My new website - feedback and product suggestion needed

Hi. Hope everyones doing fine.

I am the owner of Link hidden: Login to view. Do check it out and give me feedback. :-)

I am a Maldivian and right now my business is based locally but I am working on expanding it to international. Only problem is I cant receive from Paypal yet.

I am trying to get products as right now I am mostly getting from ebay. I need to get a csv file of about 100 products which are selling on ebay so that I can display them on my site.

Also I would like to find dropshippers who can provide me with csv files of 100 products from which I can choose products to display on my site.

I am mostly interested in elsectronics cause that sells well in Maldives but my arms are open to anything.

Need dropshipper or supplier to Maldives. As my customer buy, I will buy from dropshipper or supplier.

Can anyone help me out? thankx.

Hi Helper,

From a visual marketing point of view, I think you should consider looking at changing the colour pallet. You have a lot of red going on there and it comes across as being quite harsh to the eye, and a little difficult rear through.

In design terms you are wanting to create quite a warm and inviting environment for customers so they feel welcome, the better you do that, the more chance you have of them staying a while and opening other pages.

I would suggest taking a look at other websites, even templates, you can get a good idea in regards to layout and the use of colours from a variety of avenues.

: )

Hi Helper,

Good on you for setting up your own website!

Here are a couple of simple ways that I think you can improve your site:

1. I really like how you have featured items - this is a great marketing tool, but I think it would be a good idea if you stick to only listing items with good pictures here in the future. "Image Coming Soon" doesn't look 100% professional.

2. It would be a good idea for you to optimize your meta description. It's currently "buy and sell just like on ebay with no or much lesser fees".

I think something that really highlights what your store offers and targets specific keywords might help buyers find you, and click on your website more.

3. Consider adding a tagline to your logo. I think the design of your logo is pretty good, but I think adding a tagline like that sums up what your website could be beneficial, as "Ourbix" is quite an abstract name.

4. Consider revising the "First Time? Click here" tab. While I think it's good to offer instructions on online retail to people who need them, you want to avoid people getting distracted by details like this. Wouldn't you rather they keep browsing items, and add something to their cart?

Perhaps this could be an FAQ's page instead?

5. I feel the set of links below your logo: "Home, Contact Us, Part-Time Work Opportunities, etc" are taking up vital space on your "above the fold area" of your website (the most prominent and visible areas of your site).

I think you might be better off using these as quick links to top selling items like cell phones, jewelry, etc. That way buyers can easily navigate to them, wherever they are on the website.

Consider moving your About Us and PT Work Opportunities, etc to a less prominent area.

I hope this helps :)

Hi. Thank you so much for providing such good feedback Mark Ransom and Alice. As soon as I can change the 'redish' issue I will implement it and let you know Mark. I am acutally not so good with designing or color matching but even before I did check out most of the other sites already running. I thought I would make my site look different from them. Still, it was worth trying it for a few days. :-)

Alice you must have guessed already that I am quite new to handling a site right now. :-) Your insights and suggestions are awesome and I will implement each one as soon as possible. I have brought the wordings of certain page links having in mind the nature of how my country people are and how it would be easier for them. Still, as I have been able to make my site International now, I will definitely bring about the changes. Will get back after I can make them changes.

Thank you both so much once again. I really didn't expect such positive, straight forward yet beneficial suggestions. I'm already satisfied for selecting Salehoo instead of other one. tc. :-)

Hi Helper,

I just visited your site, looks good but you could do better changing the red background as suggested by Marc.

I read your About Us page and it was a bit painful to the eyes. I had to strain a bit to be able to read at least half of what was there. The font color didn't help too much as well..it was too faint for the really striking red background.

It's great that you have more than 1 picture per product. It's always good to offer buyers all possible angles of the product.

I understand that you are sourcing your products from different suppliers but you might want to consider re-doing (re-writing) the product descriptions, like make them more uniform - Use one format, one font style/size. I know its time consuming but it'll definitely look more professional.

All the best and congratulations on your new site! :)

[quote:c690b473]Hi. Thank you so much for providing such good feedback Mark Ransom and Alice. As soon as I can change the 'redish' issue I will implement it and let you know Mark. I am acutally not so good with designing or color matching but even before I did check out most of the other sites already running. I thought I would make my site look different from them. Still, it was worth trying it for a few days. :-)

Design is always difficult unless you have the experience in that area, and colour plays a major role in any design. The human eye is very reactive to colours, in fact large companies pay a fortune to research colours when considering branding.

