We have just launched a fresh new social networking and trading website called: "ART KLICK" It's still early stages yet and we think the homepage needs redeveloping and would love to hear your ideas/feedback on how we could develop/improve the overall feel of the site. Is it easy to navigate? Do you like the design? Is there any features you think should be added/removed? The idea behind the site is to provide emerging artists who would normally struggle for exposure a place for them to network and buy and sell artwork. The wicked thing about ARTKLICK is if you get your mates to sign up (which is free) you receive 2.5% on every piece of art they buy or sell. The benefits for the artist is they call earn a income by selling prints of photos of their art onto stretched and un-stretched canvas - for instance the original piece had already been sold or is out of the buyers price range. So any feedback appreciated - we are looking to improve the site more before we promote it. Please no comments regarding search engine optimisation we are aware it is not optimized - we just want the site to be easy to use and its purpose obvious. Looking forward to hearing from you!
I like the design. Don't much care for the font though, and I think you could make the navigation tabs look a little nicer. Also, have you tried any other background colors? The white makes it look a little bland. Also, I'm not sure its a good idea having the art below the fold line (i.e. people have to scroll down before they can see anything for sale), and I'm not really feeling the 'social networking' aspect of the site much.
Hi masteryourcard. For sure agreed on the font size, there is too much text at the top, we need to make the thumbnails bigger and the same size, the header is too dark - needs to be more colourful and "web 2.0" too. And the social networking aspect defiantly needs some work, and the forums will be changed to the normal layout soon too. Any ideas on how we can improve the social networking field? Any sites that you like that we could look at? Almost there, its been a long road! Thanks for your comments - much appreciated
Hmm.. well, Im actually going to be incorporating social networking aspects into one of my sites in the not too distant future, but at the moment I'm a bit clueless on the whole thing. I've been looking at myspace, facebook etc. for design and interface ideas - if you haven't done this already, I strongly recommend it as it will at least give you a decent place to start. One thing that might emphasize the community aspect of the site would be a little box that says something like 'newest members' or 'recently active members', with thumbnails of some of your users photos/avatars and links to their profiles. What are your thoughts?
Hey masteryourcard, I am developing ArtKlick with the help of snoob, thought I better sign up and get involved, Yeah for sure, check out etsy.com - thats the kind of site we want to lean towards..... once we get some more money for re-development! But they have a cool new listings feature and featured artists etc. I think we need to make the services of the site more clear and make the homepage look more new and web 2.0 - create a "Lovemark" for the site, make it the place that solves artists and buyers problems, and there is cool things that are changing daily to bring people back to the site. Does anyone else have any feedback on what would make our site better? Thanks for taking the time, much appreciated - confirmed our thoughts. Peace, James
Hi, yeah I've been to Etsy before - it's a great site and a fine model to base Artklick on. I think your biggest problem will be acheiving a 'ciritcal mass', both of artists and of buyers. I'm an Aussie, and it's hard here, but for a Kiwi it would be really difficult, especially if your site explicity targets Kiwis only. NZ's population is only around 3 million, right? Thats roughly 1% of the US - so how are you going to overcome this?
Hi again Masteryourcard Thanks for all your feedback - we really value your input and time. Aussie huh - what part you from? New Zealand has over 4 million people and according to statistics New Zealand about 269,000 people bought about 533,000 pieces of art. We are thinking if we could get 5 - 7 % of that market, we would be doing ok. We intend to expand to overseas eventually once everything is going according to plan. Liked your idea on the "recently active members" definitely going to follow that up - something similar to mybloglog or something.. We have a couple ideas up our sleeves, but basically we want to get the site design etc right before we start seriously promoting it - then we will unleash! Are there any sites similar to ours over in Auz? Oh & welcome Jimmy! Nice to see you made it
Hey again Snoob. Sydney born and bred, I'm afraid Whereabouts are you guys located in NZ? I've only been to Queenstown, but would love to come back and have a proper look. New Zealanders (at least the ones I've met) are way cool. I know we make lots of sheep jokes, but I think every Aussie secretly loves NZ My mistake on the pop.. still, I think you've got a mammoth task ahead of you - that's still about 1/75 of the US market, and 5-7% is pretty ambitious without a decent marketing budget. I'm not trying to discourage you (I'm also working on my first startup and without going into detail, I've got my work cut out for me), but I hope you're ready for the long haul. I think if you really want this business model to work, you'll need (among other things!) really top notch, high res photos from multiple angles for every artwork. I don't doubt your stats about art sales, but how many of those purchases were online? Personally, I'd be very wary about spending money on art I couldn't see in the flesh first. As for similar sites in Oz... I did a quick Google search and found MadeIt: http://www.madeit.com.au. Quite a nice design, and seems at least reasonably popular. Maybe you should consider expanding to handmade goods in general, like Etsy or MadeIt? After all, I think these things still fall under a category of 'Art'.