This past summer DTG received a phone call from Elle Englander from Enfield, CT.  Elle has a business which sold polish pottery. She had worked with a web design company years ago and the project had fallen flat. Although Elle, had a domain name, JanelleImports.com, the website was non-existent.

Here is a bit of information on polish pottery that you might find interesting.

Polish stoneware, also known as Polish pottery, originated as folk art in the early part of the eighteen century in the German province of Silesia, now a part of Poland.  The peacock feather inspired the early decorations.  The history of pottery making in this ancient region of Europe dates back to the seventh century. 

Today, in the small village of Boleslawiec, Poland this time-honored tradition of artistically crafted stoneware continues.

The Initial Meeting

Elle came in and spoke with Mark Ambrose, owner of DTG, and Carol Bigl.  At that point everything was put on the table and options reviewed.

A new website was in order, but what about the features?  Inventory, E-Commerce, Shipping,  and more were discussed as part of their new website.

Based upon the website requirements a formal proposal was drafted and forwarded to Elle.

Price wise and function wise, everything was in order and approved by Elle.

The Start

Because of the inventory, Elle had a professional photographer in Poland shoot all the pictures of the pottery with different angles.

Because of the high resolution of the photos, Carol Bigl needed to re-size each picture for a proper fit into the website.

Using Photoshop, Carol was able to automate the resizing process using the Photoshop tools.

Now all the pictures were re-sized and designed for web viewing.

Navigation

Because Elle’s inventory consisted of not just different patters, but many different types of pottery products, navigation had to be simple.

For example under the bakeware category, you had 4 subcategories.

Easy navigation is the key according to owner, Mark Ambrose. Too many people get confused based on the navigation by going to different pages or “branching out” to another website. This leads to confusion and frustration of the end user.

Keeping it simple is the key.

E-Commerce

This is the part for web designers that security is of the utmost importance.

When you have customers laying out their credit cards for an on-line transaction, the experience has to be a good one or they will never come back.

Working with a third party payment gateway providers such as Authorize.net, FirstData.com, Paypal Payflow, Cybersource and more, complications can arise for the website integration.

The providers software has to integrate fully within your website programming to work. DTG is very fortunate to have several highly skilled programmers working  to ensure the integration is smooth and accurate.

Shipping

UPS and Fed X all have shipping modules that you can intergrate into your website design.  Again, a good programmer is required to make the fit.

Tweaking here and there and making the shipping affordable can sometimes be the final decision before a credit card payment is made. Too much of a charge for the shipping and the potential customer goes away.

Administrative Panel

So a good question is, how does all this credit processing, shipping and inventory control work.

The integration of an administrative panel gives the client the ability to run their own business without the cost of an on-site programmer.

YES, there is a training process to go thru, but, with DTG, you are assured web support 7 days a week.

Want to Learn More

That was a quick rundown of the semantics’s of putting a professional website on line.

Elle and her company have been working with DTG not only on the design and programming but on the SEO and marketing of their website.

Just because you have a website, it doesn’t end there.

You always have to keep the information fresh and exciting for the end user according to Mark Ambrose.

For more information about getting your website more customers, give DTG a call.