Planning an online exotics store

Remove the blank space between the image, and the secondary navigation. Also you've got double navigation which is a no-no. Shouldn't it be Sticks and Leaves ? Remove the web counter, no professional site should every have a web counter.

In general, I suggest you don't use PDFs for your care sheets. Number one, they are slow loading; I've got the fastest connection available in my area, barring University connection and it loads slowly for me. You never want your potential customers to wait. Also, while most people have adobe downloaded, not everyone does. You automatically alienate customers who may not be super computer literate or savvy, who may also be willing to buy stuff from you, but get turned away by not having everything load up for them; and go elsewhere.

The golden rule in Web design is this:
"Don't make me think, stupid."
If your audience has to think about anything on your webpage, you've failed. They should be able to load it up and instinctively go where they want. This is again a point on your double navigation. I knew immediately that I could use either set of navigation to get where I wanted to go, but I'm a low ranking web-design apprentice. Joe Schmoe customer may see that, and not know if he needs to use the text based navigation or the picture based.

Spelling, grammar, and sentence structure are critical for a pro site. Have someone edit, re-edit, and tri-edit your content for you. Have multiple people read it over for you, and see what they have to say. It doesn't have to be a big time editor, just have some people read it for you. Your mom, some lady at church, whatever.

Also, and I'm not sure on this point, but I was under the impression that unless you actually got corporate blessings, you aren't supposed to use their logos for your site.

For example, unless ExoTera has said that Exotica is an approved seller of Exotera products, you can't use their logo. But I could be wrong, either way I'd check into it. Better safe than sorry.

And for your gallery, you'll probably want to look into some AJAX or FLEX apps to make it a "pop-up" gallery, and while it looks "cool" winding all over the page like that, we're faced once again with the golden rule, "Don't make me think, stupid.". IMO clicking an image on the site, shouldn't make it route to a new page, of just the image, on a white background, especially when the rest of the site is stylized.

Also, your e-mail is out there for the world to grab. Not a bad thing, as most of the world is ok people. But on the internet, you're likely to get railed by spambots sooner or later. You should have your web dev make sure he's got some security measures in place. The better way, IMO, is a comments box, that gets e-mailed to you guys, rather than a straight e-mail link.


Take it or leave it, that's my two cents, and good luck to you and your partners.