Successful web site design doesn`t happen until web retailers listen to their customers and respond with the features and functions they want most, ActionEnvelope.com chief operating officer Seth Newman told attendees June 9 at the 2008 Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago.
In the past eight years, ActionEnvelope.com, No. 439 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, has redesigned its site four times, Newman told attendees during a workshop session, "The Basics of Web Site Design and Content-Engaging the Shopper for More Sales."
In 2008, ActionEnvelope.com spent more than $200,000 on a site redesign that features a new Made-to-Order feature that allows customers to create customized envelopes by size, color, stock and window. A new drop-down tab also lets existing customers sign in and complete a reorder without having to scroll through product pages.
But the redesign, which the retailer credits with generating web sales of about $985,000 the first month after it launched, wouldn`t have been nearly as successful if the company didn`t listen to customers and make it easier to locate envelopes and create custom products. "You can`t make them have to think," Newman said. "It has to be an intuitive process."
Over the course of a decade in business, the design for ActionEnvelope.com has evolved from a very simple process into a complex initiative that took the retailer and Alexander Interactive Inc., its New York design firm, almost 8,000 programming hours to complete. "When we redesigned the site in 2004, it took us 2,160 hours and this last time the total was 7,657 hours," Newman said.
The site redesign was more complex because ActionEvelope.com plowed through thousands of customer comments and then built the features and functions that shoppers wanted most. "We`ve had breakthroughs on the product pages during each redesign because we listened to what the customers had to say."
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