New website design

Hey all,

My LHBS just got bought by another guy (thank god!) and he's in the process of revamping the whole store. He's in a crappy location, as in even if you knew it was there you still would have trouble finding it. He got a new website up, but it isn't really up to par. Check it out here. I thought I could do better. Check out my version here. What do you think? I'm offering this, and anything else I can for free, I just really want this place to work. The new guy is great, but he can barely afford to run the place as is. Thoughts?

Yours definitely looks better.

Only, I don't thnk too many people are gonna know what the deals are if your gonna advertise them in Latin. :cross:

GilaMinumBeer said:

Yours definitely looks better.

Only, I don't thnk too many people are gonna know what the deals are if your gonna advertise them in Latin. :cross:

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Lol, it's placeholder text. Graphic designers use lorem ipsum to show what an area of text will look like with their fonts and arrangement. Sorry, should have mentioned that.

Hey thats the shop I go to all the time. Whos the owner now? That store is a whole lot better than the one on Murphy road IMHO.

And yeah I like your site design a lot better. Its simple but still looks very clean and professional.

red999 said:

Hey thats the shop I go to all the time. Whos the owner now? That store is a whole lot better than the one on Murphy road IMHO.

And yeah I like your site design a lot better. Its simple but still looks very clean and professional.

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Adrian on Murphy road has screwed me so many times I can't count. The only reason I went there was because Larry in East Hartford was worse. The new guys are Rich and Dennis I believe. Everyone talks about how they hated Adrian but went there because he had everything. Now that this new guy is in EH, I'm going there from now on and doing everything I can to help him out.

I asked him about getting a club going and using the shop as a base, but the wine kit distributors don't like that for some reason. I still think we should get a club started and use his shop as our ingredient source anyway, give them more exposure.

I think it was Rich I talked to when I was there, he's a 12 year meadmaker and let me try a pyment he made with some old wine juice he found in the back of the shop. He sold me one of the old kits for 10 bucks, because he couldn't move it otherwise, and told me exactly how to duplicate the mead I tried. Got six gallons in the closet right now

I went in there to check it out and get a couple packets of notty, walked out $60 poorer and the proud owner of a new glass carboy (he sourced the old italian made ones, $30!), carboy handle, 3 packs notty, 2 packs lalvin, airlock, bung, the juice, and the knowledge I needed. I'm going back there today to give him the new site and to get this weekends ingredients.

I like your page much better.

I went to the one on Murphy road once b/c i really needed another carboy and thats the last time. He sold me expired yeast (still worked fine) for full price and just told me wrong information on how to make beer.

Not sure who i always see at Pitkin. I assume its the guy you mentioned b/c he is really knowledgeable about wine when i talk to him. Nice deal on the carboy, do you know if he has any left? The first time i went there he was selling 5 gallon glass ones with airlock and bung for $25. His prices are almost always better than anything you can find online even before adding the shipping and hes knocked down prices on items that ive bought b/c he thought they were too high. Haven't found a place yet than can beat $30 kegs!!

Yeah that guy is awesome. I have had a few issues there with being over charged or him leaving an ingredient out (brewer's licorice) but each time I went back he made it right right then and there.

Rich is the guy that I like to see in there when I go in. It seems that he makes wine, mead, and beer way more often then the other guy.

Have any of you been to Maltose Express in Monroe? That's where I've always got my supplies. Last time I went they were in the process of moving to a larger location down the street. Haven't been there yet.

red999 said:

I went to the one on Murphy road once b/c i really needed another carboy and thats the last time. He sold me expired yeast (still worked fine) for full price and just told me wrong information on how to make beer.

Nice deal on the carboy, do you know if he has any left? The first time i went there he was selling 5 gallon glass ones with airlock and bung for $25.

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Ya, I got 2 expired wyeast packs from Adrian because he was out of 1056(?). Had to pitch Safale 05 to get things going.

I think Rich has more of the carboys left, around 30 bucks. I guess that the US can't get them from Italy cheap anymore due to trade tax reasons, so the US is getting them from mexico (not best quality, and still fairly expensive). He has a hookup in Canada, who doesn't have the trade issues with Italy. Therefore he's able to sell 6.5 glass carboys cheaper than better bottles.

Updated! Check out the grain ordering system, (it's the only working link!) Brew-Wine.com

I really prefer the guys on Pitkin Street, EH. I usually stop by on the weekends and deal with the owner who is very nice, knowledgeable and always tries to do the right thing. The guy on Murphy road is just an ass, I know it's mean but I dont know how else to describe him. I've only bought from him when the Pitkin guys don't have exactly what I'm looking for (Better Bottles for example, although they now carry them).

Last time I saw the Pitkin owner guy, I commented on his website. Turns out he is in the IT business as a full time gig (as am I) and knows his current website is/was terrible. It seemed like he was in the process of doing it himself or having someone do it for him.

I hope truly wish the best for him and his business. When I cant order online for whatever reason, I will always try the Pitkin guys first

EDIT - I love the idea of a local club

Website looks nice... but they have to have something other than in store pickup. The draw of websites is that you can draw people in through searches, that would not normally be in your store, and they will want to order and get things shipped to them. Your website looks a lot nicer, but they need to consider selling outside the store.

