Critiques please!

[Guest plaidlightbulb]

www.emilyjewelry.com

I'm mostly finished with this, though there are still some things that still need some touch ups. Please tell me what you think!

[Guest vrakas]

I beleive that your questions should be posted in the .org forum since this is only for Show Off

Mods and How to on the skin you made could be answered there :)

[Guest plaidlightbulb]

Okay, I will do that and I have edited the post. But I still want to know what people think about it so far!

[roban]

You certainly are headed in the right direction with your site. I like the name too.

I can hardly read the tag line in your header so I won't bother to get a magnifying glass to read it. If you don't care about it, leave it small and light colored but if it is important, than make it so.

I would move the product description, price, tell a friend all above the product picture. People are not going to want to scroll down if they can help it. I did that on my site with the text wrapping the image. Works out quite nicely. You can do this is viewProduct.tpl.

Good luck and happy selling.

[jerseyjoe]

www.emilyjewelry.com

I'm mostly finished with this, though there are still some things that still need some touch ups. Please tell me what you think!

Hmmm - I regret that I'm not as laudatory as others so far. But differences of opinions are what justify horse races.

I hope my directness is not seen as rudeness. I'm trying to give you what I sincerely believe is good advice, without the frill of cautious words.

The home page layout is a total waste of a valuable opportunity. That huge header appears at the top of every single page while a person is shopping. In effect you are bludgeoning the visitor with your banner - and what is the purpose of that?

Also, you have that wordy intro that forces your products into hiding down below the scroll.

Once you get to a products page, the Category header repeast that same "sin" of pushing products even further down, just to make a nice visual.

Then, the thumbnails are too big. They reduce the number of visible products per screen and force more scrolling than is needed. Thumbnails are visual shorthand but I think you are trying to use them to display the prouduct.

Isn't the purpose of the store to show your goods and sell them as effectively and efficiently as possible? Nice clean design does not have to be accomplished at the expense of that fundamental purpose.

So what do I think is a better layout? Take a look at www.vikolya.com. I agree that your graphics are far more appealing than mine, but ignore that. Look at the utility of the layout. See how much more product is immediate visible from the first page - and on every page there after. You could modify your graphics so they take up less space - and show more products.

If it is of interest to know, the reason so many products on the Vikolya site are showing as "out of stock" and without photos is because the three container-loads of goods expected to last until October have sold out by Aug 1st. The site is working.

Hope this helps. Clearly you are a superior graphic designer - but don't let that get in your way.

[jerseyjoe]

So there is no mis-understanding of my posting my own work as an example of a more effective layout, I just came across this one further along in the ShowOff Forum

http://www.bits-n-piercings-jewelleryworld.org.uk/

This other jewelry site applies the same approach of maximizing product presentation as the one I built for a client.

I still agree that both my aproach and the bits-n-pirecing site are not a visually appealing as Emily's. However, Emily's site would be much more effective as a sales tool if it applied the product presentation approach of these less visually appealing examples.