Local businesses attract consumers through Web site face-lifts

When Andrew Appel and his wife first bought the cooking supply store Goods for Cooks two years ago, its Web site featured little more than a name, a couple of photos and a phone number.\nToday, Appel says a basic site like that won’t cut it. \n“I can’t afford to be losing good customers to a bad Web experience,” he said. \nAround the city, small local retailers like Appel are giving their sites a face-lift. In an effort to better market themselves, retailers are adding new features, streamlining their site designs and providing unique content to grab consumers’ attention. \nAt Goods for Cooks, Appel has spent more than nine months and $2,000 to create an easier-to-use Web site for his downtown store. \nThe site now lists more than 550 of the store’s products and includes photos and descriptions, a recipes page and feature articles on such topics as Mediterranean olive oils and tailgating. \n“I hope it gets the word out that we have a lot of stuff and we have a lot of legit stuff to take us seriously,” Appel said. \nBy February, customers should able to purchase products directly off the site through an online shopping cart, he said. \nAcross town at sporting goods store Smith’s Sport’n Shoe in the College Mall, owner Steve Smith is adding new graphics and more product information to create a “wow” factor on his site, which he plans to re-launch soon. The old Web site had a basic, no-frills template, Smith said. The new site will also eventually include an online shopping feature. \nAt Twisted Limb Paperworks, a local company that creates recycled paper products, founder and president Sheryl Woodhouse-Keese said she saw a need to make over her 9-year-old site, which she created herself, to help her customers. \n“They could get a lot of information, but it didn’t mean it was easy and fast to use,” she said. “It was an advanced word processing document.” \nSo last spring she hired a local Internet marketing firm, which added a new online ordering system, drop-down menus for easier navigation and a “wish list” feature, which allows customers to pick items and buy them later. \nSuch changes come at a time when a growing number of retailers across the country are sprucing up their sites to better serve consumers. \nA September 2007 study published by Shop.org, part of the National Retail Federation, found that fixing online design and performance issues remains one of the top priorities for retailers. \n“Consumers expect a lot of features built into Web sites,” said Jared Beard, the owner of local Web site design firm White Iron Data, which works with local retailers. “It’s so easy to just move on to the next Web site if you can’t find what you’re looking for.” \nWhile local retailers see the need to improve their sites, they say the process can be daunting. \nAppel, the co-owner of Goods for Cooks, said small businesses, unlike large national competitors, don’t have the luxury of a full-time technology department to constantly keep their sites updated. \nFurthermore, online ordering can be hard to manage, he said. \n“You look at some of the big players on the Internet ... their infrastructure, their customer service, that’s a huge, huge investment,” Smith said. \nStill, even with the challenges, retailers say new sites bring plenty \nof benefits. \nAn effective Web site can attract people to the retail store, better promote the retailer’s products and increase store revenues, Appel said. \nHe said he hopes his site will eventually account for 25 percent, or about $100,000, of the store’s overall revenues. \nBut some local consumers say they aren’t ready to abandon in-store shopping, even if local retailers do offer new features or products online. \n“Most of the time, I’d like to go in and see (a product),” said M.A. Venkataramanan, the chairperson of undergraduate programs at IU’s Kelley School of Business and a regular online shopper. “It’s kind of fun.”