My last post asked you to "Please stand by" because of working on the new online store. And, it turns out, with good reason.
I'm very happy to announce, as softly as possible, that the store now has a name, a domain, a Business Plan with my web-host that allows me to process payments,and a structure that is pretty much fleshed out. After much agonizing, I settled on the name, "Lazy River Design Works," a name that ticks most of the boxes. Being on a lazy river means a relaxing good time, usually on vacation, in the sun and on the water. That means UV protection and a shirt that will help keep you cool, a situation easily filled by what I have to offer. Also, everyone who has been on a lazy river loves a lazy river; it has a very smile-inducing positive association, often tinged with nostalgia. I think and I hope that this will make the name an effective one.
The above image is a stitch-together of three screens of the shop's Home Page viewed at 80%. Now that the site is live, the structure is more-or-less complete, almost all the pages have had a design format applied to them, and there is a bunch of virtual product inventory, I am closer than ever to making this a real and working thing. It's actually pretty exciting.
If you do visit the Lazy River, please keep in mind that:
- None of the Buy or Add to Cart options will work. You can't purchase anything. I have to set up shipping and a couple other important steps (including product testing and checking for quality) before it's possible to order a hat from me.
- Most of the prices are whackadoo. Please ignore prices.
- There's still a LOT of text to add, including Product Descriptions.
- Most of the site has not been configured or fine-tuned for mobile. I've given a few pages a tweak, but this is still a major job that needs doing before I open up. I don't feel like Wix does very well with this, which is something of a drag, but at this point I am pot-committed with them.
As I figure out the specifics of each print-on-demand/dropship manufacturer I'm considering as suppliers, it's looking more and more like I'm going to be using more than just one of them. It's very conceivable that two different supplier will provide the same product with the same design but at very different price-points. In the running right now are HugePOD, InterestPrint, and Printify.
Back to work!