I re-did my site for the third time. I am not a web designer. I tried to keep it simple because it goes with the style of the bike and becuase I have limited knowledge. What critisism do you have? Does it look professional?
Shane

The site is OSOBIKE.COM, road bike and cruiser mix

It is much improved.

Not professional. Not when I see this in the source code: <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Virtual Mechanics SiteSpinner V2 270f ">

__________________
Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

I think I can change that. But what is a meta name and what does it do? Is there something wrong with using site spinner?

Overall I like the website because it serves the purpose intended. From a selling viewpoint, somehow, someway I would get your phone number into the logo so that it is prominently displayed on every page. Secondly, remember that the picture is what is making the sale. Right now the main picture is a white bicycle on a greyish background. I understand why you do this, white would not contrast well with the white background on the rest of your site. If you manufacture this bicycle in differrent colors, I would definitely put a red or a bright yellow on the front page.

Furthermore with respect to ordering, it seems that you are giving a 'pre-order' option with approximate prices. I think you might be better off giving a 'firm order' option and give a firm price with an acknowledgment that the lead time is 1-2 weeks, 4-6 weeks, etc. Right now by going to your site, I might be interested but I don't know two things: 1. the price or; 2. when I am getting it.....(of course you need to balance that with the current state of your ability to supply and your knowledge of what your future inventory is going to cost you!)

Get more text on the first page underneath your main picture.

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CW:
Thank you for taking the time to look at my site. I was looking at your wallet site and it looks very nice. I have not yet placed a wholesale order for these bikes. The sole purpose of the site at this point is to see if there is enough interest for me to warrent placing a wholesale order. So the call to action is supposed to be--fill out the pre order form. As far as the color, the first order will be all white.

Not really a comment on the site but the bike concept is questionable. I like the thinking behind the simpliciy of the design but is no maintenace a USP for a bike in the age of throw-away products??what about a belt drive like on buells - no oil see?

I have had loads of bikes and the only one that had a pedal back brake was lethal (but fun for skids). What are people going to do when they want to go down a hill at road bike speeds??? how are they going to get back up the hill???????

This bike is like those they use in velo-dromes but I can't see it taking off in a major way- that said even if you only sold a teeny weeny percentage of total world bicycle sales you would be sucessful.

Look to market this in holland!

Maybe if it broke down easily it could be a goer as a city bike for commuters but it ain't going to sell in Cumbria. Maybe avid cyclists could use it for sprint traing? I think there may be a niche but for the average user it's a no-no.

Good look and best wishes.

C64tapedec:
You are making a lot of judgments on a bike you have never tried. The Osobike is a great bike for many average users. There is a big group of people that like to ride bikes instead of operating them. By operating them I mean adjusting brakes, adjusting and changing gears and in general spending a lot of time tweaking. The coaster brake on this bike is a quality Shimano CB E110. This bike is very high value for the price. Look at the specs page and research the components an you will find that I am speaking the truth. If you tried to have this bike custom made you would probably spend around $700.
Shane

Shane,

1. Use an Mdash on the homepage instead of --.
2. Make the video higher quality.
a. dump YouTube logo
b. dump OSObike logo
c. have a professional crew do the filming in HD

__________________
Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

Dave,
What the heck is Mdash for us people who are not computer professionals?
I would like redo video but I'm not sure I want to sink more money into that part of the project right now.
Why don't you like the Oso logo. Most people like it.
Shane.

1. Dash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. I meant to remove it from the video. It just gets in the way.

__________________
Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

Shane. I apologise if my comments have offended you.

I'm sure you know what your doing but I thought I'd look at it from an engineering standpoint ( I used to do a bit of Mechanical design in a past life) and thought that most people would avoid a bike that didn't free wheel - does it? And a single gear bike that has such large wheels and big front cog. I thought that it might take a great deal of strength to get going and climb hills.

If you say that the people who are going to buy it are not going to go up hills then that's fine.
I never criticised the price mate. I'm sure it's good for the money - I have a mountain bike that cost 5 times that, so I'm sure people will pay what your asking- the point I was trying to make was the market for the product may be small. A small market gives you a smaller pie to start with but If you can find a niche then you will make money no-doubt.

Kind regards,
C64

I like the site. I think the grey black and red color scheme is neat and clean. I'm not crazy about the colors you selected for the rollover and visited links on the menu. Instead of grean and cyan (does not contrast well on the white background), maybe you could use maroon/red and/or a lighter/darker shade of grey. Or not.

As for the video, davebarnes said to lose "the youtube and the oso logo from the video". He has a point, but he may not be aware that the youtube logo must appear if you are streaming the video from the youtube site. If you run the video from your own server it will take waaay too long to load, so I think it's fine to use the free streaming features offered by youtube that you are currently using. It would be nice to remove the blurry oso logo from the video, but if you don't have access to the original footage to render a logo-less version, it's probably not worth the expense at this time.

One thing you might want to try is to modify the display size of the video by editing the code of the page. Youtube gave you cut and paste code to embed in your page, but the default youtube size they suggested (450x350) is acually larger than the original video (probably 320x240). Simply edit the source code at the bottom of the video page by scrolling down to the following code:

<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0ITpl3s0EOQ"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0ITpl3s0EOQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object>

Now replace the two width values of 425 with 320, and replace the two height values of 350 with 240. The resulting video is smaller on the page, but is has a lot less distortion.

I hope this is helpful.