Every employed person knows that the hard work and dedication they have to their job is not always recognized or rewarded by those around them. Sometimes the act of anticipating needs can backfire if the goal is to be recognized for one’s efforts. But, like the skilled servant, if the goal is to ease the experience for the one with the needs, then it is in the best interest of the one anticipating to make that leap, even without expecting praise in return.
Website Re-Structuring
Starfire Direct has worked hard to be one of the leading distributors of Fireplace accessories such as fire glass for years. Like a good servant, we’ve built up a company that anticipates the needs of our clients. We’ve been working with our customers prior to the Internet being a common business tool. Over the years, the digital marketplace has expanded to include unprecedented access to manufacturing processes, information, and unique items like ours all over the world. Entering the online marketplace has shown us that we need to keep a competitive edge above our rivals in the industry. While there are only a handful of companies that deal in the same products that we do, the competition is fierce to claim the hearts of those buying fire glass, fire bowls, or any other fireplace accessory. This means listening to our customers to see how we can better serve them. Serving them is our primary goal. Because the lists for the products we carry have a lot of crossover with each other, Starfire Direct understands that a client might want all of the accessories they’re browsing located in one place.
Structure
The web-development crew has been working hard re-organizing and cataloging the category listings and descriptions for our products. By re-structuring our website, Starfire Direct hopes to limit confusion and frustration our customers might experience ordering from our website for the first time. For example, if someone were interested in building a new fire pit oasis in their backyard from scratch, they would be interested in looking at outdoor furniture, fire pit collections, gas burner sets, our fire glass collections, alternatives such as ceramic logs, and lava rocks. Before the redesign, these selections would each be in their own area of the website, unconnected with each other and difficult to find to the first time browser. Now, one simple selects the “fire pit,” category from the left-hand side of the front page, and all of those choices are available there without having to dig for them. This is true of all types of projects we tried to anticipate whether one is refurbishing a fireplace or buying a fire bowl for an outdoor conversation area, all categories now include items that would help augment and accessorize each project.
Descriptions
While our team has been working hard to upgrade our category listings, we’ve also been taking the chance to clean sweep the product descriptions themselves. For some time, Starfire Direct has been guilty of handling the descriptions for our similar products in similar ways. Now, complete care is being taken to ensure that our online descriptions fully match the products that they describe. No more will a customer find the same listing for two different types of fire glass or fire shapes and stones from the same makers. Now, each product has been given the same individual care and attention that each customer gets from us. Again, this is a small change visually, but a huge one for the customer. This way, they get a clear and exact idea of what it is they’re considering purchasing. This way, clients will have the option of knowing exact available colors through visual swatches as we incorporate color theory from current design trends as we consider all of these things when writing the descriptions.
While these additions may seem invisible, it is an important to note that like the trained magician, it is in the ease of motion and transition through practice and hard work that sells the illusion. On the surface, the category listings might seem simple, but behind the scenes, it takes great planning and care to handle the changeover smoothly. By keeping all possible accessories connected to each other visually, we hope to limit the time customers spend on our website looking for what it is they need. Time is important and no one should have to wallow through pages of items to find the one they want. With our continued efforts over the next two weeks, Starfire Direct homes to improve the experience by making it an efficient and stress-free process for our customers.
