A Fresh Coat of Paint
If you follow us on social media you will undoubtedly know that last week we made the switch to Shopify. Even though we haven't been around for too long we thought it was as good a time as any to give the website a fresh coat of paint and improve things like speed & reliability.
Let's a take a look at some of the new features and layout designs so we can give you an idea of our thought process behind the recent changes.
So first of all, on the main page our product categories are now front and center for easy access to all of our products. Keep an eye out in this space as we add new products over the coming weeks and months - we have something pretty big cookin' - to get a bird's eye view of all the different types of products we carry at The Shop.
Redesigning the layout of the site allowed us to take a look at how we were presenting our products, and how that was - and maybe wasn't - working. All product pages now have a uniform design that is organized and displays all the details clearly. With just a quick glance you can see what quantity the product is sold in, and the description of the product. All base and speciality grains have clear specifications for colour, moisture max, protein etc, and you can use the handy radio buttons to let us know if you want your grain milled - it's still free 😎. Our hop selection clearly shows country of origin & alpha acids at the top of every page & our local or Canadian grown hops even let you know what farm they came from!
Our top navigation bar has been tweaked slightly to highlight some items that have shown themselves to be quite popular - namely The Loaner Program & Bulk Pricing. If you are not a brewer right now and have been checking out the site to decide if you want to get into the hobby keep and eye here. The Loaner Program is being improved with video appendices for the manual, and a better FAQ, as well as other ways to make the service more accessible. These improvements will be live in the coming weeks.
Live chat! Shopify has a great chat integration program that you can use to get in touch with us if you have questions while you are browsing The Shop. Customers that have orders out can also check the status using the handy AI. Keep in mind that The Community Brew Shop is a pretty small team so asking questions about grain at 3AM might not get you a prompt response 😂. The chat button is designed the be small and unobtrusive, and can be found in the lower left hand corner of your browser window while you browse The Shop.
With our move to Shopify we now have access to new payment methods. Of course you can still pay with Visa, Mastercard, PayPal & bitcoin - but we have added American Express as well as Apple & Google Pay services to the website. A large portion of our traffic comes from mobile devices so the decision to add ApplePay & GooglePay was an easy one, and we hope it makes your mobile experience even better.
Now Derek and I couldn't very well just launch a new site design without any cool new items to feature on said site, so we did that as well! For all brewers of honey wheat ales or mead you can now buy genuine New Brunswick honey from the site. Derek has also been hard at work designing and crafting upcycled growler totes, and these are now available on the site. These unique designs are made from our grain bags and are a great way to get that growler to your next social gathering or event.
Thank you to all our customers for joining us in the early stages of our homebrew shop journey. We appreciate all your support, and please feel free to send us your feedback about the new design, and what features you would like to see in the future. You can also leave a review of your experience with The Shop on Facebook or Google.
Cheers!
Christian