Website deisgn and payment implementation queries

TPD

http://www.doonwoodartists.com/

I was wondering, does the design of the site look professional and/or arty?

I made the site for a family business venture after coming into some free hosting. Does the design and layout look ok, or is there anything drastic needing changing?

Also, how would I go about implementing an ordering system to buy online? Preferably using paypal. The main obstacle I can see is that there would only be one of each item as they are unique, and would need to immediately be taken off the site once purchased.

Any help is much appreciated.

ron_darrell

Hi, I hate commenting on design because it really is a personal thing, one person's goose and all that, but to be honest it doesn't look very professional at all I'm afraid. The font, the color, the badly cropped/sized pictures, the layout, the colorscheme, I could go on. If you're hoping to create the site to drum up new business I'd unfortunately suggest getting in contact with a designer, or even google and get a free template. Try http://www.free-css.com/

Sorry again if this came across as very critical. As I said design is personal. The next poster might tell you it looks great.

Regards,
RD

Webmonkey

I'm sorry, don't mean to sound mean but there are so many things wrong with that (I wouldn't consider it professional anyways)

- No standard font
- Frames!
- Colours!

ron_darrell wrote:

The next poster might tell you it looks great.

Nope

If you got rid of frames, structured it a bit better then maybe you could pull it off but I don't find it appealing to the eye at all.

matrim

I'd agree with ron about it not being very professional. The design isn't great, I like the picture beside the main text box but the text box is too small, especially if you want to have a shop with a view of all pieces.

Also the text on some of the links at the top are cropped, e.g. part of the P in shop.

Also why are some of the images hosted by photobucket instead of on your own site?

TPD

matrim wrote: »

Also why are some of the images hosted by photobucket instead of on your own site?

They used to be hosted on the site, but for some reason (unknown to me) they stopped displaying one day.

Cheers for the input everyone, if the site is staying up for another year I'll do a redesign.

ron_darrell

My last two cents TPD but if you leave this site up it will likely damage your business rather than help it. When a business cannot seem to put the effort in to provide a professional looking site, it suggests (rightly or wrongly) that they don't put effort into their products/services either. If you don't want to take the time/effort redesign it I'd strongly advise taking it down altogether. Sorry to be blunt.

RD

pontovic

I would have to agree with the others and say that the site is not professional, but on that note it's not a bad effort for a first try.

The above posters have told you that you need a professional design for the site, which will set you back about 3k for a reasonably well designed and put together catalog site. Stay away from anyone offering to do it for less.

As for a shopping cart, there are plenty of freeware solutions out there you can discuss with your designer. These carts can be tied into several different payment systems such as realex.ie or paypal.
If you have the money, choose realex because they can integrate with the look and feel of your site much more easily. More expensive but much better in the long run.