Dressing Up
Hello all. This week our web site changed a little. I think it's all for the better. I've had a list of things I would like to see different on the web site for quite some time. The list resides on what I often refer to as "the back burner". My back burner is always brewing something. That's where I put things I don't have time to deal with or... need to simmer a little more...:-)
Last week I was pretty happy with myself for figuring out how to display my categories in multiple columns. That single column was really bugging me. I found some javascript on the PDG web site along with the helpful instructions and made it so. Easy as pie... with a little help from my beginner level HTML knowledge.
Next on the list? Add pictures to my category choices. Things are just too dry without pictures I created my own main category pictures from pics of the shop. This was fun too. I like having the pics but it still needs a little something. Don't worry, it's all on the back burner.
I'm in the process of going one step further in the category level and adding pics to the categories there. For the yarn category, I chose to put actual pics of the yarn. What else might I have chosen? Most of them have a cute name and label to go with. Yes, each yarn grouping has a cute little name and most of the colors have fluffy names too. Who woulda thunk it?
Anything else exciting happen this week? Maybe. I decided that Simply fibers shipping might be too high. As a long time web shopper, high shipping and handling will keep me from placing an order at all. I believe that is know as cart abandonment? I've done it so why would I expect someone to pay those prices to get our product? I guess I needed to put my web shopping hat on and quit being mesmerized by the ability of our site to link to UPS and USPS and calculate shipping rates. Don't get me wrong, it's cool but I can't afford to lose customers over shipping.
What did I do about this? I added a "discount shipping" option and made it the default shipping method at checkout. Customers may still choose another shipping method if they just don't want the discount shipping. I didn't take anything away, just added. Then I went to the home page and shouted it to the world!
What next? Well, the back burner is full of ideas. I have more simmering back there than I have time to deal with on a daily basis... regular J-O-B. Coming up next, I think it would be helpful to our customers to have a "shipping", "FAQ" or some type of page for those types of inquiries. I find this helpful when shopping online. I don't like surprise shipping rates that don't show up until you've given personal info and/or payment info. Our site doesn't make you go that far but I still think it would be helpful to have the info up front.
I have other fun stuff in mind for the site but also have lots of other store work to catch up on. Fall orders are starting to arrive daily and I need to get that product out for our online shoppers. It's not quite as bad as Carol's job of finding a cute way to display the tons of merchandise that the UPS guy drops each day in the fall. I'll survive.
Till next time,
Sandy
This post is filed under By Merchants, For Merchants and has the following keyword tags: design, development.
