Introduction
Its been a long time in the making but Wicker Living, LLC’s www.WickerLiving.com newly revamped website is getting close to completion and ready for prime time. With the release of our new website, our customers will enjoy the ease of finding products and product information and providing feedback on products and services. The new website will also be mobile ready for those who use cell phones and tablets.
The Original Website
Wicker Living’s existing website was designed and placed in-service in 2007 and has served us well. However, due to advances in technology, search methods and results, it has become necessary to make significant changes to our systems. As an on-line retail store, its imperative that we can efficiently manage our systems and make them safe, secure and user friendly. In as much that our original website is adequate, with advances in technology and what we know about search engine requirements today, we can do better.
Search Engine Queries and Results
Due to the need to meet our customer’s expectations and be compliant with search engine requirements, its time now to modernize our website design and affiliated systems and make it easier for customers to search and find our products. In addition, once they get to our website, we want to make sure customers has a great experience and can navigate and do follow-up searches on our website to find the information they are looking for.
Contextual Information
Customers will find new and captivating product descriptions and information to help them with their query. They will find complete well written text that is easy to read and understand.
Site Speed
The new website will be faster resulting in less wait time of the customer. Pages will be returned faster and images will be show up more quickly.
Mobile Ready
In today’s world, many users are scrapping their desk top computers for smaller tools like tablets and cell phones to surf the net and make purchases. Our new website template will offer the ability for customers to use any type of device to use our website and have it display and react appropriately.
New Layout
The new www.WickerLiving.com website will have a new look and feel. Rather than a three column style like our original website, the new website will use a two column design. One wide left column will be used to display the page’s core information where as the more slender right column will provide site wide navigation information and links.
A new mega menu will be used at the top of each page listing the main categories. When you hover over the main categories, subcategories will appear making it very easy to choose where you want to go. For consistency and ease of use, the top menus and right navigation bar will remain consistent for every web page.
Picture Gallery
From our original website we learned that our customers liked our fabric gallery. It made it easy for them to search though our collection of hundreds of fabrics and find the ones they liked. We are extending this concept to other galleries as well.
Fabric Selection for Cushions
In the past, when choosing the options for a cushion a customer had to move away from the product page and go to the fabric gallery to view the images of the available fabrics. Our new model allows the customer to view the images of each type of fabric independently by clicking on a blue view button next to the type of fabric they are interested in. A pop-up appears and its just like being in the fabric gallery. You can scroll though and view all the fabrics in the gallery and click on the icon to expand the size. Once the customer determines which fabric number they want, they choose it form the available drop down list. This should prove to be an exceptional addition to our new website.
Account Registration
Customers will now be able to set up an account by registering on the new site. Although a customer will not need to set up an account with wickerliving.com to use the site or make a purchase, it is beneficial and highly recommended for the following reasons:
- Setting up an account personalizes your visits. When you sign-in to your account and shop, wickerliving.com will retain your shopping information so that when you return, any saved information in your cart or wish list will be preserved and be there when you come back
- You will be able to review your on-line purchases.
- You will be able to review the status of your order.
- Improve Checkout speed.
Check Out
Checking out will be very easy to do. Having registered and established a an account as suggested above will make it that much easier. When your ready to check out, you hit the check out button and it takes you to a one-page check out. Customer’s will have the opportunity to check out using a charge card, PayPal using their PayPal account or PayPal Credit. To use PayPal Credit, the customer would need to sign-up with PayPal. PayPal Credit is a service that lets you buy now and pay later. Think of it as a secure, instant, and reusable credit line without the plastic. All processing is handled though PayPal.
Summary
Wicker Living will be launching a new website to replace its original one established 2007. Design changes and improvement will be implemented due to changes in technology and search engine requirements. The new website will improve search results and provide customers with a great shopping experience. A new layout and picture gallery are existing features that are know to be very desirable and have been improved upon. Website layout, fresh informative text and improved site speed will make for a better user experience. Customers will be able to register and establish an account that provide desirable benefits. Checking out will be easy using a charge card or PayPal and will offer the customer the opportunity to use PayPal Credit which lets you buy now and pay later.
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