I really could have used your site for every xmas over the last 5 years. Every secret santa I have ever done has had a £5 limit. You have clearly worked hard on your product range.

I was initially concerned when ie engaged compatibility view whilst loading your site. This is a facility designed to help older sites work on the modern internet so I had a look on Opera, Firefox and Chrome. On ie you have a lot of layout issues which may or may not be overcome if you improve the doctype tag (it currently just says Doctype) and/or condense your enormous css file.

In ie your site looks over-crammed with over-sized images and text that goes under images, the whole thing looks very poor. None of these issues occur on the other browsers, although it is still very obvious that it is made with a web site builder. You may want to consider the ie issues though, ie held a 34% share of the browser usage stats according to wikimedia last year, Opera Firefox and Chorme only had 49% between them.

That said, you are clear and honest about the fact that you are selling cheap products and so a (no offence) cheap web site seems somehow fitting. If it takes off and makes money I'd suggest that a professional site be your first investment though.

Another slight consideration, B2B sites normally give prices with & without vat. B2C sites normally show the price including vat but don't mention vat on the price. It's not normal to state 'including tax' after each price.

All the best
John
------------------------
www.beta2b.com

Hello John,

Many thanks for the feedback,this is really useful. I will certainly have a look at the ie issues.

Due to the site builder there are quite a few limitations on the layout. It is also the site builder that adds the inc tax to each price ( i have asked to have this removed).

I cant complain too much as the site builder was cheap and the actual payment/cart part works really well.

I will keep working on it! and i will look at a more expensive website once more established. As you can imagine, with the nature of the site i have to keep a close eye of the margins!

Thanks Gemma

I agree with Beta2b about the layout issues there are many opensource shopping cart solutions that are easy to configure with paypal etc and alot of hosting providers will supply them with auto installation features and so they are very easy to get up and running.

Hello Gemma

I also concur with the above comments, to go into a bit more detail in parts:

As Beta2b stated your images need resizing as they are either too large lowering the image quality, or too small in length or height giving that squashed up look you would get from viewing widescreen on a normal tv all those years ago. Resizing these images to scale in a graphics program can greatly help in resolving this, for a free one you could try gimp.

The colour choices with the words on the menu are too similar that your words nearly blend with the menu, try to bear in mind that a good percentage of the population are colour blind and colour blending or phasing can create a difficult experience and result in lost potential sales. This can also apply to near sighted individuals as well, creating crisp clear colours on background with good use of contrast for text seated at the foreground can provide an easy on the eye relaxing shopping experience.

I fully understand the lure of mr site as an all round solution but it can be a quite limiting package overall, you can find many good open source cart software providers that have good features, low server usage and much more flexibility and support due to a large open source community sharing and caring so to speak.

On one last note, I wondered why you have adverts on your site. Is this a requirement from the package you got from mr site or was it your own choice?

The last thing you really want on your own shop is adverts that could potentially show a competitor or something else that could attract them away from your shop, products and end up losing a potential sale.

If you need any more tips, guidance or advice do not hesitate to reply, pm or give us a bell.

Good luck with your site as it can be great fun and frustration at the same time.

James
Purrfect Design Ltd
www.purrfectdesign.com
01692 652387

I'm not a techie person but I just wanted to say that I really like your business concept. I'm always looking for stocking fillers and low cost presents as my friends and I always agree not to spend much on each other. You have some fab pressies for £5! I think you could do well. Good luck!