New site, seeking comments

[GryphonSongGems]

I am getting ready to go live with my new 3dCart site gemartist.3dcartstores.com

I have been using gemartist.com for the last decade or so (including the original incarnation as gryphonsong.com - not a user-friendly URL) primarily as a portfolio. I am a gem carver and jeweler. My business model has changed the last few years and I am now attempting to create a viable ecommerce store that will bring in a steady stream of revenue to balance the handful of major shows that I attend.

I still have product to add and more images to add to existing product, and I'm trying to establish all of my existing discounts (I can't set a wholesale price on product options- really? For now since my wholesale clients all send checks I'm just going to overcharge and manually correct the invoices. A medium pin is $12 retail, the large option adds $3 for a $15 retail price. Wholesale level 2 price for medium is $6, which creates a large price of $9 wholesale instead of the actual $7.50)

This is my first attempt at organizing and presenting such a large number of products. My old site used e-junkie and maxed at 40 items. The last 2 years I have added new product much faster than I have updated my paperwork. That is evident in the photos, which have been taken in batches. I plan on standardizing them, but that may take a while. I sill have about 150 products to add. Once I have all the revenue-generating product online I will figure out the best way to create a portfolio of previous work.

I have been programming since the 70s, and was a web designer and programmer in the late 90s/early 00s, when I mostly hand-coded. I'm comfortable with html, css, and php, and a decent scriptkitty with javascript.
My goal with 3dCart is set up an online store that will be profitable and not take too much time away from the workbench to maintain. I spent 2 solid weeks just researching my options and 3dCart came out on top as the best company that would provide the services I need and the majority of the bells and whistles I wanted. Even though I'm not an ASP guy <wink/>

This forum community was one of the factors in my decision to choose 3dCart, and I look forward to hearing your comments and criticisms and hopeful will be able to contribute every now and then.

Thanks in advance, Epaul - Gem Artist

[jleclair]

welcome!

first of all, welcome to 3dcart.

I believe a wholesale price can be configured by setting up user groups. give your users a login and assign them to a group priced specifically for wholesale. should alleviate your problems on the backend with all the credits.

My first recommendation would to never drop text size below 14px (some even say 16) unless you are forced to. I'm guilty of that too in places on my site, and my next refresh will be corrected of this issue. Your body text of 11px even with a serif font hurts my eyes, and I'm 27.

Do you have any plans to take the site to a new design level? With your knowledge of html and css you can take it pretty far on 3dcart. Theres no xml trickery to deal with like you would have with aspdotnetstorefront or magento for example.

Build your product catalog first.. (make the font sizes bigger) and you'll be off to a good start. I wish you the best of luck.

[Pack Secure]

Hello and welcome.

At first glance my one suggestion would be proof read your site.

On your home page for example "you may also have a change to watch me demonstrate gem carving on a Renaissance style carving lathe."

I believe you meant that to read *chance

Good luck, off to a nice start.

[GryphonSongGems]

Thanks for prompt replies!

I upped the font sizes from the template defaults. Thanks for that. I have bad eyesight and keep my browser zoom cranked up so i don't really know what size(es) everyone else is seeing. Back in my web design days I kept a number of machines available so that I could check different systems, browsers, and monitors. These days I'm running on a 4 year old monitor (OK, actually 3 monitors, see "bad eyesight" above) and don't have any idea what "industry standards" are like. Thus the beauty of Forums like this one.

I have been proofreading, but it's always tougher to spot errors when your brain knows what you meant to say. For the last few days I've had this as my homepage, so I've seen that line dozens of times and never caught the error. So again, thanks for the extra eyes. I'm sure that's not the only goof I've missed.

I don't really have any plans to "take the site to a new design level". I have already spent more time than budgeted on this new launch, and I need to get back to the workbench as soon as possible. Perhaps some time in the future I will feel it's getting stale and I'll want to spruce it up, but for now I'm looking for Really Good, not Fabulous. Not that I am uninterested in any suggestions. If something catches my interest I just might run with it.

I created a Customer Group for wholesale customers. I created a Price Level for this group - Level 2. My wholesale price is 50% of retail. The retail price of a medium pin is $12. Each pin has 2 options: metal and size. Metal choices are "copper", "brass", and "nickel" - no effect on price. Size options are "medium" (default $12 retail, $6 wholesale) and "large" which adds $3 if you choose this option. This makes the retail price "Level 1" $12 + "Option" $3 = $15 retail, and the wholesale price "Level 2" $6 + "Option" $3 = $9 wholesale, which is not 50% of retail ($7.50). Not good.

As far as i can tell from extensive research through the Knowledgebase and these forums there is no way to set price levels for options. There are some items that are not 50% of retail, so my first workaround of setting up a Promotion that simply halves the retail price for wholesale customers at checkout will not work. I do hope that either I am misunderstanding or that there is a simple (or even complex) alternative.

Thanks again,

[celebra1]

Suggestions

• Consider removing the Etsy linking from the home page. Why take visitors away from your site? You can put an icon in the footer with a link to Etsy, plus links to other places like Facebook, Twitter, shipping methods and payment options.
• The footer active links need a darker lighter color.
• Consider moving your email signup UP the page, possible where the Etsy is now.
• Add your phone number to your banner area.
• Your opening text is weak. Most of that text belongs in About Us, and it is there already. You should write keyword-rich text on your home page. You can link that text to categories or other pages. EX: "business name" specializes in ____, ____, ____ and _____. Our Celtic jewelry is handcrafted following traditional designs. We carry (list your top areas) and can create custom Celtic jewelry to your specifications.
• Add your business hours to your Contact page.

Welcome to 3D! Best wishes for your venture!

[Ruppy]

I have a couple of sites that do wholesale.

I have found your better to hide product by customer group and make seperate products with wholesale prices. It makes it easier and you can price options accordingly. Hence only wholesale customers can see the wholesale category and wholesale products. Just remember to noindex the pages so search engines dont pick them up.