As the countdown continues to launchday for The Shutter Store, more and more 'behind the scenes' activities continue to consume each day. Much of this time is focussed on the development of our shutters website which is central to the sucess of our plantation shutters business. The shutters are seen by our customers in Miami, Denver, San Diego and Seattle - all through the 'store window' of our website.
It seems strange to think that it's only really in the past 10 years that websites have become commonplace. Even back in the late '90's websites were still in their infancy, especially for small business. Look now, and you will find that most shutters retailers, shutters manufacturers and shutters wholesalers will all have their own presence, in some shape or form via the internet.
This has of course been a great help to many shutters companies and businesses in general - for very little investment you can have a presence on the web which allows you to give customers a point of reference to look at photos (of for example, your latest range of shutters) or read more information about your product. As in all types of marketing activity, the quality and design aesthetic varies greatly between different sites, especially those selling wooden shutters as I have seen over the years.
However - whatever your site looks like - it is imperative that you host your site on a safe, secure server and have your site built in a way which prevents hackers from accessing your site. This is a problem that you cannot underestimate - there are lots of unscrupulous individuals out there who can send spam mail via your site and do serious damage to your website. Ask yourself, how great the damage could be to your business in terms of lost man hours, lost sales and negative customer relations if your website - shutters or otherwise - was down for a week. It's a big BIG price to pay.
That's why this week we've spent a lot of time and energy making sure that our new American Shutters Store website will be at the leading edge of security. We don't just post nice logos on the site to 'say' we're safe - there's lots going on in the background to make sure the site is stable an safe. Using products like Macafee Hacker Safe is a big step to giving you piece of mind and therefore gives your customers comfort they can shop safely without their data being compromised.
The Shutter Store opens for business 2nd Nov 2009. Based in Nevada, shutters can be purchased anywhere throughout the US for simple self installation. Fauxwood shutters at Hardwood Prices. Shutters you cannot afford to miss.
