critique of website

[chrishirt]

Dear all..
We have just launched our website selling hand tools. I would really appreciate any advice/critiques you could give us about its presentation, if its friendly, and how easy it is to get around.
we are RH Tools at http://www.rhtools.co.uk. We would also welcome advice on marketing strategy. We already know about google and overture .. can anyone advise of any good search engines etc?
We shall look forward to any responses.. Many thanks.. Chris.

[mnphysicist]

Cool site, I don't quite follow the delivery charge being refunded on reciept of payment. Perhaps that is a UK thing... not sure.

The photo on the home page on the right is very grainy, as such, it makes it look like the spanners are of low quality, eg no secondary operations or polishing, yet the text content would lead one to believe otherwise. As such, you may need to do some image tweaking.

The screwdriver section does not bring an image of the actual screwdriver up. I would think that would be useful, but again that may be regional. Here, one can spend anywhere from $0.40 to $20 each for a screwdriver.

The torque wrench section does show the image of the wrench. Thats good, in fact I need to buy one!!! A link to the manufacturers data page would be useful, as well as telling me that a calibration sheet is included.

As far as taps, this is more marketing related, but how about including the other types, such as bottoming taps and the like. Your prices even with the conversion to US$ seem pretty good, although I'm sure the shipping would be a killer. If you do provide free shipping to the US, let me know, I'll place an order in the next day or so.

I really like the spanner image map on the left hand side. Thats a cool idea imho.

The upper right quadrant of how to find your tool makes one to believe its an image map, and its not.

Overall, I like your site, its fast, easy to navigate, and well done.

Ron

[philipwhite]

The site looks nice. Hopefully you don't have problems with non flash users. If its not too much dificulty, it might be a good idea to make a non flash version of the site

[chrishirt]

Thank Ron for your response.. you were quite right we are only offering free delivery in the UK but would be happy to offer as competitive a rate on the delivery cost as possible. The reason we stated delivery charge will be refunded is because we are unable to change this for UK customers only yet keep the postage there for the rest of the world... or at least that is what we believe.. thanks for your comments re the pictures we shall look into this... and although we see want you mean about the upper quad we aren't sure if we are going to refine or delete this section at this time. many thanks for your thoughts.. Chris.

Originally Posted by mnphysicist

Cool site, I don't quite follow the delivery charge being refunded on reciept of payment. Perhaps that is a UK thing... not sure.

The photo on the home page on the right is very grainy, as such, it makes it look like the spanners are of low quality, eg no secondary operations or polishing, yet the text content would lead one to believe otherwise. As such, you may need to do some image tweaking.

The screwdriver section does not bring an image of the actual screwdriver up. I would think that would be useful, but again that may be regional. Here, one can spend anywhere from $0.40 to $20 each for a screwdriver.

The torque wrench section does show the image of the wrench. Thats good, in fact I need to buy one!!! A link to the manufacturers data page would be useful, as well as telling me that a calibration sheet is included.

As far as taps, this is more marketing related, but how about including the other types, such as bottoming taps and the like. Your prices even with the conversion to US$ seem pretty good, although I'm sure the shipping would be a killer. If you do provide free shipping to the US, let me know, I'll place an order in the next day or so.

I really like the spanner image map on the left hand side. Thats a cool idea imho.

The upper right quadrant of how to find your tool makes one to believe its an image map, and its not.

Overall, I like your site, its fast, easy to navigate, and well done.

Ron

[chrishirt]

Hi Philip.. thanks for replying. We did think of non flash users and came to the conclusion that nowadays most people can download flash if they havent got it so due to finance costs we thought it best to leave it as it was right now. kind regards..Chris.

Originally Posted by philipwhite

The site looks nice. Hopefully you don't have problems with non flash users. If its not too much dificulty, it might be a good idea to make a non flash version of the site

[philipwhite]

I just mentioned it because some companies don't allow users to install software on company pcs so they wouldn't have access to flash and search engines do a poor job spidering flash sites.