

Ask HN: Site Review Efreeme.com (Vintage and Handmade Site) - boonez123
http://www.efreeme.com

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mattw
Great job! I like the simple site design. It gives it almost a craigslist feel
(in a good way).

* Drilling down into categories was a little confusing at first. It might be better if the columns were clearly defined (maybe different backgrounds or vertical borders or something). Initially when drilling down into Vintage -> Men's Clothing I completely missed the "Handmade" category, so when I got down to "Pants & Trousers" I suddenly noticed "Handmade" on the left, at which point it wasn't clear whether it was a separate top-level category (as it is) or whether it was a strange word-wrapping problem (like "Pants & Trousers Handmade").

* Related to this, once I arrived at "Pants & Trousers", it wasn't immediately apparent that there were no items in the category. (Until I actually read "Be the first to post...", I thought maybe I hadn't yet arrived at the leaf-level category, so I ended up clicking "Handmade" thinking it was maybe the word-wrap thing.) Three suggestions that might help: 1) Make the category selector variable-height so that it collapses into a single-line breadcrumb trail once I arrive at the bottom-level category; 2) Show the number of items in each category in parenthesis after the name, e.g. "Pants & Trousers (0)"; 3) Clearly mark the items for sale (maybe "Items for Sale in Pants & Trousers:" or something).

* One question that immediately popped into my mind as a hypothetical vendor with a large dose of cynicism was: How do you guys make any money? After digging (and of course your post here) I found a statement that "This website was made with love to provide a free venue for artists and vendors to sell their wares", but maybe you want to consider proactively answering the question "If you don't take any fees, how do you make money?" Else I'm left wondering whether there's some kind of hidden scheme going on, or whether your venue is going to survive (and thus make it worthwhile for me to set up a store). Maybe that's just my over-healthy cynicism talking, though. :)

Keep up the good work!

~~~
boonez123
Hi,

* I'll definitely work on that category filter. I think you are correct, as it stands now it's too confusing to understand what is going on.

* 1.)I'm not sure what you mean about it collapsing into a single-line breadcrumb. Either way I think I might have a solution for this filter. How about if I seperate Vintage and Handmade into two separate columns and then you can clearly see that's it's "Vintage" or "Handmade". 2.) Counters, duh. I'm an idiot! I'll add that asap. Memcache for the win. 3.) Yes. I'll change the wording at the top of the filter too. "You are currently browsing...." sounds, well, uh, dumb. "Items for Sale in [Category Name]" I think is much much better.

*AHHH. The money. Yes. I should make that more clear on the "About Us" page. However as you probably guessed we make money off the banner advertising, I know, it's going to be a long hard slog to the top of this one! :)

Thanks again for your input. I really value your opinions and for the most
part I'll be implementing all of them. You can almost guarantee they'll be
done by this evening.

Thanks again!

~~~
mattw
> I'm not sure what you mean about it collapsing into a single-line
> breadcrumb.

I just meant exactly what you're doing, but without the extra parent
categories so that once you get down to a "leaf" category it only shows one
line: "Parent > Child > Grandchild". Sounds like your other idea will
essentially accomplish the same thing.

> *AHHH. The money. Yes. I should make that more clear on the "About Us" page.
> However as you probably guessed we make money off the banner advertising, I
> know, it's going to be a long hard slog to the top of this one! :)

Oops, that's what I get for browsing with AdBlock all the time; forgot I even
had it on. :)

~~~
boonez123
Thanks Mattw for the clarification!

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petervandijck
Competing with etsy is awesome, but two things:

1\. How will you drive traffic to the vendors? If they don't get any sales,
they won't stay.

2\. You have to make it look prettier. These artsy types care about looks :)

Hope you can get this going, good luck!

~~~
boonez123
1\. That is always the problem with these sites. I'm hoping good SEO helps me
out a bit too. I launched the site on Monday, Tuesday my sister put up her
Crafty and Vintage stuff, and then on Wednesday a woman from Arizona bought an
item. I have some ideas. I'm hoping that maybe offering a free store will
entice people enough too. Not sure. I'm looking for suggestions though since I
have a limited budget. My last company turned into a million dollar company
just from putting up some chloroplast signs around cities. Unfortunately I
sold a tad too early.

2\. I agree. Over time I'll invest more time into the rounded corners, and
drop shadows and so on.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Mark

------
boonez123
Basically my sister uses Etsy.com a lot and wanted something that was free. I
started building this in Mid April 2010 in Zope/Python. I know, I know. Dated
technology.

Anyway if you see some ideas to make this site better, let me know.

