I decided it was time to make a new online store that was more customer friendly because I had received e-mails and calls from customers about issues they were having with our current website.
I also noticed areas we could be more efficient and accurate with inventory control on the administrative side of the website.
Our current listing addresses have strings of numbers and letters.
For Example: The current address for Safety Eyes No Pupil Round Style is:
http://www.glasseyesonline.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=119_121
http://dev.glasseyesonline.com/index.php/eyes/plastic-eyes/safety-eyes/no-pupil/safety-eye-round-style-solid-colors-no-pupil-1-pair.html
There is no search field on the current website. Customers must navigate around the website looking in various categories to find what they need or e-mail us and ask us if we carry the product. We then have to e-mail the customer a link to the product.
The current site has one photograph for each listing.
In the current online store, customers have to click in and out of each size product to order different sizes and colors. There is also no ability to monitor inventory of different colors / sizes within the site. Jerry uses an excel spreadsheet for tracking colors and sizes. He then has to transfer the information manually into the administrative side of the online store.
I realize that making a change and improving aspects of a small family run business is time consuming hard work.
We'll make mistakes and run into problems along the way. There will be a huge learning curve for us while we are using this new system. I won't know if I made a mistake until the New Online store is live and we see the results in sales and customer feed back.
We'll be sending out a Notice to all our Newsletter Subscribers when we get ready to move to the new Online Store. Stay tuned for more behind the scenes as we get ready to open the new and improved OnLine Store