Noble Octopus were commissioned by local crafter Steph, to create an attractive ecommerce website for her small craft business ‘Bumblebee Crafts.’
Steph had been selling her products locally through social media and word of mouth. More recently she’d started to post her creations on Etsy. Steph was finding lots of customers were contacting her directly, asking questions about her products and where they could be bought. We were approached by Bumblebee Crafts to create an attractive website to reflect Steph’s personality and business type.
The requirements for the website included a portfolio of Bumblebee Craft’s wide and expanding range of products, friendly and engaging information about the business, a simplified method for contacting the business, and an online shop.
We wanted to create a professional looking online shop, whilst maintaining the feel of an independent crafter. To do this, our design team created the peg-board style graphic for the homepage. We made the decision to display images in a polaroid style, a feature which carries through from the home page, to the rest of the website.
One of the complications of this project was the fact that whilst Steph has a wide range of products, they are all bespoke, and she doesn’t always have them in stock within the shop. In order to combat this, we made sure to display a wide range of products across the website. The Designs page allowed us to display all of the products, with obvious calls to action to encourage the user to contact Bumblebee Crafts if they were interested in a specific design.
Our completed website includes a custom styled ‘woo commerce’ shop, complete with Stripe payment integration, allowing card payments to be taken securely online. The website sends out custom designed emails to customers, with emails set up in a way which ensures emails go straight into the customer’s inbox, not their junk folder! We’ve also handled all of the legal work. We’ve included a privacy policy, terms of use and cookie policy.
For many small and independent businesses, a custom designed website can feel like an unnecessary expense and complication. At Noble Octopus we specialise in working alongside small to medium businesses to create cost effective design packages. Our websites start at around £500, and are built on a platform which is easy to use and manage. Why’s this better than a website from SquareSpace or Wix? We charge a one off fee for the design, and you then own the website. You can use it for years to come, and build your business on solid foundations.
