Power Sellers Unite

upstatefinds · Joined: 23 Jul 2006 Posts: 32

Like most of you I am an EBay refugee.

Could I please get you to take a look at the website upstatefinds
I am trying to build and critique it for me? Does it load okay. Please be honest I can handle it!!!

I was ramping this up on EBay till they wanted a bigger bite of the pie while the Victorian Produce I have are really nice I can only pass so much on to the customer before I have over priced my self out of the market.

Thank you very much
Deda

kevinatgrannys · Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 1799

Okay, here goes...First off, It loads very quickly for me (I'm on dial-up.)

The only problem I have found thus far is on your shipping page, "We except money orders, PayPal payments and personal checks. " I think you want accept instead of except.

Hope that this helps.

pjrcoffee · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 634

You have some interesting items for sale. I was born and raised in the Binghamton area so knew you had to be in New York because hardly anyone else uses "upstate" to refer to an area.

Some of the photos show evidence of using flash. Try using natural light or some other method to reduce the reflection. Pictures can be sized uniformly even if the prints are of various sizes.

Graphics on Home page are not centered. Looks cluttered.

Good start but still a work in progress. Keep at it! You'll get there.

hollyrose · Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 24

Your site looks great. I love the colors and it does load quickly when I clicked on the menu links. The only suggestion I have is to add more pictures and links to products/items directly on the home. I know you already have site menu but sometimes it is nice to link and showcase a product right on the homepage. I just recently did this to my site for better product visibility. You can go right to website homepage for my example.
-Holly

artsi2is · Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 93

Hi upstatefinds,
I just took a brief look at your site. I'm using Firefox 1.5 browser, & DSL, & it still takes a while to load up. Understandably, it's because there's quite a few images on there, & possibly because my network connection is just slower this morning (which is what I go through at some point everyday!).

As far as the basic design & images & animation, they're quite pretty & appealing. It shows good taste. But towards the bottom of the homepage, the images get confusing. I think you're trying for a non-typical cascading look, which is an interesting idea, but those images unfortunately don't match very well together, since they're all from different companies & use different fonts, messages, & image styles.

I would probably try to put that "Feedback Site" image on the Left navigation bar below "Newsletters" (or whatever would be your last entry in that column) - & keep it closer to where the main body text of the homepage is. That image is much smaller than the other ones on the bottom, so you just don't see it as well.

Then I would probably also move up the "Sign Guest Book" image to the same level as "Tell a Friend." These 2 have similar "concept," plus the "Sign In" & "View Pages" are also quite small on the image, so it is difficult to read when there's there's other things that distract your eyes from it (ie, images above it).

The 'Add to Favorites" is quite pretty. What about moving that up to between "Newsletter" & the "Feedback Site." Or, put it on the top of the Right Navigation column.

The "Main St Vintage" can stay where it is.

The "Ebay" image can possibly go in the Left (or Right) Navigation bars, or be at about the same level of the "Main St Vintage."

Well, these are only my opinions & there's probably a lot of other much better than me on this, so I hope you find out what works best for you!! Anyway, congrats on getting your site up & running!!!

upstatefinds · Joined: 23 Jul 2006 Posts: 32

Thank you I will try your suggestions.

I am about 1 hour from Binghamton, they got hit pretty hard with a flood last month.

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

Welcome to PSU upstatefinds!!! I took a quick looksie and didn't see anything that I could add, but wanted to welcome you all the same!!

Best of sales to ya - and great job as you look for alternatives to ebaY!! :D :D

artsi2is · Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 93

Hi,
I just checked out your site again & it looks nice. You're probably still working on it, & I just had an idea but I don't know if it'll really work.

What if you try placing the "Tell A Friend" figure to the right of the painting with the girl in blue. This centers it more & since they're both in the same color. It may catch the visitor's attention more so that they really will "tell a friend."

OR, possibly instead, what about taking that text underneath the painting & putting it to the right of it - where the empty space is. Then the next level below that would be the title "Up State NY." In this case, you may possibly need to adjust slightly the spacing of the top 2 lines - "Thanks for stopping..." & "We are located..."

I don't know if you're using a template or not, so it might not be very flexible for you to make these changes. I guess one more thing that possibly could be done - would be to bring down the left navigation menu. It's quite high up there relative to the rest of the contents on the page.

These are only suggestions & they might not work either. Anyway, good luck with your site!!

magix5er · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 5

it's comfortable looking. the navigation bar can be better by using pictures like the "add to favorites" instead of bold and underlined "newsletter". some of the pics for victorian print is affected by your camera's flashlight for eg. good night, young lovers. removing it will make your pics perfect