Please rate: gardenfinds.com

[gardenfinds]

xx

[JEccles]

I can see why you are not happy. The site is not professional looking at all. Am I wrong in assuming that all you are able to do is add the products and pictures? Either way, I would definitely change. There are alot of good shopping cart solutions out there. Many of them have a trial offer. I use Volusion on all 3 of my sites but know that they are not for everyone, but they do offer a 2 week free trial. I have also heard great things about CS-Cart and several others.

I wish you luck. If you do try Volusion, please feel free to contact me if I can help.

[gardenfinds]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, pretty much, all I can do is post products, add verbiage to the info page and about us page. Not much else. I thought the shopping cart that came with it was okay and seemed to work when I tried it myself. I'm not sure what is keeping customers from following through with their adds to the cart which I can see has happened from time to time. I thought perhaps it was because I used PayPal and didn't accept credit cards but my budget won't allow it at this time. I've used ebay to fund my site but with the cost of the eshop, advertising on yahoo and google, etc., it's difficult. I thought I was getting an actual website when I signed up with 1&1 and had to upgrade twice just to get where I'm at now with the eshop. Although I've been disappointed with it, I thought it might be a good way to test the waters but I'm pretty much disgusted with it right now. I was referred to techhosting.com but don't know anybody that is using it as a host.

[JPnyc]

I think he basically hit it on the head. The site looks like it was thrown together in 30 minutes. Things like appearance, styling, quality of graphics, all of these things help to instill confidence on the part of the user, and right now you have none of those things going for you. I think a professional designer is the solution, or at least a solution.

[gardenfinds]

Well, that's pretty rough, it took me quite a while to figure out 1&1's instructions just to get the eshop going, but appreciate your honesty. Would I be better off with a website that is hosted or a shopping cart I could buy one time and have hosted? I don't have a lot of coding experience and need something user friendly that would end up looking professional.

[JPnyc]

With those limitations I would suggest hiring a developer and see that they include a CMS (content management system) which will allow you to make changes without necessarily knowing how to code. Anything that's built using any hosts easy website software is not going to come off looking terribly professional.

Building websites is a specialized area, there's no way to get the same result someone who has studied this craft can get, by using some easy method. If there were, everyone would do it and there would be no designers.

[marc77]

Have you considered an individually designed and developed shop ? Maybe you should look around and/or post a project on some freelancer forums to get this done ?

Building websites is a specialized area, there's no way to get the same result someone who has studied this craft can get, by using some easy method. If there were, everyone would do it and there would be no designers.

Just can agree :-)

[HostRail.com]

I'm sorry you had to run into so much trouble with your site. You are on the right track in realizing it's potential and trying to fix it. I recommend hiring a web designer to make a site for you. If you are on a tight budget, you can select a template you like and have your designer work off the template. I do this all the time for small businesses on low budgets. The finished product does not look like a carbon copy of the template because we add so much character of the company to the template. The cost of such a design is much less, as I do not work from scratch and it takes less time on my end of things.

Also, since you are relying on internet sales to power you business, you should consider signing up with a merchant account. I set these up for small businesses (they are a nightmare to do if you have never done it). Getting a cart system and an SSL certificate will get you on the right track to keeping people on your site and giving them a confidence boost when shopping with your site.

Let me know if I can help,

[marc77]

Yes, a ready-to-use shop solution can also work for a small business. However ensure that you are not bound on this shop (e.g. a data export feature must be available in case you want later switch to an other solution).