Shopping by Occasion

[Palms]

Paula I agree with Missy. If you leave in occassions that are out of season it makes your site look like it is not up to date. Alot of florist seem to make the same mistake - you are not alone even the big players and order gathers do it. I have my site set out abit differently - I still have all my occassions etc down the side but I keep the front page quite simple with less going on so you can easily focus on each section. I would be tempted to change your top bar - get rid of your about us page and split the details onto other pages. On your contacts page you should have all your contact info, not just an email section. Put on your address, telephone number, opening times, location map.
I would have a weddings page on the top bar and place all those wedding related items into that section. At present you are heavily duplicating info.
On your how to order info page you could put this info simplfied on the top of each page and on the contact page. If the order process is easy you shouldn't by rights really need this section. I order on line alot and I have never looked how to order page.
Think simplicity. This is the key to a good site. I am told by my customers that my sight is really easy to navigate. I would give the customer info about you on the home page maybe with the picture of your shop front or put that picture on your contacts page. On your delivery page put on all delivery, collection, national and international delivery info - at present this is again on your about us page. I would then give myseif a funeral page with all the relievant. By streamline this first page and weeding out your duplications you will have one mega site that you will be able to add to in a much more coherant way.
It took me ages to get to this stage after talking to loads of people. And I'm still working on it. And I try to change the site regularly.
Good Luck.
Jo x
PS I hope this has made some sense - you know I ramble alots.

Jo, thanks very much for looking at my site and offering advice. I have answered a few of the points you raised as to why i have my site particularly set up as i do. Not saying i have it all right btw, always working on it.

I agree about sites looking not updated when the last peak is still up after a while, but i have all three therefore i am showing in advance what they can get. Not particularly bothered about having those still up. The big players and order gatherers do not make any decisions without market research so whilst i do not agree with a lot of what they do, i would say that some of their decisions are based on fact and not anecdotal. Which i suppose is why i possibly should leave the occasions??

I have to disagree about my site not being simple. I have avoided lengthy texts on the home page as i simply do not think people want to read lots and lots of text. I believe consumers are more picture lead which is why I have simplified categories with a picture on the home page so they can easily find what they are looking for. Currently they can search two ways, via occasion or design.

On my about us page it does list our opening hours, what products and services we do and generally a bit about us. I dont think seperating this information would serve any purpose to be honest as i simply dont think that people read a lot into that. I have it as a "just in case" someone wants to know something.

Also, i am not sure why the "how to order" would be relevant on a contact us page? I too, never read the how to order, but if someone gets stuck at a certain process then they have a reference to follow. Again, it does not take up a lot of room but i believe it is necessary for first time buyers who dont necessarily buy on the net all the time.

Not quite sure where i have heavily duplicated Jo? If you could let me know i would definately address this.

The reason i asked about the occasions is that i would like people to read more of my information pages which are simply categorised but can show offers occasionally and i feel that if they have to scroll down they may miss them. Losing the occasions would give me the space for them to show on the top left side.

Thanks so much to everyone who has input on this issue, I really appreciate you taking the time to help

 

[Missy]

That is when it would be helpful for your site to have a feature to simply turn off ecommerce for a particular page instead of removing it from your site altogether.

This is exactly what I meant....

 

[Palms]

Just an update, I kept the occasions in but moved them to the top bar just so that the information pages on the left hand side were visible when customers landed on my page.

I think its much easier to use now and i can put in latest offers etc.

Thank you to all of you who helped me with my decision, obviously i took advice to keep them but just moved them out of the way. I thought this was a good compromise:thumbsup