In the hopes to make a name for myself and my company in the world of shoes, I am always attempting to use what I have to make everything to the best of my ability. When you first start a company, assuming that you don’t get massive investment, you tend to start quite fresh i.e. limited resources (aka money). And when you don’t have those resources, you can only do what you can without spiraling into debt and thus bankrupting yourself before you get off of the ground. Therefore, I always believed that it was better to walk before you run, so naturally built the company one sale at a time.
In doing so you spend a certain amount on products, sell those products to make a profit, use that profit to buy more products and thus make more profit and so on and so on. At a certain point you make enough profit to finally pay yourself and to start doing other things like build websites, take more/better photography and constantly upgrade everything, from paper shredders, to chairs in your office to your desks etc. People often think that margins are all about putting money into one’s pockets but more so than not, it is about being able to upgrade your company to becoming better and better.
That being, when we first launched the website, we needed something that was simply functional and looked clean. Obviously you cannot keep it stagnant forever though and must upgrade. So we did. Now we have created something a bit more picture focused, at least on the main page and I think slightly more functional in a practical manner with the imagery. Also, we have created the option of adding our shoe trees to your order directly at the shoe product page in which you add your shoes to the cart. That way you don’t have to look for the shoe trees. They will be right there. You will see what I mean if you buy a pair. (we will test this, see how it goes and might add toe taps in the same manner).
On a shipping note, we have listened to the people outside of the EU and created an option whereby you can select which shipping courier you would want us to use (as shown above). We currently use UPS and DHL and have added the option of using Royal Mail as well (for all non-EU shipments). Using the Royal Mail option will cost extra money but apparently runs the possibility of not being hit by customs. Royal Mail will cost you extra money as the private courier (Parcel�Force) charges nearly double but many people are requesting to use service for their own reasons so we have added this as an option. (You can read more about this HERE)
But the best news of all for many of you is that we are now offering:
FREE SHIPPING TO THE US AND CANADA FOR WELTED SHOE PURCHASES
(only by selecting UPS or DHL)
So please check out our new look and let me know what you think. ��http://www.jfitzpatrickfootwear.com/
We hope that you enjoy the changes and as always please email me for anything you might require assistance with
Sincerely,
Justin, “The Shoe Snob”
The new website looks great. One thing I think would really improve it is more pictures of your shoes being worn. Especially given that your designs tend towards the unconventional, this kind of picture really helps the customer to see what kind of effect you were going for.
For example, the on-foot pictures of the suede/calf wallingfords and the denim/calf wedgwoods made me see that these designs really work and made me consider buying them, whereas I definitely wouldn’t have done so based only on the off-foot pictures and descriptions.
I’m sure more on-foot pictures of the other shoes would have exactly the same effect on me and on other customers.
What you write about Royal Mail and Parcel Force costing double may be true for US and Canada, but it is simply not true for Switzerland. That you don’t clarify this shows you don’t know what you are takking about, just like that poster Michael who for whatever reason introduces Amazon! Since when does Amazon serve as courier for clothing and shoes from England or UK to Switzerland? He’s spreading desinformation which you should correct.