When we decided to go for it with a buy online website for our art greeting cards, we were fortunate enough to already have a brilliant web designer. David Hampton already knew our brand and had designed our previous websites so we didn’t have to start from the beginning.
We thought about what we wanted from the new website and came up with a few basics.
A clean, fresh, minimalist look to go with our brand
Be able to manage it ourselves with our painfully limited tech knowledge
Secure payment gateway
Easy to navigate for customers and offer trade login as well as a shop for public customers
The design would need to do our beautiful art card images justice
A blog feature
Dave came up with the suggestion of using Shopify as our platform. We did some research ourselves and there was no negative feedback to be found anywhere, only plenty of reasons why we should go with them. We now feel very sure we made the right decision. Shopify is a well-known brand, it’s secure and user friendly and the support is great.
We had lots of communication back and forth during the time it took Dave to build the website. He guided us and asked our opinion as he went along, and we bombarded him with questions. Luckily he has got the patience of a saint! He sent us detailed instructions on how to manage things like adding new collections and products, amending SEO etc. We were able to do that alongside his development work so we didn’t have to do it all in one go at the end. Before the website went live he also sent us an interactive cheat sheet from which we can easily click into the relevant admin page and make amendments.
We were also building up our social media presence during this time to connect better with our customers, artists and other people who are interested in our art cards. It has been good to be able to have social media links on the website to direct people our way. We are continually learning how to manage and extend our use of social media. It’s a lovely way of connecting with people we wouldn’t otherwise be in touch with every week.
Once the website went live we felt quite confident that we could manage it ourselves without having to constantly ask Dave about everything. This was particularly helpful as Dave was going away on holiday shortly after we launched. We’re telling ourselves that it wasn’t because he needed a break from us!
A couple of months after the launch we are absolutely delighted with what Dave and Shopify have done for our business. There has been a steep learning curve and we have had a few hitches but now we feel we are in control. The best part is that we have had some very positive feedback from our customers. They find it easy to navigate, helpful to be able to order and to have the choice to pay online too. We couldn’t be happier with the result, we are pleased to say we feel very proud of our website. If you haven’t already, please do have a look!
Thank you for reading,
Laura and Kicki
