StORES Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 104) NUTS AND BOLTS / E-COMMERCE Stirring It Up Website redesign puts customer service on the front burner BY KAREN M. KROLL itchen and cooking gear purveyor Chefs Catalog retooled its website last year, making it both elegant and easy to use. To accomplish the task, it partnered with Fluid, a San Francisco-based provider of online retail solutions. K The previous design was “decent,” says Tim Littleton, senior vice president of marketing for Colorado Springs, Colo.based Chefs Catalog. But with web sales now running about even with catalog sales, having a topnotch e-commerce site was critical. The deciding factor in opting to work with Fluid, Littleton says, was the firm’s focus on the customer experience, rather than just the design of the site. While the team at Chefs wanted the website to look good, it was primarily concerned that customers find it easy and enjoyable to use. Great websites encompass both good design and functionality, and appeal to visitors coming from a variety of places, says Andrew Sorotnik, chief experience officer for Fluid. Some, of course, know Chefs from its catalog: for the most part, these shoppers are familiar with the company and know what they want. Others land at the site via an online search. They probably know what they want, but may not be familiar with Chefs. Still others come from affiliate sites. These shoppers tend to be more valueconscious, and zero in on value-priced or clearance merchandise. If visitors coming from affiliates or online searches can be persuaded to make their first purchases, they’re more likely to become longer-term customers, Littleton says. – Tim Littleton, Chef’s Catalog 104 STORES / SEPTEMBER 2007 If visitors coming from affiliates or online searches can be persuaded to make their first purchases, they’re more likely to become longer-term customers. Variety of appeal Chefs Catalog focuses on the actual activities of cooking, such as braising, sautéing and baking. In that sense it compares with sites dedicated to entertaining, decorating and other related interests. As a result, Chefs’ site is designed to be accessible to anyone interested in cooking, with a beautifully simple layout based on sophisticated technology. The homepage typically features a photograph that relates to cooking, but is not product-specific. (In late July, for instance, the site contained a mouth-watering photo of a Tuscan roast pork loin.) One of the first enhancements to the site was the introduction of “shoppable” photos: Simply by moving their cursors over a picture, shoppers are able to uncover more information on the featured products or recipe. In the case of the pork loin, moving the cursor over the picture activated the photo of the roasting pan. Shoppers can zoom in on specific areas of the photograph, gaining, for instance, a better look at the texture of the hammered copper pan. “Some WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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