T minus 5 Days to Launch

As we mentioned last week, we were literally sitting on our hands looking for things to do.  Well, that all changed early yesterday morning when we received an email from our developer, The Hype Lab, saying that our site was ready for review.  It's not often I work from the comfort of my Bob-o-pedic, but I fired up the laptop and eagerly checked out the site.  The design looked great, and it's a really solid base to build on.



After combing through the site later in the day, we put together a list of probably thirty items that need attention.  Who knew that there were so many pages and layers to a decent online store?  Most of the issues centered around alignment and spacing, a problem that is easy to fix.  We did come across a few issues that see to be more Network Solutions issues than design issues, and we'll be spending the next couple days working through those.

Image via Wikipedia

We need to get better at operating within the Network Solutions software.  Yesterday we got hung up on setting up our shipping options, and couldn't make the checkout process work.  Apparently Boston isn't a destination that the US Postal Service can ship to.  Hmmm, that strikes me as odd, since I got about 400 pieces of junk mail last week via the good old USPS.



We'll also be working on our roll out plan.  Right now, I think our best bet is to start small, with a limited number of products and a limited number of customers.  That way, we can see exactly how the process works from start to finish and basically make sure we don't screw it up.  No one hates a bad online shopping experience more than we do, and we'd hate to be the cause of the crime.



Check back with us each day this week, as we'll be posting a "T minus" blog each day until our launch.