So much new

I'm not great at spending on Pickles but we ended 2018 with great sales, so last week I splurged on both an iPad/ Apple pencil AND an overdue new Macbook! And here's the newest new: a site shop update!

About a year ago, I changed from Weebly to Shopify as my website host— I LOVED Weebly so much

(side note: I was even once an e-commerce example website for their meeting, look at A Jar of Pickles on their projector! #cool)

but my catalog was getting big (I was at about 70 SKU's at that point) and I needed some more functionality to support more and more products. BUT, I will forever recommend Weebly for smaller shops just starting out, as it's much easier to learn and much cheaper ;) 

So a year ago I took many hours to learn Shopify and chose Symmetry as a theme to purchase, which I really loved! My website looked quite good and I was happy with it for the past year. But as I'm launching wedding suites (and more), I needed a functional upgrade. 

Here are some upgrades, side-by-sides with my new theme (called Envy)

Homepage:

Before (left), new (right)

1. Promotions
   could only go in this weird spot right under the navigation on old theme, which was easily overlooked. Even one of my frequent customers (hi, Ashley from Oklahoma!!) had to reach out last week and ask me where the promo for 20% off love&friendship was :/ Now the new promo is as a ribbon on top, which is more standard (and very pink rn)
   
   
2. Navigation
   My #1 qualm with Symmetry!! The full page-width dropdown navigation is for sure a huge UX no-no :(... this new one is waaay more clear (this will be really important for the wedding collections, you'll see!)  
   
   

Collection pages:

Before (left), new (right)

1. Alt img on hover
   Soo awesome since we work to have mult good pics for all our products to use in other mediums (esp instagram!)

Product pages:

Before (left), new (right)

1. Breadcrumbs!!!!!
   Tracking your browsing path is so so so necessary for perusing products. 
   
   Also please note again how much more clear & eye-catching the top ribbon promo is.... 
   Also oops I see now there is 2x quantity options, to be changed
   
   

There will be many more tiny improvements that will make a load of difference for wedding suites... one of the many things on my to-do list before we launch! Also, one of my big projects at work last year was a huge redesign for KiwiCo's store so a lot of features we worked on there was on my mind while finding a new theme for Pickles.