Rake Mark Web Design Selected to Update Stafford Craft Website

Stafford website design company Rake Mark Solutions are proud to announce that they have been selected by Andrea Crafts to make further updates to the highly popular craft website. Website owner Vicky Andrea said, “Sarah has always looked after me really well, when I wanted to make some more updates it was an easy choice.”

Last year the Andrea Crafts website underwent a major overhaul with a full redesign of the website, a re-write of some of the copy and the inclusion of the blog and news and events sections. Vicky asked the Rake Mark team to add some new pages and make some further design amendments to the popular WordPress Content Managed Website. The ammended website went live today [20th April]

Sarah Brasssington from Rake Mark said, “I love working with Vicky, she has such an artistic eye and the thank you card is always hand made and really special”

About Rake Mark Solutions

Rake Mark is a Website Design and Online Marketing Company based in Stafford and serves the whole of the West Midlands. Rake Mark has been commissioned for projects involving a diverse range of clients from smaller local businesses to Premier League Football Clubs.

To see how Rake Mark can help you with your website design go to www.RakeMark.com or call 01785 256 222. Enquiries regarding this press release should be directed to Sarah Brassington of Rake Mark Solutions.

Website Card Processing – My Sage Pay Updated

A year ago I posted a blog on how impressed with Sage Pay I was. I really was totally thrilled, with the application, with the gateway and most importantly of all, with the customer service. I have exclusively recommended Sage Pay since then and implemented it into all of our e-commerce launches. Even during the disastrous My Sage Pay update in October I was advising existing customers to hold tight and still recommending them to new customers.

At a birthday party in December I was talking shop (Sorry Sarah, you know I try not to) and Sage Pay came up. The general consensus in the group was that Sage Pay was just too good to abandon, and even with the difficulties I have faced, I still agreed and looked forward to a clean system in 2011.

Since then the original blog post about SagePay has received some comments, mostly negative, mostly after the big website re-design. It is the ongoing problems and these comments that prompted me to write this update. Also, I can tell you that last week my first customer weighed up the pros and cons and signed up with WorldPay. I just couldn’t with a hand on heart recommend Sage Pay any more.

What Went Wrong?

Sometimes you can’t pinpoint the moment that a service stopped firing. With Sage Pay you can see it clearly. The October My Sage Pay update was problematic and it never seems to have worked right ever since.

I constantly have to report issues with parts of My Sage Pay not working. It is usually the Sage Pay security element, 3rd Man. It either doesn’t calculate the score, or you can’t see the detail or My Sage Pay just crashes. At least when it crashes now it doesn’t lock you out for 15 minutes and it does work in the Internet Explorer web browser (it didn’t for about a month you know).

New E-Commerce Website Recommendation?

At the time of writing all of our existing e-commerce customers are staying put, those with SagePay are sticking with Sage Pay and those with WorldPay or PayPal for their websites are staying with them, but some of them are considering their options. New customers get the full low down and then get to make a choice.

It is much easier for us to just implement Sage Pay and PayPal, we don’t want to have to support different gateways, but we have a responsibility to our clients. Will WorldPay work out any better? Time will tell, and I’ll try to keep you posted.

Online Sales Continue to Rise as High Street Sales Plummet

There was good news for online retailers today as Internet sales continued to buck the trend of falling sales. As The British Retail Consortium (BRC) recorded its worst fall in sales since records began, with like for like sales down 3.5%, Website sales were 7.5% higher than a year ago. Although this is a slowdown for Web Sales, down from the 10% plus growth seen last month, it is still a light in another wise gloomy retail outlook.

Further gloom for offline retailers came from Research group Springboard who reported that footfall in town centres and High Streets across the UK fell by 1.3% against this time last year.

Director General of the BRC Stephen Robertson says the figures are ‘very poor indeed’, adding that shoppers did not want to spend ‘unless they really had to’.

‘Falling disposable incomes and the fear of worse to come means people don’t want to spend,’ added Mr Robertson.
E-Commerce, Cost Effective Solutions?
With continued growth in online sales and falling sales offline, is it too late for retailers who currently don’t sell via their Website take advantage of e-commerce and do they need a large budget? Philip Brassington, Technical Director at Rake Mark solutions suggests its possible.

Mr Brassington said, ‘With online sales still growing it’s not too late to begin taking advantage of this sales channel. Although the online market place continues to be crowded it continues to grow in size, and its not to late to claim your market share.

‘And in regards to cost, Mr Brassington said, ‘The biggest cost in an e-commerce solution is the time that the store owner needs to spend adding products and maintaining the store. We can reduce this cost by offering full technical and software support, making the overall total cost of ownership lower than with other solutions. Most store owners spend less than £1000 with Rake Mark to get their online shop up and running.

‘Staffordshire Website Design Company Offer the Easy E-Commerce Solution

Twitter’s New Look

Twitter Change Look

When I say new look, what I actually mean is ‘Twitters Newest Look’. The web designers at Twitter are kept busy with their fair share of updates, improvements and changes throughout their social media website www.twtter.com.
In amongst the most recent set of changes includes a change in the ‘Twitter Blue’, from bright & light to a more metallic & dust blue. The homepage has also been given a much cleaner and crisper look, displaying now a simple bar to display the most popular users. The ‘Signup section’ is now much clearer and has been made a lot easier for New user to clearly map what they need to do to create an account.
While I personally quite like the changes they are all visual changes but I would say that the biggest change of all is the language & user journey change.
Twitter now moving away from ‘what’s going on’ (asking you for input to tell others) seems to have now changed focus to ‘Follow your interests’ (giving you an insight into those that you follow). Now worded as ‘Follow your interests: Instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world.’
It is subtle and while many will notice the visual change, will miss the very clever way that twitter is changing the way it asks us to communicate and potentially the reasons for the shift in the market it is now aiming for?
So a shift in the market place for Twitter? Maybe?

New e-Commerce Website for Stafford Company, Locks & Latches

Rake Mark Solutions, the website design and e-commerce website company in Stafford have announced that they have been selected to create a new e-commerce website for Stafford Ironmongers, Locks and Latches.

The successful retailer already has a busy trade counter and mail order business from their Tollgate Industrial Estate Headquarters and have decided that now is the time to compliment their business with a new e-commerce website.

Philip Brassington, a director from Rake Mark Solutions, said “From meetings we’ve had with the team at Locks and Latches we’re really excited to be working with them and of course very proud to be selected.”

Discussing how Rake Mark can help Locks and Latches, Mr Brassington said, “There is a huge untapped potential there and I am very hopeful of an upturn in their business within a few months of going live. The online door locks and Ironmongery business is short on competition and we’re confident that we can help them take a good stance in the market”

Rake Mark Helping Local Business Succeed Online

Rake Mark have been helping businesses in Stafford build a web presence and use their websites effectively to sell products and services and bring in more visitors, interest, leads and sales for Stafford businesses.

Find out how Rake Mark can help your online business, regardless of where you are, by calling 01785 256 222 or visiting www.RakeMark.com