Alternative clothing - Please take a look and make suggestions

[NNGNews]

Hallo,

We are a new e-shop of alternative clothing bags and accessories based in Milan - Italy

 

Here it is :

http://www.kissene.com/en/

 

We developed it with Prestashop 1.4.7

 

We would like to know your opinions and suggestions about it, don't be shy to be rude, we like critics, they help us to make better !

 

Thanks to all

 

_______________________________________

http://www.kissene.com/en/

 

[sooroos]

i appreciate the effort.

on a scale from 1 to 10 the design is somewhere around 2. you should work on it much more.

try to buy a theme if you dont want to develop one or you do not have enough skills.

also try a newer version of prestashop.

Edited May 12, 2014 by sooroos (see edit history)

[Kimss]

I agree. You should consider buying a theme. Design is just one of those things where you really (I mean: REALLY) have to remember to check your ego at the door. It's hard to do and most people simply don't know how to do it.

At least you should remove all the clutter and unnecessary stuff. A rule of thumb is that you're only done with designing, when you can't find one more thing to remove.

I'd remove pretty much all the blocks on either side of your center block. New Products, Categories, Manufacturers, Specials, Tags, Wishlist - get rid of them.

Stick with one font through the whole site. I know it's trendy to mix fonts, but that doesn't make it any easier to do. It's hard as f*** and something even professional designers struggle with to get right.

Also, you should consider throwing some money at a designer who can make better slides for your slider. At the moment, they're probably the most important point of focus on your front page and therefore they have to be done right.

 

And yeah, upgrading seems like a must. I honestly think you'd improve the conversion rate by a huge margin, just by upgrading to 1.6.

 

Bottom line is you've got some great stuff and you could make a sh**load of money on it, because although there's a fair amount of competition, not that many are doing it right. You just have to do it right and you're not doing that at the moment. Which is a shame.

[NNGNews]

Really really thank you to both of you, we do appreciate your opinion, because it shows us which way we should go.

I know we would upgrading the whole thing, but we're little (big) scared about changing from 1.4.7 to 1.6 version for all the problems that could happens and to lose all our customizations, it's a hard work to go through.

Anyway thanks for your critics and also compliments for our products.

We will take care about your suggestions as soon as possible.

Have a nice day

 

____________________________

http://www.kissene.com/en/

[sooroos]

you have nothing to be scared off, just backup your files and database before doing anything. you could also try to start from 0 on a fresh prestashop install and if necessary use export import.

 

the default theme on ps 1.6 looks 10 times better than your shop

Edited May 14, 2014 by sooroos (see edit history)

[Mallee Boy]

Site design is important, but I would not worry about upgrading just yet if you don't feel you are ready. Instead, you can do these important tasks:

 

1. Remove the carousels. They are small, distracting and make the site slow. Instead, bring your featured products up to the top so people can see them, their prices, etc clearly.

 

If the page is too busy, which it is right now, people don't know where to begin. So, removing the carousels is important.

 

2. Move categories in the left menu to the top left so people can navigate easily.

 

3. Horizontal menu fonts are too large. make all fonts on the site the same and keep sizes of font the same except for headings.

 

4. Black background makes it hard to read. Creams and browns will go well with your logo and are more suitable to the "alternative" market you want to reach.

 

5. Take a look at this site for a nice clear layout that is easy for customers. This site has had very good success and works on the premise that "less is more". http://www.gamesfromeverywhere.com.au/

 

6. You need to add more content to your short and long product descriptions if you want to rank well in Google. Writing content is an art but it is easy to master once you know the formula.

 

If you need help with writing content for each product and want a nice formula to make it easy, let me know.

 

 

I hope this helps.

[NNGNews]

you have nothing to be scared off, just backup your files and database before doing anything. you could also try to start from 0 on a fresh prestashop install and if necessary use export import.

 

the default theme on ps 1.6 looks 10 times better than your shop

Appreciate your honesty, the bad thing is that I think I could agree with you 

[NNGNews]

Site design is important, but I would not worry about upgrading just yet if you don't feel you are ready. Instead, you can do these important tasks:

 

1. Remove the carousels. They are small, distracting and make the site slow. Instead, bring your featured products up to the top so people can see them, their prices, etc clearly.

 

If the page is too busy, which it is right now, people don't know where to begin. So, removing the carousels is important.

