Looking for feedback

I may be way out on a limb, here, but I switch off as soon as I land on a site with a black background. Can't get away fast enough.

Another thing that will lose you visitors, is the opening flash sequence. It is a known fact that you have 20-30 seconds to attract someone to your site. If they're not in and seeing what you have to offer, in that time, they're off. I know that you have a "skip" - but does it have to be blue on black?

Sorry to be critical, but that's my opinion.

honestly, seems like half the stuff you're really trying to be like "hi-tech" and then you have like generic blue links and stuff that looks kinda like an unprofessional site... sorry.

Uh, your japanese strat is 575 on your front page and 599 on your used page.

I'll second the black background comment. Fine for a person website, humor website, etc, but you go pro, you go white.

Agree with the strong constrast between your intro and the rest of your site. Personally, I'd go with a low-tech approach. You don't want someone to get stuck on your loading screen, you don't want them to take uneccessary clicks to get to your wares. It should be instantly available. 56k'ers buy off the net too, you know, but not from your site.

Use 'live' pictures whenever possible. The mediocre factory pictures of your new guitars are not very inspiring. Take a pic of one that's in your shop. Get a better digital camera and a good photo editing program, you're going to need a lot higher quality that what I'm seeing right now for people to really take you seriously.

Also, wouldn't hurt to shoot for becoming a dealer of one of the "big brands". Gibson has gotten pretty persnickety as of late, but I hear Fender isn't too bad, and those Squire packs sell like hotcakes.

This has to get more clear too: Taken directly from the site:
Full Hollow Bodied Jazz Guitar #OE40
Maple top & body * Twin Washburn HH pickups * Grover tuners
Pearl fingerboard inlay * Adjustable rosewood bridge * Rosewood fingerboard
Fully adjustable neck * High gloss tobacco sunburst finish
Limited lifetime warranty
Price $499.90

$429.99

Those last two lines... so is it 499 or 429? These are the kind of thing you can't afford to mess up, especially if you meant to sell it for the 499 and 429 is $70 of unexpected profit loss. And trust me, if people call you and say, "I'll take that OE40 for 429" and you say that it's just a mistake and you won't give them that price... bye bye, you'll never see that customer again, guaranteed.

Also, every model needs a brief description in addition to the specs.
Doesn't have to be crazy, just something like "A Hollow bodied guitar with a professional sound for the jazz guitarist on a budget! Classic styling and beautiful inlays make this model an excellent value."

Or whatever.

Good luck on the site, keep on trying to evaluate it like a customer, have your guitar playing friends check it out, rather than your family. You need the kind of people who are actually going to be interested to be the ones helping you quality check. Hope this helps!

I agree about not going with the black background. Also agree that your pics need to be better. The site looks a bit cheesy the way it is. Hope this helps.

Thank you. You all had very good input and I apreciate it.

I'm going to be blunt and honest here - please don't take any of this as a personal attack. It really is meant to be constructive criticism. :)

As many have said before, the blue & gray on black on the front page is...well, terrible. It reminds me of some sort of goth/emo teenage blog site, not a music store.

Also, at the bottom of the front page, the words "Here at Big Apple Music Westcoast we believe in getting people to play music. We have a vast range of new and used" are in black text, completely invisible unless the text is highlighted.

Hire a proofreader. Not Uncle Bill or Cousin Joe, but a real honest-to-God editor to go over your site. Let them pick off all the spelling, grammar, and Misplaced Capitalization errors. Personally, I tend to not buy products from anyone who doesn't spell the name of that product correctly. Case study #1 - Shecter makes guitars. Shector was a structural engineer.

The title of the main store page says, verbatim, "Sultan Washingtons only Music Store." Not being from the Pacific Northwest, I can only assume this means that you are the only music store located in a place called Sultan, Washington. Or, it could mean something else entirely...once again, due to the bad grammar and lack of punctuation, it's vague at best.

Another example of poor grammar detracting from your message...on your Used Instruments page, the second line reads "All used Instruments are sold as is no warranty." If you want the message to come across as intended, it should read something like:

All used instruments are sold "as-is" with no warranty.

The addition of one word and a few punctuation marks makes the statement much, much more clear.

I'll stop now, since you've probably got the idea. :) Again, you've got a good base to work from, but it really will need a lot of polishing before it becomes the type of site that I'd buy an instrument from. You may be (and most likely are!) one of the nicest people on the planet to speak with in person, but the impression your web site leaves me with is less than professional.

A navigation bar on the left is always helpful. After going a few pages deep into the web site I felt lost not knowing what I was looking at and where I was going. I always like sites where I can get to where I want to go in the fewest amount of clicks.

It is also a good idea to include a footer at everypage. In the footer you could have a links to a site map, contact information, direction to the store etc..

I have always felt a good way to layout a web site is to pick your favorite site and copy the things you like about it. Hope that helps

Shibby

I too am going to be blunt. Please understand I'm doing this 'cuase I want to see you succeed -- I really do want a world filled with ton's of small mom-and-pop stores, not one ruled by Guitar Centers. I don't want Wallmart to be my default choice for musical instruments. So, I'm gonna be blunt because I want to see you succeed. Please don't take it personally!!

I have to agree that you have a host of problems on this site.

As has been noted, your flash intro, color scheme and the rest is too much *snazz* without coming across as really professional. It is hard to have a professional web-site that isn't plain. If you don't want to go with a plain site, you must hire a professional to do your CSS and flash design.

Grammar, punctuation, spelling and general sloppiness abound. Overall I see nothing on this site that would make me want to trust you with my money.

Your navigation tree is really way too deep. No one is going to go through 4 clicks to get to your list of 4 accoustic guitars by their favorite manufacturer. And by dividing it up that way, there's no easy way to comparison shop. I want to compare the Oscar Schmidt guitars to the Alpines, how do I do that? I can't. That's a problem. The biggest advantage to having a web presence is that your local customers can pre-shop your store! You're making it hard for them to do that.

The worm flash movie is cute, but probably should not be linked too from your products area.

can someone submitt an article to my website http://www.freewebs.com/axeworld007

give me any pointers too