DSF

Well, it's been a long and 'uneven' road but I plan to open the doors tomorrow (March 1st 2014).. (he say's cautiously).

No doubt I have missed things, and I am sure (hopefully) you will point out any glaring errors but I cannot wait forever to open this - it's been 5 months since conceiving this business so I haven't done that bad really.

Here it is: http://www.greyprint.co.uk

Not a patch on the members website who has the 'Blue' cartoon figure but for £700 my first version 'should' work (I have worked tirelessly getting this ready).
This website is based on 'Bootstrap' which is the Twitter platform.

Your comments please..

Love it very easy to navigate love the decal option, in entering your own words and style,
just a few grammar and spelling issues on your about us page,

well ill done hope it's a success

Thanks for pointing that out - usually I am the 'Grammar and Spelling' police.

Will sort that immediately.

thats better MR Grey

If you really want a truthful hard opinion, I will be brave enough to give you one. For a start, the cubecart template that shopdev has adapted is very very bland. The carousel and neighbouring plaque are squeezed up to the border and really should have been space with border padding. That though is easily remedied. The use of standard fonts throughout makes for boring reading. The Navigation bars top right are old school and dated, they just dont work with the drop-down style. Your logo acting also as your main header could be confusing to some as to which site you are actually on. Maybe add the full site name along side it as the "Welcome to Greyprint" only jumps up at you if your eyes are diverted to the bottom of the screen. I personally find the whole site boring to the extent I would really click google and search for another site. I believe that shopdev is an amateur (I dont know for sure but all the young guys I know with "dev" in their name or the usage of "dev" originate from India or similar country, are in college studying IT or similar and think they are the best gfx designer ever to walk the earth! and advertise their services on some of the most dubious webmaster sites I have ever seen. Also, you will notice that his site is just a template and actually looks more attractive than Greyprints), Im not saying I could do better but I have seen some excellent straight-out-of-the-box examples from cubecart, tomatocart, opencart and everyother cart there is. For your money Nik, I would have gone and paid for some top template and extra plugins. Sorry if Im being really blunt but I honestly cannot find anything nice to say about it... well, not nice.. just not constructive. It reminds me of some sites that were in trend back around 5 years + ago. But as long as you are happy with it and Im sure you are, its sales at the end of the day that matter. So, I wish you all the very best of luck and it is great to see another individual taking the bull by the horns and getting out there and being seen but this time I think you really need to have a major rethink about the whole structure and cosmetic of the site. ......... I really was in two minds about writing this, and if you all gang up on me by saying, "its not true Ian, its not a bad site Ian" just to side with Nik, then so be it, Im just telling it as it is, I would rather do that than let him think his £700 and his hundreds of hours of work have done his site justice..... (Lets hope I still got friends after this is aired!).

I found the site boring as well, and nearly fell asleep waiting for it to load. Couldn't find the about us page either!

Constructive feedback/critisism can be hard to hear, but it is an important thing, and I hope Nik can take it onboard to improve his site.
My advice would be to look at the competition - especially the ones that are at the top of google for the keywords you would want to be top for.
My thoughts on the website itself is that it looks empty, and unfinished, and for an e-commerce site, it does look dated in its design/layout.
I would very much recommend getting some white background cut out shots of some actual mugs you have made, rather than just showing mock-ups. This will give a lot more confidence from potential customers. Yes, it will cost you more time and money to achieve, but I would consider it an essential.

Also, have you got Google Analytics set up, and Webmaster Tools. If I do a Google search for "grey print" you should have a good chance of being on the front page.

I do have Google Analytics and Webmaster tools set up yes.

I have finally stopped sobbing, and arko - your certainly correct about 100's of hours, and I HAVE been dealing with Indians (and as you probably know that caused me problems and still does - they used 'Class' names in my lettering tool which collide with cubecart classes).
Your probably correct also about shopdev - but to be honest this was the best solution I could find.

I have taken all comments on board - I still have a few hours until I officially open (tell facebook) so I will make some changes. a month or so ago I asked a pro web designer to finish this site for me but they were far too slow so stopped it - one of their main comments was that the 'Mug Logo' was confusing, that has been said again so I will attend to that first thing.

As for 'Old School' - I hadnt thought about that, just functionality and 'cleanness'.. I wanted a 'Clean' site which was easy to navigate and that's what I have.

maybe others are just being nice but I sent out about 20 pre-view requests last night and I haven't had a single bad comment back - and some of these people have made millions online.

Honestly - thanks for the feedback, I did ask for it and you delivered.

....off back to the Coal face..

John - as you see I listened to what you said about those carousel images the other day, just need to tweak that a bit more now.

Pisquee, also noted about proper images - I hadn't been collecting enough of what I had been doing in the form of images so will add as I go along, if I kept putting off opening (as I have been doing for this and that reason) I would never open.

Just another note Nik.... dont take this the wrong way, its said to help maybe... how about you invest in another shoppingcart, one which is easier to code and redesign... also one that is cheaper to design and code... and also invest your time in learning the new cart instead of throwing hundreds of pounds at it. I would perasonally always go for Opencart. The templates or ready-themes are cheaop but very stylish and easy to design yourself. The learning curve is also easy if you are prepared to put in the work and from what I know about you, that shouldnt be a problem. If not Opencart, there are a few others I would suggest. But if you can rebuild on the cubecart theme, go for it. It would seem to waste so much time effort and money to start again I know, but what could be worse?