU like or dislike. I find the pastel in gothiccollectables.co.uk pleasant but overdone, except insofar as it softens the blow of the expansive white, not to mention that on this side of the Pond "collectables" ("i") is illiterate. Two of the lot appear to have been high schoolers' class projects, one worse yet resembles a month-only Halloween store in an otherwise vacant mall storefront. Yours does not have those mundane drawbacks.
Logos are for recognition and perhaps a bit of pleasantry. The logo for spiraldirect.com is very nice in design and execution but nonetheless is mundane (look at recent vintage "blade and scythe" mentality artwork all over the place). The logo for alchemygothic.com is very carefully thought through and executed as well as different. Yours is as carefully executed, and as effectively different, but just does not have a name on or in it. Look at the traditional difference between "Rolls Royce" or "Bentley" ("I am a motah cahr!") and "GM" ("Varoom, already; next."), and at the logos for some of the Italian rigs (no mere ringed stars). You've got that part right.
Names are for people's convenience. If you have a name that for some reason that needn't make any sense is catchy and memorable, people will promptly enough associate it with whatever your're doing. "Google" could just as well sell chicken eggs, by the thousands of dozens. "OpenCart" has guess what; there are carts and there are carts, and one of them happens to be open source and Open to boot, people can figure it out and remember it. It wouldn't sell eggs. "WhitePages" and "YellowPages" have a certain utilitarian and familiar ring to them, and we needn't remember anything or go find it, we know what the terms mean. They wouldn't sell eggs. In your instance, if I think of Personal Gifts I can search till I'm sick of it for umpteen names that have something to do with personal gifts, most of them I would not care or even try to remember, and most of them would sell neither eggs nor gifts, but, bingo, yours I can remember without trying, and if I take a peek and like it I'll have an easy time getting back as well as telling friends to take a look at guess what it's called in the first place. And guess whom people will find by curiously trying the most obviously relevant possibility in the address bar. As-is it actually would sell some eggs -- jeweled, for example. That's convenient.
Domain names are another wrinkle. As many domains as you wish can all be pointed to the same fileset on the same server machine. If you happen to think of the world's most perfectly catchy name, grab it and point it. You do NOT want to divide your rankable content among those, you want to let engines see one final target address (careful redirects take care of that). Engines are set up to be aware of mirrors, which are commonplace for varied reasons including effective traffic backups for inevitable server breakdowns, and traffic load-sharing, for example. The mirrors are not set up to split up rankable content, just to show it alike if there's need. You don't have that level of traffic, yet, so it's not a biggie right now.
Look into what vipster247 suggested, he's quite right, but nonetheless meanwhile back on the rising drawbridge over the Gothic moat as dawn nears to force the Count back indoors lest he sizzle in situ, 0123456789 is an obvious stand-in number that would not confuse anybody or cause anyone to suspect that you're quite well established but hiding.
And so it was that on the first day I wasn't grumpy and liked it, and on the second I was grumpy but liked it anyway.
Last edited by butte on Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:31 am, edited 5 times in total.
I didnt expect this, much help as i say any criticism good or bad is most welcome.
Thank you so much for the help i have taken it on board and looking at my color scheme adding texture or toning down a little and changing color of my footer, that is a good observation.
Great help thanks.
Thank you so much for the help i have taken it on board and looking at my color scheme adding texture or toning down a little and changing color of my footer, that is a good observation.
Great help thanks.
Thank you, nice to know that I am right about something (p.s don't tell the wife!!)butte wrote: Look into what vipster247 suggested, he's quite right, but nonetheless meanwhile back on the rising drawbridge over the Gothic moat as dawn nears to force the Count back indoors lest he sizzle in situ, 0123456789 is an obvious stand-in number that would not confuse anybody or cause anyone to suspect that you're quite well established but hiding.
And so it was that on the first day I wasn't grumpy and liked it, and on the second I was grumpy but liked it anyway.
Okay. And speaking of stand-ins, in System / Settings, at Store and Edit, while you are starting out change the encryption seed from 12345 to something unintelligible with about 32 (or more) digits in it (and write it down somewhere).
Have you changed the font colour on your contact page?
I am looking at your contact page using FireFox 22.0 and all I see is a purple page (see below)
I am looking at your contact page using FireFox 22.0 and all I see is a purple page (see below)
Capture.PNG (15 KiB) Viewed 14242 times
Google translate - Irish completely messes up the store
Footer is full width on my 1920x1080 monitor - looks very wrong
Delivery information has an empty table
Terms and conditions appears blank until you scroll down and see black text starting with "10.1 Our delivery charges are set out on the ‘Delivery Info’ page in of our website"
Horizontal scroll bar in special and latest need removing
Why is the whole site https ?
(on Windows 8 pro and Firefox 22)
Footer is full width on my 1920x1080 monitor - looks very wrong
Delivery information has an empty table
Terms and conditions appears blank until you scroll down and see black text starting with "10.1 Our delivery charges are set out on the ‘Delivery Info’ page in of our website"
Horizontal scroll bar in special and latest need removing
Why is the whole site https ?
(on Windows 8 pro and Firefox 22)
Thanks for taking the time to view and comment.
Dont know why the Irish translate messes up?
Dont know how to make the footer same width as my page any help?
Delivery info will input more data.
Dont know how to remove the horizontal scroll bar any info or help?
It is an opencart default install, so when you say why is it all https is this not how it is supposed to be? if not what are the pros and cons of this, I am a very keen noob egar to learn thanks for the help.
Dont know why the Irish translate messes up?
Dont know how to make the footer same width as my page any help?
Delivery info will input more data.
Dont know how to remove the horizontal scroll bar any info or help?
It is an opencart default install, so when you say why is it all https is this not how it is supposed to be? if not what are the pros and cons of this, I am a very keen noob egar to learn thanks for the help.
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