Ping Pong Ball eCommerce Website Redesign

PongUniversity.com

I just bought this website with the intent of sprucing it up, increasing conversions, and overall giving the site the attention it needs to grow.

I'm a software engineer by trade who's dealt with way too many sites that are borderline-unusable. Usability is important to me...I like being drawn to what I need, with intelligent layouts that aren't too crowded, but don't over-use whitespace.

Added bonus: I do consulting work, specifically web development. If you win this contest I obviously like your work and will be referring you to my clients if they need design work (if you're interested).

The main audience right now is college students. We're starting to target small-medium businesses, so the site needs to be a little more professional than the sex-sells tactic currently in place, but we don't want to lose our main audience: college students and people buying gifts for college students.

General:
We would like a new home page, the current one sucks! It should include space for promotions, something that pops out and attracts the user to action items. Ideally get the user to what they want to see/buy ASAP (focus on custom balls). Featured items (i.e. just small boxes I can put mini-promotions in), like the site currently has, would be nice too, though more integrated than it currently is.

For the promotional space, please fill it with something that promotes our custom printed ping-pong balls:
-low prices
-no minimum order on imprinted balls
-high-quality 40mm seamless balls, 3 star balls available
-colors available

We would also like a sample 2-column "content" page. I can derive whatever other pages we need from this, as long as it contains some basic font, size, and color decisions.

Please avoid stock photography with the exception of products themselves (I can swap in better product photos if needed).

Logo:
Feel free to re-use the current logo, though the beer-pong background needs to go. I would love to see someone put a little bit of polish on the logo (the icon looks a little junky right now), though don't feel obligated to go nuts with it.

Navigation:
Use the current nav options as an example, though these will likely change. I would also like a small nav (perhaps top-right) for 3 links (probably Cart, Order Status, and Help)