 

2. Move categories in the left menu to the top left so people can navigate easily.

 

3. Horizontal menu fonts are too large. make all fonts on the site the same and keep sizes of font the same except for headings.

 

4. Black background makes it hard to read. Creams and browns will go well with your logo and are more suitable to the "alternative" market you want to reach.

 

5. Take a look at this site for a nice clear layout that is easy for customers. This site has had very good success and works on the premise that "less is more". http://www.gamesfromeverywhere.com.au/

 

6. You need to add more content to your short and long product descriptions if you want to rank well in Google. Writing content is an art but it is easy to master once you know the formula.

 

If you need help with writing content for each product and want a nice formula to make it easy, let me know.

 

 

I hope this helps.

Really really thank you for your answer, anwering here is free, but in the italian forum nobody have the patience to answer as all of you.

 

I know the carousel make the site slow, but in the "standard" clothing websites, the carousel is present although much bigger and beautiful.

But 'til now we decided to follow your suggestion and take it away.

We are really attracted to upgrade the whole thing to 1.6 version, we have only to face to our fears 

The black background is a "must" for alternative clothing that's why we decided to follow that "standard", the bad thing is that for doing that we have to invert all the code, colours, fonts, etc, from balck to white and vice versa.

 

Anyway thanks again for your suggestions, they help us to understand much more where we are mistaken

 

Sorry for english mistakes, have a nice day

 

________________________________

http://www.kissene.com/en/

[Mallee Boy]

Really really thank you for your answer, anwering here is free, but in the italian forum nobody have the patience to answer as all of you.

 

I know the carousel make the site slow, but in the "standard" clothing websites, the carousel is present although much bigger and beautiful.

But 'til now we decided to follow your suggestion and take it away.

We are really attracted to upgrade the whole thing to 1.6 version, we have only to face to our fears 

The black background is a "must" for alternative clothing that's why we decided to follow that "standard", the bad thing is that for doing that we have to invert all the code, colours, fonts, etc, from balck to white and vice versa.

 

Anyway thanks again for your suggestions, they help us to understand much more where we are mistaken

 

Sorry for english mistakes, have a nice day

 

________________________________

http://www.kissene.com/en/

 

Your English is fine. Regarding 1.6, eventually you will have to upgrade. So, if you are ready to upgrade, then you may as well do it sooner rather than later.

 

It is always a difficult task.

 

Yes, Carousel's are beautiful, but customers do not care, only web designers.

 

Whatever you decide, please be sure to add more words (content) to your product descriptions  as this will help you with your Google search results.

 

Best of Luck.

 

David.

[Kimss]

 

The black background is a "must" for alternative clothing that's why we decided to follow that "standard", the bad thing is that for doing that we have to invert all the code, colours, fonts, etc, from balck to white and vice versa.

 

 

I get that. But "black" isn't just black. You'd still keep with the aesthetic traditions of your target demographic, if you decided to go with a blueish, dark slate color or a deep dark grey. Black can be a very effective design element, if it's done right. It's just one of those things that's extremely hard to get right and you have to build your design, from the ground up, around that choice of color scheme. The default theme you're going with now, clearly isn't designed around black as a main element.

As a general rule, the darker your design is, the more simple it has to be. In other words, if you choose to go with black you have to cut as many features and details as possible.

Try to take a look at unitedpixelworkers.com. They're doing a kinda dark design scheme and if you needed to, you could make it darker. It'll still work if you give the page div a darker background color. The key is simplicity. Their homepage is basically a small logo, navigation bar, a small shopping cart, a bunch of symmetrically sized boxes for content and then some contact / social media info at the bottom.

[Paulito]

Good morning

 

I agree with all the above.

Their is nothing wrong with PS 1.4.7 in fact their are countless 1000s of sites running on this and earlier versions.

I think though, that you need to try and embrace the times and what customers are looking for now.

 

No site can ever be future proof but it is always a good idea to try to faily up to date.

 

Personally, if I were you I would buy a cheap domain (or use a sub-domain) and upload to your server,  then start customising it, colours, text, modules , positions etc (or buy a theme). Add your products and GREAT informative, engaging information.

 

When your happy point your domain http://www.kissene.com/en/ to your new site.

 

Paul

[johnph]

i would starting changing this black background... makes it look like a site made in 1980 ;p you can get a big improve in visual just by doing this...

 

 

just my opinio.. best of luck