Continuing our a mini-series of posts about making your consignment, resale, or thrift shop’s web site do what you want it to do:

to get shoppers into your actual, physical, bricks-&-mortar, REAL store.

Today, let’s self-diagnose. Pull up your web site and check 3 things.

Take a look at your “consigning” or “what we take” page. Check to make sure your supplier information is short, sweet, sounds easy…  and has a way to contact the shop if the reader has questions. Does your wording sound like this will be fun, worthwhile… or does it sound bossy and defensive?

Verify that you have social media links clearly displayed on every page of your site, if you rely upon Facebook for most of your marketing efforts. The actual links, not just a “Find us on Facebook” suggestion. (Try finding some business on Facebook, and see what happens. It’s difficult, not altogether reliable, and besides, if anything’s too hard on the web, the viewer/ surfer/ potential customer will simply give up. So LINK with the actual URL.) (If you are unclear about what your Facebook URL is, log into Facebook and click this and read this. Then read this.)

Contact/ location page: Does it have everything a stranger would need to find your shop? Name, address, a map? Does it have your hours and a phone number if they need to call you? Is there a photo of your location, whether it’s the pylon sign of your shopping center, a shot of your shop from the street, landmarks and locator line? And finally: could they print it out and take it with them?

Any comments? Anything you see on your pages that you’d like to change? Anything you disagree with, so far in this series of posts? Any thoughts to add to this topic?