I agree 100%... It would be interesting to have some marketing statistics on nut sales on the net.. Website looks awesome!
Not too bad. I like the navigation and the simplicity. But whats with the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge picture of the nuts on the index page? I would make it smaller, and put some more site description. http://www.natursource.com/products.php?id=4 that page is blank...add some content or something
I can tell you from my days of being in the gift industry I had one gift basket business consultant tell me that she was selling 50k in specialty gift packs of JUST NUTS every year. She targeted sales for corporate gifts and offered custom imprinted packaging and personal label programs.
LOL Actually six weeks is unusual for me...but I just happen to be going on a two week vacation in New Zealand later this month, and I wanted to finish all my current projects before I left town.
I have very strange reactions to what people say becauase I'm without a designer for a while and I like to get things done right away. There's alot riding on this website for our company and I'd like to get it performing at least a little bit better than it is, even if I don't have my designer... so I try to focus more on what I can, or can't do moreso. Anyways DreamShop you have some really really valuable ideas and I really have to thank you for them. I'm working on adding products to the front page... but I'm kind of artistically challanged in that sense... I'm kind of wondering if anyone has any input on how I have this set up... well, how I'd like to set it up anyways. http://www.natursource.com/~beta/images/newhome.jpg I could really use some input on spicing this page up somehow... I'm not incrdedibly bad at HTML and i've got dreamweaver to help me out... but I just can't see how to work this into the layout... As for actual sales, Natursource as a company has been around for over 20 years doing well on Canadian sales of gourmet fruit and nut mixes. So I know that in Canada, and in the US there is a strong market for this type of product... the question is whether or not I can grab those people through the web. The gift basket section is blank just because we haven't really developed a gift basket for sale on our website yet... we're waiting for things to pick up before we get to that... Again thanks everyone for your comments you are all so incredibly helpful, the owners and I are very grateful.
Hey Mitch, The page you've pulled together isn't bad, but I still feel like it's lacking something. I would want to work your top navigation bar into it (or similiar menu buttons). Of course if I was working on this I'd pull together several different possibilities so I could see what works best. Be sure to use alt text on your hyperlinked graphics as well. Again...it's all about giving people quick access to every part of your site. You have to find a balance between style and function.
Yea it's definately missing something... but again like I said I lack the imagination and technical skills required to make it as nice as it could be... but I think we've worked out something a little better http://www.natursource.com/~beta/home3.php I've removed the 'large unneccesairy picture' from the front page, and replaced it with 6 products evenly spaced that flow with the natural look of the page. We're still deciding which products to put... but what do you think of the new look?
I really like the new design. It's simple, elegant and attractive. The one suggestion I would have is to make the page just a bit shorter. I have to scroll down to see all the pictures, and if the images and text wasn't so spaced out, it would make for a really nice, all above the fold, kinda page. I also wouldn't have to scroll to see the new features, which I believe are important information.
Hey Mitch, Here's a quick 2 cents. Nice design, clean, simple and colorful, love it. How about a sentence right at the top that tells me immediately what it is you offer? The menu at the top is a good start, and really pretty clear, but it can't hurt to spell it out. Your domain name and title of page don't quite tell me what's inside. Maybe the Welcome To Natursource box can be a bit less ad copy, and a bit more specific about what it is you sell? Good luck!
How about now... we've re-worked the entrance page as per many people's comments, and I think we came up with something that really captures what we've been missing. Phil, thanks for the nice words about the site... I'll speak to our text person about re-writing the text on the front page... she has no experience with writing web text, so it's possible that she isn't conveying the right message with it.