In early April we asked stores already live on IndieCommerce 2.0 to participate in a survey about their experience with their new website. We sent survey invites to every bookstore that is currently hosted on IndieCommerce 2.0 and 25.2% of those stores have completed the survey so far.
Rate the following aspects of IndieCommerce 2.0 from "Very Poor" to "Very Good"
These results give us insight into what is working and what can be improved. As you can see, the new platform has received a great deal of positive feedback as well as feedback about possible issues we want to know more about to meet the expectations of our member stores.
Where survey results such as the blue and red feedback shown in the bar graphs above are showing that some bookstores are experiencing issues, we will reach out to them for a call to gather more information about their concerns and the difficulties they are experiencing. We currently have several of these meetings scheduled following this particular survey. Based on these survey results and the follow up information that we gather, we will then make changes to the 2.0 platform as warranted.
This pool of new bookstores on 2.0 gives us a powerful tool that we utilize to address issues they may be having and improve the platform for bookstore migrations that will follow them.
Additional positive feedback we received from stores that completed the survey include:
- “It's a much more streamlined order processing system, and it's easier to navigate simple changes on the website's homepage”
- “I appreciate (the new calendar’s) “event series”. It's much easier to run book clubs now.”
- “The website looks great. The product layout is nice too.”
- “More options on the home page, and ease of updating content. Order tags are also helpful.”
- “Our online sales have increased significantly since switching to 2.0, so the customer feedback has been very positive!”
- “Overall a much improved experience, both as a backend user and a customer!”
- “Design-wise, it's a huge step forward. Our website went from looking like a BlogSpot to looking like a web designer was involved -- thank you so much for that.”
Along with these comments, bookstores that completed the survey also submitted a number of requests for modifications to existing features as well as suggestions for future updates to the new platform. Here are some examples of those:
- “I miss having the ISBN print out on the receipt; we use the receipts as picklists in the store, and it's also easier for customers to then see if the book they ordered matches the book received. We manually write the ISBNs on the receipts we use as picklists.”
- “Having orders indicating wish list items. Being able to run reports showing the total orders that used a specific coupon.”
- “We really dislike that the "Discounted" banner is automatic; we'd like to be able to remove it for some books where we adjust the price.”
- “We miss having the option for more than four menu items.”
- “We downgraded to save money, and we miss seeing in-stock inventory and being able to (list) non-book items.” (Note: This store chose Tier 1 on the Indiecommerce 2.0 platform, which has fewer features instead of Tier 2.)
After all this information from stores has been processed, if we find a problem that needs to be addressed or we need to make a change to existing code, we then divert development resources from the migration to address those changes. Yes, this can cause delays in the migration, but it also makes the platform better for all current bookstores on 2.0 as well as those that will be following them in the coming months.