Website Review - it is just as important as a store walkabout

Have you recently taken a look at your website through the eyes of a customer or asked family or friends to take a walk through your website? 

In the same way as walking your garden centre once a week from car park / entry, through the customer flow, to the checkout as a customer does, it is also important to do the same with your web site.

A number of people say to us, that before visiting a store they have not been to before, they will check out the website first. If the website is not smart, easy to navigate and informative, they will presume the shop is the same.

Recently Bill Brett did a little surfing of websites of interest to him. He found

• Most were easy to navigate and reasonably smart.
• Some have information or articles which are at least 10 years out of date especially for chemicals and garden care products. 
• Some have very shallow, generic information about how to care for plants and what to use for pests and disease
• Some still list for sale. products that have been withdrawn and by law cannot be sold.
• There are at least ten organisations that have not replied to his requests for information though their Contact Us page. 

This reminded him of an experience he had in Australia a few years ago. Bill writes 

"I was visiting some country clients which involved two days driving interstate and decided to drop in with a courtesy call in on a client I had worked for about 3 years earlier. This client was an award winning, market leader who regularly attended conferences in Australia, New Zealand, and International Congress.

As I didn’t have their contact details with me, I visited their website, and left a message of the time and day that I would be calling in. I duly arrived and they were very surprised to see me. “Why didn’t you let us know earlier that you were calling in?”

I could see the look of horror on their faces when I said, “I left a message on your website ‘Contact’ page. They went and checked and sure enough my message was there along with some 300 messages left over the previous 18 months, which had never been looked at!"

Imagine how those 300 people - mostly customers feel about that garden centre!

Most websites today direct messages to your email box so you should be aware on a daily basis who is contacting you. But it is a reminder of how timely we should be as a business getting back to customer inquiries and messages

Take some time to look at your website objectively.

• Does it reflect the way you want people to view your garden centre or does it look too flash compared with your garden centre?
• Is it easy to navigate, with no broken links?
• Does the 'What to do in your garden this month' offer sound information and advice. Have you checked the chemicals you suggest comply with current regulations?
• Is your calendar of store activities up to date?
• Is it showing the latest promotions?