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  • #29265
    infocentre
    Member

    Hello chaps,

    I have recently re-launched one of my side-projects sites; Herbal Skateboards (http://www.herbalskateboards.com).

    As a side project, it took about 2 weeks. It runs off WP as i am sure you will see and also features a fully functional store using the WP plugin; SHOPP. I have been unable to fault the plugin so far and although its a ‘paid for product’, its well worth it. ($55 on off fee).

    I spent quite a lot of time on the CSS to make it as pretty as possible. Also wanted it to be as dynamic as possible – you may notice the use of 2 sidebars so as not to flood the store pages with more products.

    I have a couple of bits i still have not got my head round – the most significant being the video sizing; I want the videos to be one size on the homepage and another on the videos blog page… any suggestions there?

    I look forward to hearing some feedback.

    Cheers

    /A

    #78620
    infocentre
    Member

    No Replies to this?

    Sales are pretty low and as this is my first eCommerce site, it would be great to get some feedback on the design/layout/usability to see if there is anywhere i am going wrong.

    Thanks guys

    #78837
    TheDoc
    Member

    Honestly, I don’t see much wrong with it.

    I would make the navigation a little more prominent, though. It sort of gets lost, and I had to really look for the Store tab. I feel like if the store is something that you are promoting, the user shouldn’t have to search around for it.

    #78853
    infocentre
    Member
    "JoshWhiteDesign" wrote:
    Is there any way to make the "add to cart" function a bit more noticeable?

    The look/feel I do like alot, and the checkout process seems pretty good. But when I added a product to the cart, I half expected to get some kind of notifier, and finally noticed that the green bar on the top dropped down. It just seemed a little too subtle and may hurt sales a little. Does the plugin offer a more obvious message?

    Thats a valid point actually and something that I wanted to think about fixing. The drop-down you see is an AJAX function, which is built into the software (SHOPP if your interested!). You can disable it and when a product is added, the user goes to the cart page. The actual AJAX display content is completely customisable, so there may be a way for me to make it look more obvious.

    Any suggestions on how i might do this, design wise?

    Thanks for the kind feedback guys!

    #78855
    Rob MacKay
    Participant

    I really like it – feels like a skate shop. Love the branding and the products look awesome. The use of video and social media is essential for sure, especially as skating is such a social activity in itself.

    I think the problem you are probably having with sales is the fact that you aren’t selling chocolate. What I mean is personally I would never buy a board, unless I wanted to kill myself in style. Your market is limited to skaters, and ones who take it seriously enough to want to buy themselves a nice deck, so that cuts out most people right away.

    If I was to say anything it would be get yourself where your market is. Do some crazy stuff and get a viral video to explode on Youtube and you will hook in a lot of skaters. I would say if you focus on building your brand and etching it into people’s minds so that when people think "I need…" they think of you along with your competitors.

    I don’t know if you have seen what Blendtec have done on Youtube – but that has boosted their brand hugely… so much so that I know what Blendtec make how good the product is and how funny their videos are. I also know that if I am looking for a blender in the future – I know what to look at…

    Build that awesome brand you have :) give it some time, I think you will be on to a big thing there :)

    #78856
    infocentre
    Member

    Thanks Rob – Very kind words!

    Also very true. The Skateboarding Industry is a fickle and Shallow one that is based all around image. Our boards are pressed in the same factories as many of the Top USA (and UK) brands, but unless your in that skateboarding elite, your just not ‘cool’ enough.

    We have been bangin’ out videos for a LONG time now with our local guys and team riders. In feburay, PhinFilms (which is basically Team Dolphin – the original local boys who all prop up Herbal) started a ‘Monthly Edit’ chain which is still going strong and starting to gain momentum. Filmmaking is what i really love to do and the brand is the perfect platform to do that.

    Anyway – it is baby-steps and I have plans to expand the product range and possibly even setup some Affiliate schemes to start getting the traffic in and making sales. As I said before, it can easily go downhill very quickly with how ‘Clickie’ the Skateboarding scene is, so each step is carefully planned!

    But most of all, i have heaps of fun doing what we do. I love the Skateboarding scene, dispite its faults and wouldn’t change it for the world. :)

    #78898
    Luminated
    Member

    I also just think sales might be down for many people in general. I think the store is heads and shoulders above so many ecommerce solutions out there. Of course there are things that can improve and tweak, it can ALWAYS be better. But overall I think its a solid, slick and standup design, good job!

    And yes, just give it time. And remember, nothing replaces good old fashioned marketing and traffic driving methods. Get some business cards floating around, post the site on Facebook, perhaps try and get a spot in a local publication’s business section. The beautiful part about ecommerce is the word of mouth can extend far beyond the local buzz.

    #79062
    infocentre
    Member

    I think you are right Luminated – especially in the skateboarding world.

    You have both mentioned improvements; can we pick up on them at all? I am aware of the AJAX cart not being quite as noticable as it could be.. What i would like is the cart to appear in a Thickbox-type thing when items are added, as well as the AJAX refresh at the top. I am not sure how i might do this as im only really starting to understand both PHP and the WP calls. This is what the ‘Add to cart’ button call looks like;

    Code:

    I can see it reffers to the SHOPP plugin, so not sure how i might tackle the above..

    If anyone has any suggestions, i would love to hear them!

    Thanks
    Alex

    #79075
    infocentre
    Member

    In follow-up from my above post, I started doing a lot more digging into the AJAX ‘Add to Cart’ function that SHOPP has as standard to try and figure out a way to make it more noticable to the user when they add a product.

    You can see what i came up with by going to http://herbalskateboards.com and adding a product to your cart.

    You get an elegant popup in the centre of the page informing you that the product has been added and (if you didnt notice) there is a summary of your cart at the top of the page.

    It uses jGrowl as the base and is put directly into the script that runs the AJAX function using just one line.

    Hope you all like it – feedback would be appreciated! Hopefully this makes the ‘Added to cart’ function a little more obviouse to the user. :)

    Alex

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