Brown on brown, the color of mud: that sums up the design of the website we inherited when we bought Furniture Consignment Gallery in 2005. Updating the site was one of the first tasks we tackled after we sipped the celebratory champagne.
Diana, my wife, favored Kentucky Blue, in part to pay homage to her home state. Her keen eye for design was soon evident to anyone who googled FCG. The new website got a makeover and emerged with an exuberant blue, lots of crisp white and the occasional splash of red.
We had other bold ideas. FCG had outgrown the static, single-page web postcard featuring only our hours and location. We wanted to post a gorgeous piece of furniture, with a description and price. Trouble is, as soon as we uploaded it, the piece would sell and we had the laborious task of uploading a new image with text.
Remember, this was back in the aughts when websites were as slow and clunky as an old horse and cart.
Every year, as we learned more about the web, we made improvements to our site. In 2016, we upgraded to a full ecommerce site. Today, every item that comes into our stores gets posted to the site with lots of valuable information on pricing, brand, and condition.
Now, FCG is about to undertake another major overhaul of its site. This Tuesday, our skilled experts will upgrade the site again. While the new site will look similar to the one we have now, design-wise, it will be optimized for easier searching and it will help us maintain a robust presence on social media.
We’re proud of the online following we’ve built, and our website has proven itself a bit addictive. Every day, 2,000 shoppers are on our site, checking out the wares. Hopefully, the changes will make our site even more pleasurable for our customers.
Some changes to our category organization will be apparent as soon as today. We may have a few hours of downtime on Tuesday. Also, it might take a couple of days to upload all our inventory onto the new site. You should be able to view the furniture and accessories, but you won’t be able to buy online until the upgrade is complete. Not to worry, however, as we're able to help you make a purchase the old fashioned so just give us a call and we can process your order by phone. We hope you like the new site, and we’re excited to hear your feedback. Wish us luck!
