Hawkgirl - 12:51 am on Jul 8, 2003 (gmt 0)

I'll add my voice to the "don't do it!" camp.

But I think you can probably placate the client by doing something else on the site.

If it were my client I would explain very carefully and very thoroughly the difference between online shopping and bricks 'n mortar shopping ... and discuss how easy it is to lose someone off the home page if they don't see what they're looking for, fast.

Then I would suggest something similar to what dragonlady7 recommended:

Put the quaint shop pic somewhere else. Perhaps have a more "quaint" decorating scheme internally

Or a really cool "about us" section using the quaint shop pic as a background or a template or a "virtual tour" or something. Something that tells the client, "I understand how important it is for you to have this on your site. and for the purposes of efficient ecommerce, THIS is the correct place to put it."

You are the expert - you're there to guide your client and help them make the right choices. Good luck!