We have for two months struggled with this new site. And truthfully there is a lot of work to do on it. I know the frustration when you are on a site and things don't go well. It make me want to never return. We now have almost all the bugs worked out and can start building on it again. Please try us again now that it is much more functional. My apologies for all the frustration it has caused.
We needed a bigger site as we have a lot of products and the old Dutchware site couldn't organize the categories and there were limitations as what we could offer as far as options on the product pages. This became obviously clear last year when we launched MakeYourGear.com. We needed a whole new site just to organize and fit it all in. The platform we used was quite simple, so simple I could even make most of the day to day changes and create the new products. But simple does not always make it the best. I wanted a site I could continue to grow. I wanted it easy to navigate and all the products on one site. I wanted easy check out and if you have an account I wanted more payment options. I wanted the payment to be more interactive so when we have to add or make changes on an order we can do so without invoicing and waiting for payment. We wanted the weight to change as you picked different options and display it in ounces and grams. Also you could have multiple addresses and chose the ship to address of your choice like amazon. We also need to manage our inventory better so we wouldn't run out of product. Sounds great but...
First thing that became apparent was we were able to move over everyone's accounts but not the passwords because for security reasons we were never able to see your passwords. The would be no problem because you can just click forgot my password and reset it. Kind of a pain but better than resetting your whole account. Then AT&T decided we were sending out too much email so we must be spam. So many people would not be able to get their passwords reset. Also we could even email them to tell them it was happening from out email address. We contacted them but it took weeks to get them to take us off the spam list.
We had some issues that needed resolved and hired a company to do so. They took forever and no wonder when they charge $150 per hour. But finally we had things going good until we updated. We backed it up and ran the update and lost weeks worth of design and function work. And somehow when we updated the back up also updated so there goes the back up. Prices were not being displayed right. Our colors went away and images of couches replaces out beautiful pictures of bling. Lastly many products couldn't be ordered. Important products like Zing it and Amsteel. I am sure the customer experience was not fun filled. You get everything in your cart and then you go to get you all important sting and you are denied. Well we used another company to start from scratch on the fixed rather than us the old company the honestly if they had done it right we wouldn't have lost our design work when we run a simple update. The new company did great and in 4 working days they fixed most of the problem. We are still a little slower than I would like but we are working on that. But I am glad to say the people and order string again and I am not being swamped with frustrated customer desperate for gear for their trip in a week.
Some of this was my fault because I rushed the launch in my excitement. I really hope now that it has calmed down you feel comfortable to by bling again. Please take the time to reset your password if you haven't already. The site has many cool new functions and we will be making more. I finally feel like we can move forward rather than just try to keep my head above the email water. We will be adding many new and exciting things this summer. My staff has doubled this year and we purchased a new huge building so our capacity to produce is very high. Chameleons are flying out the door and will be on the site before you know it. It will be a very good year.
Thank you all for your patronage. I feel bless everyday that this is what I do for a living and I am very thankful and humbled for the support I have gotten over the years. You guys are the best.
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