custom leather armor

[shadowmaster]

Im selling custom leather armor. If there is something you are looking for drop me a line. You can see pictures of my work at http://hometown.aol.com/quiksilverknight/myhomepage/business.html

[shadowmaster]

[Dalewyn]

My opinion from looking at your website: clean up your spelling and grammer, it will look far more professional. From the pics I've seen (and you don't have too many; looks like you haven't made much) it looks a little blocky, there's no dyeing, and there's no tooling shown. As well, the leather doesn't look hardened, which it should be if it's more than costume. If you do more interesting custom work, ALWAYS take pictures to show off later. Show top end work, it tends to sell your top end better; people can always ask for basic. Take this (and all advice) with a grain of salt, and as the constructive criticism it's intended to be.

[freiman the minstrel]

Yes,

I would (as an armour shopper) like to see a clear list of products and prices. I would ideally like to look at pictures, with prices, and decide from that. I think you should make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you.

You might consider retaking the photos on your webpage and have the model wear something other than an undershirt. A white sweatshirt (with no logo on the chest) would provide a nice "Neutral" background. You want your customers looking at (and thinking about) your product, not the model. It looks like you make good solid "Trooper grade" armour. I think that you might get a better response from the custom market if you included your best stuff on the page. Make yourself a suit of armor for yourself with all the options. Dye, paint, tool, and polish the stuff up, and put photos of that on the website, next to the more inexpensive gear. This would give the customer a better idea of the things you can do.

Also, when the page appears on my browser, one of the vanbrace photos looks like the vanbrace is discoloured.

I gather that you do entirely custom work. The real armor freaks (who spend the big bucks) will certainly want to know about your policies on down payments, construction cues, wait times, shipping and all that sort of stuff. They would anyway, but the custom fabrication angle will make it doubly so. You might play up the "custom only" angle, as a marketing strategy. Say a lot of stuff like "In order for your armor to move properly, it must fit. Why buy armor that was not made for you? You know before you buy it that it will not move as well as is possible. If your life depends on your armor performing at it's best in the heat of battle, why settle for 'Good enough'? It might fit well enough, but do you want to bet your life on it?"

Yeah, spelling is a must. I did not find any spelling errors on your page, but I wasn't really looking for them either. Run a spell checker.

Also, while putting your e-mail address is a good start, making the address itself a clickable link would make it easier to buy from you. Also, other contact information might be good too. If somebody wants to commission a two thousand dollar custom Legolas costume, he probably will want to talk to you on the phone

[Steve S.]

You might want to check out the following page for some web designing tips:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

No, this is not a joke URL - it is a great site on how not to design web pages that suck.

Like Freiman said, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you. You don't want people to have to use their imagination to figure out what you sell, how much it costs, and how good an armourer you are.

As also was said, you want your web page to either provide a photo-list of stock, typical items you sell, with prices, or, if you are a custom maker only, you need a portfolio of your past work.

For an example of the the former, you might check out my own web site:
http://www.forth-armoury.com

For an example of the later, you might check out Robert Macpherson's web site:
http://www.lightlink.com/armory/

I'd also recommend you use a commercial web-host. Not a free one. A real business does not use free web services - it screams "amateur". Why? A real business should have no problems with $8/month web hosting fees.

Steve

[shadowmaster]

thanks for the advice. Ive made lots of things in the past but I didn't have a cam. I would like to make more armor but I have to sell what I have in order to get the materials. I have older pics but the problem is that the armor is more fantasy and the first thing people do is put me down and pass judgement on my work because of the style.

[Talan Gwyllt]

Put it up on your website anyways. It shows what you can do.

[shadowmaster]