Website: Level Cleared!

Phew! So after talking to a few experts, I found out my issues with getting the shopping cart tuned to my liking are universal. Essentially, you either pay a third-party organization to host your inventory or you put a big disclaimer on your site letting customers know we only have one of each item. So we're going the cheaper, less-stressful route!

The website is now back up and running as it was before, just with some extra notices about item availability. I also was able to take care of the shipping issue, so now if you want to buy more than one item, you won't be slammed with separate shipping fees per item!

Thank you for bearing with us and go check out our selection! More to come in a couple days! :D

-Ryan

Website frustrations

The website design was a tough hill to climb. But the hill had some very definitive start and end points, with some clearly marked obstacles I just had to hop over or walk around.

The shopping cart portion, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. Weebly is very PayPal friendly and comes with pre-designed elements that allow you to add a name, image, description and price to products, all including a Buy Now or Add to Cart button.

The only problem is that both buttons have serious drawbacks.

Add to Cart is a very familiar button, in that it is versatile and allows customers to "customize" their order by buying many items at once. But since our products are one-of-a-kind, there is literally only one of each item. But Add to Cart has a quantity section where a customer can order, say, 15 of a certain necklace (and pay for it). That is not at all preferable, so I realized that a Buy Now button, while being less convenient, would prevent overbuying.

The problem with the Buy Now button is that, say a customer buys three necklaces, they would be buying them individually, which would mean three separate shipping fees. For one package with three necklaces in it. The price would skyrocket, and customers would understandably be upset.

PayPal allows custom button creation that allows you to set stock counts and only charge so much shipping for a certain number of items, but the problem is that each product would have to have a custom button created for it. Each of those buttons would have to be put on the website independent of the product title, image and description, making the site look sloppier.

Google Shoppingcart is a much better solution, and is supported by Weebly, but the main drawback is that customers would HAVE to set up a Google account, whereas PayPal gives the option of a "Guest purchase."

Needless to say, 5+ hours working on this with no real long-term solution is a bit demoralizing. I think I'm going to go to sleep now and hope tomorrow brings more answers and less problems.

Wish me luck! :D

Ryan

The Indigo Owl v2.0!

After months of inactivity, we decided to, essentially, re-start The Indigo Owl. Before it was just a way to test the waters and see if any of my extra jewelry would sell. Now, we've taken a more serious approach, which began with a complete re-design of the brand.

As you may have noticed, this blog has undergone some serious design modifications by my boyfriend/photographer/webmaster, Ryan Ritter. Even more impressive than the changes here, however, are those on the website. I hand-painted a new logo, as well as the background for the website, and Ryan was able to incorporate those into a new overall design direction for the business.

The second phase of our new approach was to build stock and get it online. Hundreds of dollars and many, many hours have been invested in the creation of over 30 pieces.

But one of the biggest changes we've made is that I am no longer doing the creative part on my own. My awesome friend Kay Brusca has joined me as a partner for the Indigo Owl, and together we're creating pieces not just for our online sales, but also for craft shows where we plan to start selling jewelry in the coming months.

These changes are huge and exciting and I hope you all like where this is going! We appreciate your support!

I'd better get back to beading now....here is a comparison of the old and new website designs, just for your sheer amusement!

Old:

New!: