Surprise! Website has been re-designed!

Or should we warn customers first?

[mahlon]

Would you want to be warned of a major site re-design to a shopping site you visit or would you rather be surprised? We are thinking of warning customers first, mabie giving them the choice to try the new site.

[mack]

If you have an opt in mailing list this could be a good opertunity to invite your member back and offer feedback.

[mivox]

Depends on the site. One of the financial services sites I use frequently just redesigned their front end... I was *really* annoyed at having to spend a good 10 minutes trying to find my way through the "new improved" site to the spot I needed to go. An advance warning and "how-to" guide would have been very appreciated.

If it were an entertainment/info type site, I probably wouldn't mind too much though.

[pleeker]

I would warn first. Shopping is such a habitual thing. You're essentially asking customers to give up their old habits and form new ones. Best to warn.

If you can also give them a preview, all the better. If nothing else, perhaps show a couple screen shots so they can at least get their feet, err ... eyes wet.

Good luck.

[engine]

Imagine if it's a bricks and mortar business - they'd want all the notification (publicity) of a refurbished store that they could get.

The same goes for the online website.

"Our website has recently been refurbished with some new features.... blah, blah, blah..."

[rjohara]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that when eBay changed its background color once they did it over a period of weeks, one subliminal step at a time, in the hope that people wouldn't even realize it was happening. They feared a flood of mail complaining about the change (any change).

[Sinner_G]

>they'd want all the notification (publicity) of a refurbished store that they could get

I don't think a redesign would get you any publicity nowadays, except if it is not only graphical but also functional.

If there is no risk that users might not find the content they used to find, I would let it be a surprise.

[gsx]

I recently redesigned a whole shopping cart site, everything from the colours to using less graphics to a simpler checkout process.

I didn't warn warn any of my regular customers, however I did leave the navigation structure in the same place on the page and the buy buttons in the same place. There were some major changes also; older cookies were ignored, the shopping basket pages went from four pages of forms to just two (including the credit card processing page) and the add to basket button now takes you straight to the basket (it used to just alert the user that an item had been added).

I did expect some compaints, but I got none - maybe that's because the navigation was so similar except for the basket and checkout, which was made simpler and easier.

[Grumpus]

In addition to what's already mentioned... Just make sure that if a customer bookmarked "item X" so they can come back after pay-day and buy it that "item X" still shows up and not a 404.

G.

[Axacta]

>Shopping is such a habitual thing. You're essentially asking customers to give up their old habits and form new ones.<

I have no expertise at shopping sites, but I do know that about every six months I am going to be blowing a gasket at Costco when they do their inevitatable biannual floor plan change. Drives me crazy! You just get to the point where you can remember where everything is so you can get in and out without doing any searching, and then they change everything around. Somebody should be fired!