I proudly present to you, FiPG members...

www.FalknerSales.com[]www.FalknerSales.com[/size9430539d31]

D Hooray! After a lot of intensive staring-at-the-comp-for-hours work, the store website for the business owned by my husband and I is live. We are extremely excited to be branching into this area of business. Ebay serves some purposes but I'm just fed up with feeding them so much of our profits. So here is our store! What does everyone think? [i9430539d31]Constructive[/i9430539d31] criticism is always welcome. We will be constantly adding new lines and products, so check back often. But we have several huge mailings just sent out for the wedding season so we wanted to get our site now rather than later. Any questions on how we started or run our businesses please pm me. But I just wanted to share my jubilation with everyone D (and, of course, make a plug at the same time P )

The site looks great and I think it would be a great place to get gifts for the wedding party (especially for the boys!). Good luck with it!!!

[quote2c6c9299cc="jadem"]The site looks great and I think it would be a great place to get gifts for the wedding party (especially for the boys!). Good luck with it!!![/quote2c6c9299cc]

Thanks ) Yes definitely keep us in mind for your fiance and his guys. We do a [i2c6c9299cc]lot[/i2c6c9299cc] of wedding party orders!

Yeah I can also see it for like newborn babies or whatever. Looks great.

Nice content, good luck.

Thanks all -)

Nice site and looks great. Something to keep in mind for gifts for friends, especially the flask.

On the homepage there is a lot of empty space in the bottom left, maybe you could add something like a 'Featured Items' spot or whatever.

[quoteed16cf6b77="johnjimjones"]On the homepage there is a lot of empty space in the bottom left, maybe you could add something like a 'Featured Items' spot or whatever.[/quoteed16cf6b77]

Yes we did see that initially but the problem is, when in other views the sides are almost perfectly balanced. IE in category view http//falknersales.com/index.php?cPath=25 So unfortunately any sidebar modules will be visible on all of the pages, we can't just make them display on the frontpage, for example.

So what kind of discount am I getting when I get married? I was thinking like 95% off, but 90% would be fine.

[quotee3e9c2b414="bballp6699"]So what kind of discount am I getting when I get married? I was thinking like 95% off, but 90% would be fine.[/quotee3e9c2b414]

You're getting married?!

Yeah, 2008 says the lady. I try to stay out of that whole planning nonsense. So keep this thing running for another year and a half or so.... ;)

"The Account has been Suspended"

[quoted5a1eba092="nusqax"]"The Account has been Suspended"[/quoted5a1eba092]

oops I decided, on a whim, to put our site in the advertising rotation of Studiotraffic. Apparently we got so many hits that we must have gone over our monthly allocated amount ( Grrr. Anyways my husband is talking with the support dept of our hosts to get if fixed asap. So, check back soon cry

Yeah...

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

To tell you the truth i wouldnt want to buy something from a site like that...

you guys still need to tweak it...

[quote7021ed57f7="Vector"]To tell you the truth i wouldnt want to buy something from a site like that...

you guys still need to tweak it...[/quote7021ed57f7]

What do you mean by that?

[quote58e87fa088="Godrockdj"][quote58e87fa088="Vector"]To tell you the truth i wouldnt want to buy something from a site like that...

you guys still need to tweak it...[/quote58e87fa088]

What do you mean by that?[/quote58e87fa088]

My guess is that he doesn't know what constructive criticism is. ;)

I thought the site lookED (;)) nice. I would suggest more products though, but you've already mentioned you were doing that. Are you sticking to the wedding theme when you expand or going all out?

[quotead08e19ac6="jadem"][quotead08e19ac6="Godrockdj"][quotead08e19ac6="Vector"]To tell you the truth i wouldnt want to buy something from a site like that...

you guys still need to tweak it...[/quotead08e19ac6]

What do you mean by that?[/quotead08e19ac6]

My guess is that he doesn't know what constructive criticism is. ;)[/quotead08e19ac6]

Well I'm just wanting an explanation of the statement, because he had quite a positive review earlier...


So anyways. Yes we are going to expand our product selection. We are going to market to more than the wedding niche.

I wanna see but you guys can't pay your bills lol

[quote9ae7b74695="Wolfeman"]I wanna see but you guys can't pay your bills lol[/quote9ae7b74695]

Well that's the thing I'm really ticked about. This automatic message the host has put up is misleading and bad for business. It has nothing to do with our bills, we simply went over our gig limit. We were not contacted before the message was put up and have received no response from our many support tickets since this started... we'll be looking for new hosting.

[quotef509c4051f="Godrockdj"][quotef509c4051f="Wolfeman"]I wanna see but you guys can't pay your bills lol[/quotef509c4051f]

Well that's the thing I'm really ticked about. This automatic message the host has put up is misleading and bad for business. It has nothing to do with our bills, we simply went over our gig limit. We were not contacted before the message was put up and have received no response from our many support tickets since this started... we'll be looking for new hosting.[/quotef509c4051f]
I'm just playing. I figured it was something like that (

yo lo quiero ver ahora!

[quote3cad998782="EatChex89"]yo lo quiero ver ahora![/quote3cad998782]
Why in spanish?

