Critique My Site (March 2007): Sunshine Daydream Hippie Shop

[Ina]

Mark Paradise runs Sunshine DayDream, a retail store in the Chicago suburbs that is a hippie's dream come true. The store sells music, from The Allman Brothers Band and The Big Wu to Widespread Panic and Yonder Mountain String Band. They also carry hippie clothes, patchwork clothing, tie-dye and incense.

Mark expanded online and has had his own website for 2 years. In fact, he plans on closing his store within a year and devoting his efforts on his website fulltime.

Here's what Mark says about his online site, Sunshinedaydream.biz: "I have had my website up for 2 years now and do all of it myself. I have no formal training, so it's a lot of trial and error for me and advice is very much welcome and appreciated. I use web hosting by an agent of Sam's Club. It's very affordable, and so far has worked out pretty good for me. I am looking to increase sales from my site and make the customers visit easy and enjoyable. So how about some help for this hippie turned webmaster/web designer? (terms used loosely)"

Visit Mark's website, and post here letting him know what you think!

http://www.sunshinedaydream.biz
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Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

[Tradguy]

I realize that Mark did the site himself and has no formal training, unfortunately, it looks like an amateur site. It's not particularly appealing, and very disorganized.

My first advice would be to look at some ready-to-go ecommerce systems - OsCommerce, Zen cart, Cubecart - many hosting companies offer these pre-installed (Hostgator.com is a good example - $12/month and you get all 3).

But if you're satisfied with your current setup, then here is some immediate advice.

1 - Eliminate the textured background - it's so hard to read things over it that most customers will immediately leave.

2 - Eliminate every single "ad" you have going on there. Are you trying to sell merchandise or advertising space? You are NOT a content site, so stop with all the annoying and distracting ads. Do you realize you are advertising competing sites with your Adsense ads?? Its distracting, unprofessional, and counter-productive to your retail site.

3 - When users first hit your site, present me with your store. I don't really know what that first page is. There is no much "junk" on that page most people won't even realize there is an actual store...somewhere.

4 - Use some kind of "collapsible" store category system. Right now you are showing every category level simultaneously, which is extremely confusing and way way too much information.

5 - Think really hard about how you are organizing your stuff. There should be no more than 5-10 top level categories.

6 - Why isn't your middle column re-sizable? It's "fixed" right now, as if you stuck in some large wide graphic to keep it wide. Well, it's too wide for most people. You are using tables, and tables work best in a store when they are re-sizable. Your site is virtually unusable to anyone under 1200 pixels wide. I'm higher resolution than that, but I don't want to have to make your site my whole screen just to see it. If you must have a fixed minimum width, it needs to be around 800 pixels wide. But my advice is to just let HTML do what it's supposed to do and resize.

BTW, I like your stuff, but I hate your presentation. I found it frustrating to navigate, and overall not very appealing. It's lack of "polish" would make me very hesitant to order from you.

Hope some of this helps!

[DizziPinz]

Hi.
As a person who actually wore granny dresses and jackets with fringe, I love your idea. I think TradeGuy gave you some great ideas for technical improvements.
I just opened my own website as well and when I was working on the design and building of it I focused primarily the customer experience and also tried to be creative so that my site is easy to use, functional and enjoyable.
When I go to your site I want to "smell" patchouli oil. I want to "hear" Hendrix or the Doors or Jefferson Airplane. You have a niche where you can really make a visitor have a great experience whether they are feeling nostalgic or they sorry to be so young that they missed out on those days and are trying to get a sense of how it was. All IMHO.
Best of luck on your new site!
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Make it a Magical Day!

DizziPinz
Collectible Disney Trading Pins
www.dizzipinz.com

[Consignment Pal]

Hi,

I have to scroll to the right to see your whole page.

Suggest putting your links in a bottom navigation bar. Don't use prime real estate at the top.
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Linda
Consignment Pal Resale Directory
http://consignmentpal.com