i fixed up a bit - DPChallenge Forums

08/26/2006 10:59:29 AM · #1

ok so i have fixed up a bit on my litle sale page. so hopefully people wont have as much trouble looking at it .
i have it with thumbnails now that if you push on will bring you to a bigger pictures.

I do hope this will help me sell more since doc dosent want me to work, im in school now and well the dishabilety thingy is going to take at least three months to go through the sistem(if i quilefy to pension or not)

please do look here and tell me your opinion

and yes i know the pictures arent great and need fixing. I just still havent learned how too.

08/26/2006 04:29:24 PM · #2

Is there no one interested in some home made icelandic trinkets?

08/26/2006 04:51:00 PM · #3

Hi Kolbrun - Here's my honest feedback.

The website needs a lot more work if you want to sell these online;

- You need to fix up the English text and spelling

- It's not very clear what price refers to which item (e.g. what's the difference between small star, heart star, and swirl star?)

- How about putting the prices and descriptions under each picture?

- There are too many pictures, especially of the circular ones. Either put a few in each picture to show variety, or just show 2 of each type

- You're telling people to contact you to let you know if they're interested. To be honest, this won't happen. People want an easy way to buy something online. If they need to contact you, this probably means posting you a cheque or something, which is too much hassle. People want one-click ordering. Look at using Paypal, it's easy to create a small 'buy now' paypal button next to each trinket

- You should put some text explaining what these trinkets are - I can see they are colourful tihngs made from beads or something, but do they have some cultural significance? - Explain the background of the trinkets to people

- Customers aren't interested in hearing about you (sorry to say this!), if you want to sell a product, just sell the product. Don't tell the story about how or why you're trying to sell these items, it just puts people off.

- Have you tried selling these on ebay? - You might find it easier rather than trying to build a webpage and set up the 'buy now' stuff. Ebay makes this really easy for you. And you don't have to worry about hosting

- Your photos will be fine if you just crop them tighter, you shouldn't be able to see the backdrop. Crop tight into the object.

Message edited by author 2006-08-26 16:51:28.

08/26/2006 05:21:55 PM · #4

Thank you so much for your honest feedback:)

The thing is i cant open a paypal account for drawing out funds. living in iceland i could make it to buy stuff, but not too sell.

The spelling is a thing i will need to check on. After all english is my third language i have learned.

I could probably try to make the text go with the picture, meaning the prices of each item.

bIt is easy to take my story out, theres no problem on that side, I just thought peoplewould like to know who and what i am. I know i like to get to know persons background that i have tryed o support online.

I tryed making an ebay store but with no paypal and no credit card that has prooven to tricky for me.

and lastly, i have no idea how to crop images *blush* hance me going back to school. anything above solitaire is a bit to tech for me

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

08/26/2006 05:33:23 PM · #5

Hmm... that's a pity about not being able to use Paypal. I just checked their website, and for Iceland it says; "Users in these countries cannot withdraw funds to their local bank account electronically or by paper check. They can withdraw funds to a U.S. bank account."

Unless you have a friend in the US who you can transfer the money to every few months and then they can send you a cheque? - How do people in Iceland who sell on ebay get their money out?

If you need me to help fix up the grammar/spelling of your final text, just PM me.

Regarding people getting to know you - There's no problem with that. Put it on a different link, perhaps an 'About Me' page. The reason I was saying not to have it on the trinket page is because that page is for selling trinkets. You need to let people see the pictures first. They don't want to scroll down through the life story before seeing the products. :-)

I'm speaking from experience here. For about a year I had 'About our company' as the homepage. Someone said to me 'people aren't interested in you or your company, they want to find out about your products'. I took his advice, and it made a big difference.

As regards cropping pictures. Download and install Picasa from;

//picasa.google.com/

This will make your life so much easier.

klstover

Panasonic DMC-FZ8

08/26/2006 08:01:13 PM · #6

Originally posted by kollaosk:

ok so i have fixed up a bit on my litle sale page. so hopefully people wont have as much trouble looking at it .
i have it with thumbnails now that if you push on will bring you to a bigger pictures.

While jhonan has given you some great advice, I just wanted to say - the thumbnails linking to the larger pictures is a huge improvement! Way to go :-D

Message edited by author 2006-08-26 20:01:47.

justine

Canon EOS-50D

08/26/2006 08:31:35 PM · #7

Perhaps make your photos close up so people can get a good look your fine work. Like an insert so they can see both what you already have and then a zoom-or-macro.
Also as suggested-check English spelling.

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

08/27/2006 07:32:08 AM · #8

Thank you jhonan,klstover and justine.

I will Dowlnoad the picasa tomorow at schoolit is to expensive for me to do so from home.

And well I dont have many friends i trust so well in america, but i know one lady in michigan who might help me, il tru to call her later tonight, when its around midday for her.

justine what is an insert?
I´m afraid my english needs improving on this.

mist

Canon EOS-60D

08/27/2006 08:02:11 AM · #9

Hi

Here's a few more things to consider -

Lose the carebear background. Plain white (or some other plain backdrop) would look more professional.

If there's any way you could have less adverts on the page, even by moving to another host, do so. They distract from what you are selling because they are overly colourful and flashy.

I'd definitely put the prices next to the items, or even reshoot the photos with the price displayed in the photo next to each item.

For your image links, include in the link attributes the words border="0" to remove that horrible blue border around your thumbnails, so the HTML would be (with square brackets instead of the angle bracket because I don't know if that works in these posts

(a href="yourpicture" title="View larger version")(img src="yourthumbnail.jpg" border="0" alt="View larger version")(/a)

You could even include style="padding : 2px; border=1px solid black" in your IMG tag if you want a neat little black border instead.

Lastly, remove the funny custom icon. Again, you're trying to look professional and sell things.

08/27/2006 08:42:26 AM · #10

The other option is to get someone else to do the selling for you. Take a look at this page;

//www.nordicstore.net/

They sell Icelandic trinkets, jewelry, books, videos etc... But look at the phrases they're using;

"The Vikings believed the Runes possessed great power, as they came from Odinn himself, mightiest of the pagan gods."

People love that kind of stuff!

Why not consider selling a box of your trinkets to a company like this, and let them do all the hard work. - You might get less money, but it'll be easier for you (you won't have to worry about ebay, paypal, website design, postage, cheques or any of that stuff)

08/27/2006 08:49:01 AM · #11

Mist thank you for your input. Now i am starting to consider to move the sale site to another site, but then the question is where?

does anyone here know a good site where i can sell my items and dosent have to many ads? a free site.

do you think myspace would be good for that?

08/27/2006 08:52:29 AM · #12

jhonan do you think my trinkets would do well on this site?

These stores always just seem so sterile to me.

08/27/2006 09:05:02 AM · #13

Originally posted by kollaosk:

jhonan do you think my trinkets would do well on this site?

These stores always just seem so sterile to me.

I just posted that store as an example. Put it this way, you have nothing to lose by emailing them and seeing if they're interested. They probably operate some kind of 'sale or return'. i.e. You sell them a box of trinkets and then after a certain length of time they return any they haven't sold.

If you want to do the selling yourself, the other thing to think about is how are people going to find your website? - It's becoming increasingly difficult to get onto page one of Google. One way is to use Google Adwords, but these can be expensive. The other way is to get links/banners on related sites, or on craft/jewelry webrings.

An effective method for you might be 'word of mouth', through friends and family to start with.

I'm offering you a few things to think about, as I've been through this a few times - and it is a learning process. Making the product is the easy part. The hard part is selling it! :-)