After a few months hard work, our custom bobbleheads e-Commerce site has been successfully launched, the URL is https://www.yesbobbleheads.com/, any reviews / suggestions / promotion ideas are highly welcomed, thanks a lot!
First thing I noticed is the AGONIZING minute and a half it took for the page to load. Not entirely suprising given the ridiculous 3.9 megabyte page size built from 78 files, but still high for the average likely meaning not only is it a bloated train wreck of how not to build a website, the hosting probably sucks too. Fixed metric (pixel) font sizes below accessibility minimums, colour contrasts of questionable legibility, space and bandwidth wasting banner garbage filled with hard to read text thanks to dubious colour choices and, well... text as part of the images. The ATTEMPT at being responsive is totally banjaxed and most of the image based concepts on the page are incompatible with an accessible responsive layout. It has false simplicty abusing placeholder to do a LABEL tag's job on the form, nothing remotely resembling a logical document structure, and the complete lack of graceful degradation is a GIANT middle finger to users with accessibility needs. In terms of the files it's got a batshit insane 461k of CSS in 13 separate files; given the lack of media targets there is no excuse for ANY website to have more than a TENTH that in filesize in ONE file for screen media apart from utter and complete ineptitude on the part of the developer. Likewise the 534k of javascript in 15 files is likely not blowing any skirts up, much less the 44 separate images on a page that by my count only has 20 content images. Popping the bonnet the markup is the typical "I cans haz intarnets" stupidity of just sleazing together off the shelf code and blindly hoping it works. The 50k of markup to deliver 20 content images and 6k of plaintext is anywhere from four to five times what should have been used on such a simple site. The static style in the markup, presentational use of classes, static scripting in the markup, and host of other development faux-pas pretty much dooms it to "also ran" status as websites go. It will be slapped down by search, few people will wait for it to actually load, and on the whole I'd be surprised if it lasted out the year as anything more than a giant money pit. I would advice taking it 'round back o' the woodshed with a 12 guage and putting it down for good. Throw it out and start over, there is little if anything I'd be trying to salvage from that mess. It is a poster child for everything wrong with web development today!
As mentioned, your site's load speed is slow. It took 15 seconds where I am at night when internet traffic is low. No e-commerce site should make visitors wait any longer than necessary. Long load times will mean a higher bounce rate. I do not like the "My Cart" toolbar or whatever you have on the right side. It disappears if you narrow the window a bit (and covers part of the "contact us" menu item at times) so you might as well just get rid of it entirely or put it up top under your menu or header. The text in the search box that says "search for your custom bobbleheads doll" - I would drop the "s". I like the overall design. The orange is nice and ads visual interest as does your your canopy-like topper you have. I am not wild about the pink though. I think your images of bobbleheads are too big and if you look at them, there is an awful lot of empty background to those pictures that could be cropped. You don't necessarily need square pictures. If someone wants a better look, you could link to a bigger picture. Your text below the pictures is a little too small and needs to be rewritten. "Apt status"? Who talks like that? Nobody. And there is plenty of other stuff that could and I think should be rewritten. That should have bullet points. No point in discouraging people from ordering. If you want to mention the importance of image quality, you might want to do it more subtly or after they have started placing their order.
Maybe it was one of those days, because for me the site loads lightning fast. Everything is where it's supposed to be for an e-commerce site. I am only talking of the visual aspect of it. @deathshadow seems to be pissed off with the site's guts, they are probably all screwed up indeed. On a different note. I found myself saying out loud: 90 bucks for a stupid bobble-head? No thanks. What's up with the prices? Is it where the market is today? I'd pay 30-40 bucks plus shipping and handling, maybe. 90? No thanks.
22.3 second here, which is better than last night... but still the file counts more so than the sizes are the real worry; though the sizes are no winner either. There's some visual faux-pas too, though only users with accessibility needs or non-standard settings would notice them. For example the text at the bottom is declared in pixels so it's not auto-enlarging for large font users like myself. There's a reason the WCAG says to use EM and not PX for font-size. Look at their fourth banner image on the home page -- the masters are hand carved from photographs of yourself or friends. 90 bucks is actually cheap for having that done, particularly since by the "slow" method they allow proofs and resculpts that could easily turn a 1 hour carving job into 3 days. As someone who's carved miniatures both for pleasure and for profit (the base of that linked pic is about the size of a silver dollar), that number is about right given how long it takes for the first master to be made, as well as maintaining masters between casts on repeat orders -- THOUGH, after the first cast I would think it would make sense to have the per-unit cost drop dramatically. Given the detail level a mass run of 100 units or more I'd expect to drop to around 8 bucks a pop given the current state of tech. Problem is as unique casts with low production counts -- to the point many of their orders are likely one-off's -- that's pretty much what I'd expect with a "industry norm" 33% markup over time and materials... though a lot of that would depend on the casting process and materials. Metal masters for example would be great for high production runs of something like thermoset resin, PET, or polyvinyl, but are very hard to machine and create and requires presses, injectors and heating units. Rubber casts are cheaper but degrade requiring a new cast off the master (a process that damages the master) far more frequently -- which can quickly lead to the original master needing to be replaced with a new hand carve periodically as things like flash become an issue at the edges or fine detail gets lost. If I were to guess, I'd say they're likely using polyvinyl or some form of silicone rubber for the heads, with a hard plastic like polystyrene for the bodies which are quite clearly the "mass produced" part. Given the likely quantity numbers needed for each, and that the colors on the body are likely molded instead of painted, that's probably why they are as CHEAP as they are. A one-off full cast in that scale for body and head could easily run 200 to 300 bucks a pop. It's also nice to see someone hand carving -- so much of the industry has gone over to 3d scanning and 3d printing for masters that a lot of the more... creative/comedic/parody aspects are missing from in the mass produced market. Much like with cartoons there's something endearing about specific art styles that can only be really accomplished by hand by an artist. THOUGH, again why I hate those types of image rotating banners, one of the biggest selling points -- that these are unique handcarved head designs made from photographs sent in -- should be front and center not buried 3 animations deep. I'd have that as the banner and lose the scripting for the rest, and better explain on the subpages as that's the big selling point and explains the cost... where it is right now, a LOT of people are going to miss that, see the price and bounce. There's just not enough emphasis when first landing on the site about the unique custom aspect of the product.
You guys need a better internet connection. Under 4 seconds here. And I missed the hand-made part. Gosh. That explains. I thought they just scan a photo and a 3d printer makes a copy (cartoonish style). But then again: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...bble.TRS0&_nkw=custom+bobblehead&_sacat=60435
Thanks a lot for you review, $90 is not the highest in the industry. Bobbleheads are made up by different materials so the price could vary quite a bit. We deliver high quality products to our customers so that customers are also satisfied with our custom bobbleheads products.