Handmade by Jules Website and Shop Launch Review
I was going to do a product spotlight for this week's blog post but thought I would do a website/shop launch review instead, as it has been 7 weeks since I formally launched the handmade by Jules website and online shop.
I have designed a couple of websites before but those were with Wordpress and I found the process quite difficult to achieve a professional look while being user-friendly and easy to maintain. While the Wix designer made a lot of the process easier, it has still been a learning curve to use and sometimes I might have said a swear word when it inserted something where I didn't want it and messed up a whole page! (Ctrl Z has been doing a lot of work but sometimes it didn't completely undo something and made it a nightmare to get the page back to where it was - aarrgghh.) On the whole though, while there are always tweaks to make, I really like where the design of the website is now and it is proving much easier to add products and manage this site than any of my previous efforts.
I have improved the main menu and there are now filters on the category pages to help make it easier for visitors to narrow down what what they might be interested in as the number of products has increased. I have also placed an Add to Cart on the product card of the category pages too. The shipping rates and returns info also now appears directly on the product pages and my shipping rates have been updated by introducing £1 local delivery and free collection for qualifying addresses (need to be 6km within the allocated location). Oh yes, there is now a Review section on product pages too. I am hoping these changes will make a difference to the customer experience.
Screenshot of Shop Menu showing addition of sub-categories 
Screenshot of filter in product category pages 
Screenshot displaying product pages with Add to Cart 
Screenshot of product page with Shipping rates and Returns Policy information boxes. 
Screenshot of shipping rates and despatch times.
It has been a struggle to get sales though. I do get quite a few visitors, especially when I have made a few introductory posts in Facebook groups, and they browse quite a bit but don't then convert to buyers. I knew it would be difficult setting up straight to my own website instead of trying to sell on one of the seller platforms like Etsy so I am not surprised although it is a little disheartening. I chose not to go through Etsy, as I kept reading poor seller reviews about how it kept increasing its fees, changing its algorithms or even shutting shops down without any notice. I may need to rethink that though and start a presence there to get some customer trust going, as that might be one of the reasons people are not buying.
It would also be good to have some visitor feedback - why aren't people buying? Is it the products? Is it the lack of reviews? Is it the website? Something else? What do you like about the website? What don't you like? Is there anything you would add (or remove!?)? If you happen to read this blog and have any thoughts please do comment, as I would love to know (good or bad!) what people think of my makes and website.
Anyway, bit of a rambly blog this week so I am going to sign off there and wish everybody a happy and fun week and weekend!
🤗💙
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