Red is an extremely strong colour, we are conditioned to thinking of danger, stop, importance, these type of things when we see red. That's why when you get an overdue bill, you will usually find overdue written in red, it is designed to capture your attention.

I would suggest using colour more sparingly, remain mostly neutral for the background, then splash colour where you want to ad impact, areas where you want to draw the attention of the customer.

Using that formula you can create a pleasant and warm environment for customers and still have an effective site : )

For anyone that does struggle with colour, a great tip is to go down to your local paint shop and get a colour wheel.....should be free. Talk to the colour expert, tell them you are painting a room in the house and do they have any tips on colour choice. They will show you how best to use the wheel for primary colour, and then matching secondary colour, and that same principal can be used in any colour design.

Hi everyone. Hats off to you guys. Your ideas are really great. Hi Richelle. Do check my site again Mark Ransom and Richelle. I've changed the sites red color now. It should be much better now. I'll be bringing about the changes as you all tell me my friends. It will take time but I will. Thanks for the support. Already one supplier has contacted me from here so I am going to start that process now. Wish me luck. I wish all the best and prosperity to Salehoo n Staffs. tc for now. :-)

Excellent suggestion Mark Ransom about that color wheel. I like the way you prove your suggestions. Thanks a lot. Looks like I'm here to stay. :-)

Hi again. A supplier is asking to be contacted by email. Is that safe?

Advice and assistance is what we're here for, so you're very welcome and I'm glad we are in a position to give you some productive ideas : )

Now, in regards to a supplier wanting to communicate via email. First and foremost, only suppliers on the forum with Approved Supplier showing in their SaleHoo id are authorised to submit offers to members.

These suppliers have been verified by SaleHoo for your trading safety. If you are contacted ny any supplier via PM requesting communication via PM or outside of SaleHoo, who is not an Approved Supplier, we strongly recommend you ignore the message and inform us of the message so we are able to deal with the breach.

You can PM directly or send details through to support@salehoo.com.

BTW, nice to hear that you'll be sticking around : )

Hi everyone. Hats off to you guys. Your ideas are really great. Hi Richelle. Do check my site again Mark Ransom and Richelle. I've changed the sites red color now. It should be much better now. I'll be bringing about the changes as you all tell me my friends. It will take time but I will. Thanks for the support. Already one supplier has contacted me from here so I am going to start that process now. Wish me luck. I wish all the best and prosperity to Salehoo n Staffs. tc for now. :-)

Looking really good, Helper! Now you're site feels so warm and inviting as Marc earlier suggested. The product listing look really nice too - all written or presented in the same way, looks quite professional. Good job!

So long as you were contacted by a directory approved supplier then its completely safe to deal with them through email. If you were contacted by one of our members then we cannot guarantee anything. Whenever you are unsure about anything don't hesitate to contact us, we will be more than happy to help you out.

Hope to see a photo added to your profile soon, especially now that you have decided to stick around :)

Cheers!

The site is looking great now Helper!

Richelle and Marc: You guys need to start a reality TV show where you go around looking for websites that need improving and do a "MOVE THAT BUS!" type of reveal at the end.

;)

I'm a little late to the game here but I wanted to offer some suggestions. Obviously, please don't take this personally.

The very first thing I notice is the top of your first page is messy. You can't read some of the text and its hard to even read the name of your site. You can't have people guessing the name. It has to standout and be very easily seen and read. Clean it up some and get rid of the text at the top in the red box as its illegible.

You never want to have any text in any way hard to read or illegible. That is a big no no in website design.

The other biggie is the bulk of you home page being taken up by a claim (as true as it may be), about how safe your site is to purchase from. That will actually work against you. People will wonder why the hell someone is trying so hard to make them believe their site is safe.
Move it to somewhere else or greatly reduce the size to a simple text statement of one line.

Other than that, the site is pretty clean and easy to read.

The site is looking great now Helper!

Richelle and Marc: You guys need to start a reality TV show where you go around looking for websites that need improving and do a "MOVE THAT BUS!" type of reveal at the end.

;)

Hi Alice,

I just read your post :) Maybe we could do something of the sort for our members.

Cheers!

Yes, just read that one myself.....

Geee, thanks for that Alice, making more work for poor Richelle and myself lol. Don't think for one minute you're getting away scott free, where ever we go, you go lol : )

Actually, the perfect solution is to just take one of SaleHoo's e-commerce options, perfect in design and function..... problem solved : )

Been ages I checked this thread. Had to add something to this. Hope everyone's fine. :-)