SITE REVIEW: Festive Xpressions

Hi all,

Please contribute your views and suggestions for this Indian gifts portal for NRIs.

Thanks in advance.

really nice clean site, but there's one thing that bothered me. you click on a picture of a cake to take you to the cakes page. and the cake you clicked on isn't in there. i know it's a small, silly thing that might not bother others, but it'd make me think that stock images were being used and therefore the quality of the products can't be judged by the pictures. or am i just a paranoid consumer?
i don't think the site is quite taking advantage of its niche market either- yes it stocks indian sweets and jewellery, but overall the site isn't that clear on its niche.

For some reason this site takes a minute or two to load and I'm on DSL... admittedly, not the best DSL, but still... you might want to look into that. I'm not sure what's causing it. Might just be me.

I don't really like the colors, personally. I mean, they work together alright. They just don't make me think sweets and gifts. In fact, they kind of remind me of a hospital for some reason.

Also, what's the big green rectangle block thing for? Is it suppose to be blank? Because it is to me, and it makes your site look... unfinished. I don't really get why it's there at all.

Any way, other than all that it looks excellent to me. Very well done. I especially like the picture of gifts to the right.

I have to say the layout is very clean. Extremely, almost sterile. The stuff being sold is vibrant and colorful. There are flowers being sold. I think the design could use more "flare". The color scheme is okay. But the colors are all seperated by white space. I would also add a little more imagery. Stock stuff can be fine, but if you add more images of the products being sold, it may help you out a bit. The image on the right hand side is perfect of the style you could look for, but spread it out a little over the entire page.

Also the page doesn't seem to be very proportional.

What are the two lines on the right hand side. I think they are throwing off the balance of the page.

Overall I think the typography needs some help. The content font is too small. Maybe add a variation to the size, type or color to make it a little more interesting.

Image navigation is a little dated, slower load times, more bandwidth, more complicated to update, etc. There are no rollovers on the navigation. You could easily use CSS for the entire site. Maybe some tables if you have to present the items like you currently have them.

Is it me or do your icons (images) for the credit cards look funny? I would make them a little larger and more clear.

ALso you have quite a few errors on the HTML side. I didn't check the CSS validation.

Maybe even add a slideshow of items or people celebrate something, gift exchange, gifts under a tree. I would do this with Javascript to keep the bandwidth down.

What about a logo? one that will take the viewer back to the home page.

I think it's not a bad start but could really use some polish to make it more appealing to the eye and look more credible.

It's okay. The design doesn't do the name of the site justice in my opinion. The nav on the left seems tacky. The area that says...

Book Mark This Site!
Currency Converter

seem undone. Also the image of the gift on the top right, is nice and vibrant but the bottom edge of the image is too sharp. I was actually waiting for another image to load in that area. Think you need to feather the bottom edge of the image.

Something about the cellspacing in those tables doesn't seem quite fitting. Maybe because the edges are borderless?

Overall, the site is easy on the eyes. Which is very important. It just seems a little incomplete in my opinion.

Nice! I love the layout of your content, and the colors you chose! Great job.

Hey,

I've seen your site before. What is the turquoise box for? Seems kind of pointless.

Ahh, once I got into it I noticed the target market is NRIs, so my observations are probably suffering a bit of a culture handicap. Here they are anyway though.


First impression, a little bland for being "Festive" Xpressions. I tend to associate bright or rich colors with festivities. The use of pastels almost makes it feel like a hostpital gift shop.

It seems like there's something missing in the top-left corner, is there supposed to be a logo or something there ?

I'd never heard of Rakhi before, so I decided to check that out. When the orange lettering came up I immediately thought "Whoah, there's the festivities !".
Thought it might have been a little hard on the eyes on top of the white background, but it read ok for me.
Note that I don't wear glasses & I have great vision though.
Maybe swap that orange (f55700) with a slightly darker orange (f05000) just to be sure.

You're missing ALT attributes on some of your images again.

Well, that is in design...

I don't get? You designed your site to have a large empty box right in the middle of prime real estate? You are pushing your content down for no reason. I would just get rid of it, or at least make it smaller.

Looking at your site again, if you got rid of that box, and reduced the bottom margin of your the two heading tags, Gifts For Everyday Occasions --- NEW! and Gifts For Yearly Occasions, you could actually bring the Gifts For Yearly Occasions above the fold, increasing the number of products on initial display.

It will also make your site look a little more exciting because there will be more images first seen. You don't have to take my advice, but I would at least suggest trying it out as a version two that only you can see. I think you will take my advice soon after that then.

Actually we are using a CMS from storesonline.com and I am not getting any alternate to minimize that green column. Let me talk to them..and thanks for giving more ideas.

Will work on it.