Most locals that will be willing and able to pick up at the store, are probably familiar with the oldest LHBS in that area, making the new website nothing more than a tool to sell to the same people that they have always sold to. Add the ability to order and ship, and you will be able to grow the business, just my $.02

____________________________________
Primary- Orange Cascade APA
Secondary- AIR
Keg1- Centennial Blonde
Keg2- Oktoberfest
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR

+1 to The Pol.

(I love the new design, BTW.)

Doesn't take much to ship things: 2 accounts, for UPS and Uline (boxes & shipping supplies) and yer done. UPS will pick up daily. Oh, and some sort of eCommerce software! I highly recommend Stacy at Edit-X; that's the CMS and commerce back end of www.reconstructinghistory.com , which pays my wages.

Bob

New design looks good, but Firefox under fedora does not handle the fonts very nicely.
Could I recommend just setting the fonts to a style, and leaving it up to the browser to set the size for us older, blinder people with very LARGE font setting?

Kauai_Kahuna said:

New design looks good, but Firefox under fedora does not handle the fonts very nicely.
Could I recommend just setting the fonts to a style, and leaving it up to the browser to set the size for us older, blinder people with very LARGE font setting?

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Yea, I have to say I'm not a website designer at all, and I didn't take the time to check the cross browser capability. As for the shipping idea, thats entirely up to the owners on the business end. If they decide to go with this I'll of course put whatever they want on it, but the decision to ship products is theirs. I think it's a good idea though, if they can work the shipping costs into their overhead. As of right now, I think their margin is so small already that it might be hard to justify another cost. My .02.

BTW, was just there to let them know about the site, and they have 12lbs of local wildflower honey for 35 bucks! It's lighter than I expected, should make a good mead. I might actually go back and get a second one just to stockpile

Wow, never had a problem with Adrian at Beer & Wine. I prefer him over Maltose any day. Is your only problem expired yeast? He's not an all-grain guy. Loves those extracts (yuk). Always been polite and talkative to me. Never been to the guy in E. Hartford. Might have to get over there.

Absolutely get over to East Hartford, those guys are super nice and (shock/amaze) know how to actually talk to customers! Adrian had me waiting an hour (I timed it) while he talked to a tech guy about a phone problem. All I needed was some racking hose and priming sugar! Ugh. Anyway, check Rich and Dennis out, they're great. More wine guys, but they know all grain and won't bullshyt an answer if they truely don't know something (Adrian). Plus if they don't have something, they'd rather order the right thing than send you out with some other peice of crap.

BTW, 12 lbs of local wildflower honey for 35 bucks=awesome! Though I probably shouldn't spread the word around too much, less for me

Craig311 said:

Have any of you been to Maltose Express in Monroe? That's where I've always got my supplies. Last time I went they were in the process of moving to a larger location down the street. Haven't been there yet.

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What is their price for 2 cups of salt?

I like the way you put the 3 most important pieces of information at the top and right where the reader's eye lands first. I didnt have think (much less click or scroll) to find out where they are located, when they're open or what their phone number is.

i am going to critique the order grain page though so bear with me

i think you can simplify the page a bit - I would use dropdownlists for the ingredients and then add items to a listbox for a grain bill. I whipped up an example here:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7523/layoutdl6.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4706/layout2br1.jpg

(i forgot to put the name & pick up time in there, but you get the idea. a pictures worth 1,000 words right? )

This gives you a couple advantages: no matter how many grains you add to the dropdownlists (or hops, yeasts etc), you'll never need more real estate. the layout is definitive in size and adding one more item wont required you to change the layout of the entire page.

it's also a little more intuitive - the flow is left-to-right, top-to-bottom. the end user will easily follow the flow without help or directions and end up at the submit order button.

Im not a designer by any stretch but I am a programmer/web developer and felt like throwing my 2 cents in... overall I think you have good design/layout intuition - keep up the good work and I'll be looking foward to seeing where you take the grain order page!

I have to say - I like dennis and the owner at brew & wine hobby much better than adrian on murphy road. Adrian just doesnt have the people/customer skills that makes me want to frequent his business. Dennis is much more personable and listens to all my stupid questions. Knowledge and advice is probably just as important to me as the ingredients im buying and I seem to get more out of dennis than i do adrian.

oh and one more thing - the idea of a club is a great idea. It'd be a great way to meet other brewers in the area and learn a thing or two.

Well they haven't mentioned the website since I gave them the address, but I did hear that Dennis is an ex-IT guy, so it sounds like he has something in mind for the site. I see they're starting to switch to barcodes for some products, so it looks like they're getting the infrastructure of the store itself up and running before the website (can't blame them). I'd love it if they could figure out a way to print a receipt with the item name next to the price, the tickertape old school accounting calulator has got to go

YES! Their freakin receipts are USELESS! I would love it if they could give me a receipt that I could actually read.

Your site looks better but I'd move the phone numbers from the top. If you're going to keep the navigation on the left, move the hours as well. With the hours on top, they will confuse some users. I like the drop shadows you used to float those elements. Nice and clean...