[quote3b293078da="Wolfeman"][quote3b293078da="EatChex89"]yo lo quiero ver ahora![/quote3b293078da]
Why in spanish?[/quote3b293078da]

Porque no?

I agree, that is a pretty crappy message to put up...

With all due respect, I doubt you have enough business yet to be ruined by this anyways, so I wouldnt be worried about it...;)

[quote66a9b13ed4="bballp6699"]I agree, that is a pretty crappy message to put up...

With all due respect, I doubt you have enough business yet to be ruined by this anyways, so I wouldnt be worried about it...;)[/quote66a9b13ed4]

Si yo estoy verdad, ella necesita pagar para mas "bandwidth"..

Would you shut the fuck up and stop crapping on her thread.

OK,[/size93a31c49bd] we finally received an answer from our hosting company and are [b93a31c49bd]back up and running,[/b93a31c49bd] for the meantime. We are definitely switching hosting though.

I like it, although I think the navigation links on the right, would be better on the left and instead of having "New Products For March" as the feature, I'd have maybe just instead of new products for a specific month "New Products/Arrivals" or "Bestsellers" since those would have more items for people to see as soon as they get to the site.

Maybe have the pictures a bit smaller so you could fit more on the main page?

When you click on a picture/item, in the bottom left there's another picture/link to "New Products". I think I'd prefer to have a link to "Similar Items" or "People who bought this, also bought these" kinda thing. shrug

Also (my last point) when I see those two colours together (brown and tan/beige?) it just reminds me of old people or that it's an old people's store or something. Some of the items you sell are sleek and modern but it doesn't really go with the theme of the site, where is if it was a more "modern" theme both the modern and the non-modern items would look really good.

Like I said I like it, I love the navigation (just prefer it switched) and it's easy to find stuff so you did a great job. D

This is the last (and first) time I'm going to tell you. It's COLORS.

Actually you don't even need to add more stuff to the front page. Just shift/space what you have out so it looks even and don't have that gap in the bottom left.

What about personalized towels and such...

Honestly, if you can't yet afford to get a real website going, I'd recommend just doing an ebay store. Personally I'd buy on ebay before buying from an obviously amateur website. The dead giveaways are Paypal only, and the free osCommerce script. If you're gonna use a free script at least customize the icons (the osCommerce icons are pure shit IMO). I'd also get rid of the visitor counter on the bottom because it's useless and unprofessional. If you want a good, professional web presence, it's not gonna be free unless you really know what you're doing. You might be able to find some freelancers to do a lot of the work for you for pretty cheap (at least the design... people do that shit for free. Custom coding might cost you though). SitePointForums[=http//www.sitepoint.com/forums/]SitePointForums is a pretty good place to start and to find a lot of useful information. You can also find a lot of freelancers there.

Oh and I agree with TSJ on the colors. Maybe fashionjunkee will help you out with the design a bit. I would, but I'm quite lazy and don't really like messin with osCommerce.

I mean no disrespect, those are just my personal opinions and suggestions. Take it for what you will. Good luck to you.

[quote2a0d2374e8="kevxross"]Honestly, if you can't yet afford to get a real website going, I'd recommend just doing an ebay store. Personally I'd buy on ebay before buying from an obviously amateur website. The dead giveaways are Paypal only, and the free osCommerce script. If you're gonna use a free script at least customize the icons (the osCommerce icons are pure shit IMO). I'd also get rid of the visitor counter on the bottom because it's useless and unprofessional. If you want a good, professional web presence, it's not gonna be free unless you really know what you're doing. You might be able to find some freelancers to do a lot of the work for you for pretty cheap (at least the design... people do that shit for free. Custom coding might cost you though). SitePointForums[=http//www.sitepoint.com/forums/]SitePointForums is a pretty good place to start and to find a lot of useful information. You can also find a lot of freelancers there.

Oh and I agree with TSJ on the colors. Maybe fashionjunkee will help you out with the design a bit. I would, but I'm quite lazy and don't really like messin with osCommerce.

I mean no disrespect, those are just my personal opinions and suggestions. Take it for what you will. Good luck to you.[/quote2a0d2374e8]

Thanks for your opinions, but our site building and hosting has been far from "free". Though I feel no need to explain the expenses in our ledgers because it's frankly none of your business wink

We are using osCommerce because we researched our options and decided that it was the best available. And again though I feel no need to tell this, but at least half of the script has been customized. Many of the modules and modifications we needed were definitely not in the base program. The icons are planned to be updated but are not #1 on the priority list right now.

And of course, the "paypal only" is incorrect. We accept all forms of payment. We just happen to use the Paypal Cart system.

That shot glass chess set it really cool.

[quoteb6cbc8e745="johnjimjones"]That shot glass chess set it really cool.[/quoteb6cbc8e745]

The drinks in there can be anything, of course. I had one woman email me back after purchasing who said she was playing the game with her husband, and her kid came up and asked to drink one of the "cups". She had to tell the kid it was "special kool-aid" for Moms and Dads only P

Do you engrave them or do you have to take them somewhere?

[quote93813f532c="Wolfeman"]Do you engrave them or do you have to take them somewhere?[/quote93813f532c]

We have them engraved by our partner manufacturer.