Desperately seeking input!

[one]

What do you think?

- www.brooklyngear.com

I've been constantly re-tooling and updating... all comments appreciated (even bad ones)

[InfoSourcing]

Your site looks good, you can consider few changes ...

1. Have categories listed on the left side where you have the breaking news, so shopper can see the navigation structure and you can avoid the drop downs if you are targeting Search engines

2. Rearrange the centre page by pushing the third item down and utilizing that space for showcasing breaking news and Featured artists, so you website is well balanced with left category navigation and right side has news and featured artists or featured products

3. I'm not sure if you are targeting your website for 800*600 resolution? You can make your website scalable to 800 and all the way upto 1200 by having the tables defined as %age instead of fixed width that will serve everybody...

4. Your footer looks empty fill it up with text links for easy access and also add some credbility logos like secure website, BBB and other value added logos which makes shopper feel secured

5. For your product listings you are currenly using original images instead of thumbnail which slows down the load time
Example:
http://www.brooklyngear.com/catalog/search.php?cPath=16
http://www.brooklyngear.com/catalog/images/brooklyngear/images/products/KSDv60j4-front.jpg

Revise this by making thumbnails of 100*150 pixels

I hope this helps u ....

[JPnyc]

It's a good looking pro site. Just a bit small at my res. but I guess you're aiming at 800x600. Like the logo (i'm a native of brooklyn).

[Mike Palecek]

I clicked on a picture and went to http://www.brooklyngear.com/catalog/search.php?cPath=7
VERY VERY SLOW LOAD TIME (cable modem). Wanted to abandon the site.

Afterwards, clicks to other "catalog" items was much faster.

Hey, how about some little MP3s playing some nice quickie guitar music? Just 1-2 seconds.

I agree with the prior post, text too small to be readable. Graphic quality looks good (good art, good contrasts).

[s2welee]

I did not notice the slow load times, it was actually pretty snappy (cable modem). I agree that the homepage is a bit hard to read, but I love the category pages and the product pages. Also, the space beside the featured artist looks naked. I agree that you have to put something there to make it a bit more interesting. Overall, I really like the site, and I would not hesitate to shop at a site that looks that good.

[JPnyc]

Must have something to do with our relative locations. I tried it on our office lan and cable modem at home, and it was kind of slow on both. I would say that even at 800x600, the site could be wider. Should at least fill the entire screen at that res.