hey everyone -- check out>http://www.pioplayground.com

and let me know what you think... the store is now part of the site, rather than a catalog you have to download.

please tell me if there's anything you think should be different, o experienced web shop owners and web shoppers... for now paypal is the only option for payment.. is that adequate?

thanks!

rachel

Nice work, but I have issues with the site functionality. The fact that most of the action takes place in a pop-up window is a big pet peave-especially when there's enough space on the parent window if you remove all the designery stuff that while nice, doesn't add any value to the experience.

The size of the flash movie bugged me since I'm on dial-up. Maybe an HTML alternative would solve both problems come to think of it.

Your front page takes way tooooooo loooooong to load. I love your stuff, but I don't have the patience to sit through the loading. It's very pretty by the way. The pop ups are kind of annoying too.

Could you simplify the pages (and make them come up as new pages, not pop ups)?

I don't know if this helps. I don't mean it in a mean way either. If I were shopping though, I wouldn't stick around to see what comes up.

Good Luck!

I LOVE IT!The design is HOT!I'm on DSL so it's fine speed wise.The pop up could be done away with but I didn't find it annoying,and your jewelry is fantastic!
Just my humble shopaholic opinion!

I think it looks fantastic as well, but I'm on a high speed internet connection. I can see how speed would be an issue for people with regular phone line connections.

I've just relaunched my site as well and am having issues with how long it takes to access. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet, but I'm getting there!

~~~
crumpet>http://www.crumpart.net

I love your work!
I especially love your choice in models!
e.

Your pieces are beautiful, and I love elements of your site design- especially the collagey-type thing. The colors and arrangement are lovely. But,I have to concur with some other people's comments, that I am, in general, just not a fan of intro pages at all. They may be kinda interesting for the first-time visit to a site but get annoying quickly. I realise that sometimes you might want to put something there for people to look at while their dial-up catches up, but it took far too long. Maybe save the flashy flash for when cable modems are more ubiquitous (which shouldn't be toooo long, if prices keep going down). Your beautiful still graphics are more than enough to make your site look professional and delicious! Remeber, people are visiting your site for content, and while a beautiful visual environment is extremely inportant for cementing your image, people aren;t coming for the animations etc- I tend to prefer websites in general that look more like magazine format.

I agree with losing the popups, they kinda feel a little... tangential? Like they keep popping up and there's a sea of popups and I'll get confused.

I wish you much luck with your crafty business! It warms my heart whenever another I see more and more glitterati starting to sell their stuff! I am so in love with your logo, where the loopy tail of the 'o' is going across the top of the o as though it were cute sideswept bangs across a girl's forehead!

Thanks so much for your input, guys.

I've talked these issues over with my designer and, well, since she's a Flash-animation goddess, she's not too thrilled about the idea of changing it... but she said she'd do a simpler, HTML version sans popups as an option. I hope that'll make things a little smoother, especially for the dial-up folks in the house.

Meanwhile, I got my first order through the site -- from a getcrafty lady. Woo-hoo!

OK, my designer has made the change...

there is now an html option available to those who don't have fast connections or just don't want to deal with flash/popup windows/etc...

please take a look at the new and improved pio webstore and let me know what you think:
>http://www.pioplayground.com

off to san francisco (using wi-fi in the airport for the very 1st time... i <3 jetblue!)

Can I tell you how much better I think the HTML version is? The only thing I feel is missing is a logo or something at the top. There just needs to be a tiny bit of space up there, I think.

See, simple is good!

just wanted to add that the site is amazingly cute and cool! the design and the jewellery work well together and you've done a great job getting it up :)

Love the HTML version! It looks really good, nice and clean and the important stuff loads fast (the background images are still pretty slow and I'm on a cable modem, but the product images load quickly and that's the important thing). Btw, for the Flash version you might consider a "Skip intro" button that jumps right to the main frame so people who visit your site often (and they will b/c your work is super great!) can pass by the long animated piece in the beginning.

The HTML page looks wonderful.

Once I get off my butt and fix up the speed issue on my site, I'd love to trade links if you'd like to. :)

i don't have flash on my browser so it's good to have the html site. looks clean and creative.
~WS