[[email protected]]

We/I am brand new to this site and are seeking some constructive criticisms regarding our site and the designs we have up.

We just launched this month, and although we respect our parents' opinions of telling us how beautiful and special we are...we would even more appreciate some real feedback from some industry experts.

Ah..and our company and site is HEL-LA

 

[Girlzndollz]

Hi Josh! Parents will do that! And it's their right. Glad you have some good support behind you, that's great.

I gave the site a peruse and a few things I'd recommend is:

1. Remove the tees that are wholesale from the store and make a separate link called "Wholesale" and lead your whole business away from your retail page. But I would still land on the retail page. Your retail customers will expect that, and for that matter, so will your wholesale customers. Wholesalers are pretty used to looking for a back door, separate link away from the front that is designed to capture your core retail business.

2. It's a good suggestion to make all of your shirts the same price, rather than most $20 and one or a few $15. It's easier for the shopper and won't bring up questions as to why the price difference. Or looking to now sort which are what price, and then asking themselves, do they want to spend the extra $5 for this design, then they pick the designs apart to decide, eh. Don't bother them or yourselves with it. The whole thing can easily lead the customer away from the focus of looking at the designs and enjoying which one they could see themselves wearing (because now there is a fluctuating dollar factor and many of us can't help but "shop" when the opportunity arises, and this makes it arise.) Stick to one price. They do not know anything about the costs of blanks. They just know the tees are all valued at $20 because you design and create them. Keep it simple. It works.

3. I don't really like the "photos" link you have at the top. It duplicates the designs on the tee and when viewing the photo page, something feels like you're viewing the art that is plopped on a tee template. Took a little of the designer feel away. If you are trying to show the design larger, I suggest you make your site have the function where you can click on the tee on the landing page and it enlargers that picture.

Good luck to you. Best wishes.

 

[qwylon22]

Way to go on launching. It looks cool I have to say, I agree w/ the previous poster on separating the wholesale bit of the website from the retail area. Other than that, pretty cool!

 

[EnMartian]

First of all, I agree with what Girlzndollz said. Separate the wholesale from the retail. Otherwise you're offering your retail customers things they can't buy and that usually doesn't go over well. I'm also with her in not liking the photos link at the top. If you want to keep it, put up photos you too at an event you were at, or photos of people wearing your shirts. Right now the photos link just makes no sense.

I think your blog is well done and gives a good feel for your business. I would try to extend a little bit of what's on the blog to your About Us Page. Right now the About Us page doesn't really say a lot about you. I get you're going for a certain atmosphere, but people like to buy from people with whom they can identify in some way.

Also, I didn't see a return policy anywhere. Is there one?

 

[[email protected]]

thanks for the feedback all. The reason why we did the wholesale mixed with retail was to have a reason for putting all our product up and accessible/visible to gauge some demand and what people are requesting for hoping would be available.

What would be a better way of doing this to avoid the confusion you've mentioned? Our thought was that it would be more purposeful doing it that way then simply putting stuff up and listing it as not available or coming soon.

 

[OriginalShortees]

Josh,

Girlzndollz is dead on with her feedback. I understand your reasoning for putting the wholesale products on the page. While you can make an argument for why you did it that way, at the end of the day you are just making it more confusing for customers. If the purpose of your web site is primarily for retail sales then only show the items that people can get. The only reason to have whole sale items is if they are in stores and you are telling people where they can find those "special" items.

Consider creating a second web site for your wholesale business. You can even password protect it so only qualified leads can get in. On your wholesale site you can show all of the products that you are offering through that channel. On your main web site have a wholesale page or section where you mention that you have special designs only available to channel partners. Then have interested people contact you via email or look at woofu to set up a contact form within your site. After people contact you, you can give them the URL to your wholesale page or even better then having a wholesale page, email them a PDF with what you have available. Wholesale and retail are two different aspects of the same business so treat them differently.

 

[[email protected]]

Right on..I do agree with everyone's consistent feedback.

Being we only have 4 designs that are readily available for retail right now, should we just put those up? Seems a bit bare, what would be another way to show the remainder of our designs? Which to a degree is why we had the PHOTOS section up for right now so we could again show everything we have. Ultimately that will be swapped out for real photos, model shots, events, etc.

 

[jodyblack14]

Nice site... looks good! keep up the good work

 

[EpitomeClothing]

Hola,

I really like your design/illustration skills. Good stuff, very nice.

Comments on the site:

• I dont disagree with the comments on the "photos" section.

• For some reason when the page loaded, it had scrolled down a bit, so on first inspection I didnt even see the top navigation. Aside from that the "Hella" graphic with text next to it is visually demanding and strong. You may want to consider moving the navigation below the "Hella" header graphic so that it is closer to the actual page content and wont have the opportunity to accidentally disappear off the top of the browser screen.

• I do see that you have an additional navigation in the right column of the site. It's typically an industry (web design) standard to have any side navigation on the left hand side. This is how people navigate through your site and you want this content available to the user at all times. Seeing as how it is currently on the right side, it's possible if someone does not have their browser all the way open, or is running a lower resolution that the right nav bar could fall off screen. Just something to think about.

• You may want to consider picking a consistent link color. This is a pretty nit picky thing, but it allows users to easily identify what is a "call to action" or link and what is not. Right now you have dark green "add to cart" buttons, blue "more details" links, in the right nav you have orange on state with grey and black links. Creating even two color links, a primary and secondary can help build recognition with the user... again, this is getting nitty gritty but it does help.

• Subjectively, I think it would be nice if in your store section all the photos thumbnails were the same size. Right now it appears they are not, and it's creating some odd wrapping. One row will have 3 shirts, another only two, and on the bottom... there are two rows with only 1 shirt each.

• I would definitely get rid of the wholesale option in your store area. Have a link that says wholesale in your main or side nav and have people contact you for details. On a side not, why would you sell some shirts wholesale only? Why not sell everything online too?

• Subjective, but I find it a little weird that the "archives" and "recent posts" are available when in the store. Those are links for the blog right? Maybe not, I could be crazy

I'll PM you about a shirt review.