Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A New Site For A New Year!

In just 24 hours, at QuiltFabricCloseouts.com, we're launching a brand new, fully redesigned website. Some may be wondering why, so I thought I would elaborate a bit.

For several years now, those of us at QFC have known there were things about our website that had to be frustrating for customers. We knew there was a better "shopping experience" out there, but trying to deliver that was costly, time consuming, and quite honestly a daunting task. We fretted, we worried, we researched, and at the end of the day had a fear that too much change may drive some of our loyal customers away. As we grew and time passed, we started to see new innovations in website technology, as well as more savvy online shoppers. We wanted to give our customers the very best possible experience with us, and knew if we didn't take a chance and make improvements, we'd quickly become irrelevant in the land of online quilt shops. That being said, we took the plunge this past November to make a MAJOR move! We knew it was a big step, but my-oh-my we had NO idea how much work went into converting our website. There were some days we thought moving a physical store would be easier. So after two long months, we are impatiently waiting for our tomorrow's launch.

So, what's going to be different? Lots!!! First, we've redecorated! You'll notice a completely new design when you visit our store. It's modern, classy, and inviting (we hope)! Our mission and pricing has not changed, but we are expanding our selection and we'll be offering new search options. Now you'll be able to easily search by collection, manufacturer, color, or style. This was a feature many of our customers have asked for, so we're excited to provide this new feature.

The biggest changes have taken place in our shopping cart and checkout system. Previously, customers had to toggle back and forth between shopping pages and the shopping cart to see what was already in the cart. Now you'll be able to see what's in your cart the whole time you're shopping, or you can hide it if that's preferred. A new interactive design wall makes comparing fabrics next to each other a cinch too!

Shipping was another frustrating issue for us, and our customers. Our old system would only allow us to set pricing based on the total dollar amount of an order. With a wide range of pricing, even with creating several choices at checkout(which was a pain for our customers), shipping charges were often incorrect. We always manually adjusted the shipping down when needed, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that we were all embarrassed that our website was so "behind the times" when it came to things like a simple shipping charge. With our new system, we are able to set shipping charges to calculate correctly, and show the cost BEFORE checkout. We're sure this will make your shopping experience more pleasant and it will make processing on our end that much quicker.

Another exciting feature is our inventory control. We were always able to show an amount left in stock, but it was easy to miss and the system would not prevent customers from ordering more than the amount remaining. This often resulted in disappointment with shortages and out of stock items. Now customers will only be able to order up to the amount remaining in the system, which we hope will be another way to provide a better shopping experience. There still may be a small number of instances in which we have a shortage just because of the nature of fabric inventory, but this occurrence will be significant reduced.

With all of these changes, we are excited and nervous. We want everything to be perfect, but we all know that nothing in life is perfect. If you're shopping or browsing in the new site and find something that's not working properly, looks strange, or you feel should be different, please don't hesitate to shoot us a quick email with your suggestions and comments. As we come near to our 5th anniversary, we hope the changes are a pleasant surprise for our customers rather than a burden, as we have only them to thank for our continued growth and success. With each passing year we strive to continually improve the online shopping experience with us. Happy 2013!!!


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