Kudler Fine Foods Internet WebsiteEssay Preview: Kudler Fine Foods Internet WebsiteReport this essayAnalysis and Proposed Changes for Kudler Fine Foods Internet WebsiteUniversity of PhoenixWEB-410William DuliereLearning Team CExecutive Summary:Kudler Fine Foods is a growing company striving to provide its customers with the finest foods and ingredients possible. To serve their customers even better, Kudler has implemented an Internet website to expand their business. Although this is an excellent idea, their current website is lacking in several areas. Our team of computer software specialists will examine Kudlers webpage and examine all of the benefits and some of the drawbacks that it currently offers. We will then submit our proposal of a new website with an intriguing new look to attract new potential customers and encourage existing customers to venture into cyberspace. There is a world of opportunity awaiting Kudler Fine Foods on the internet, and our team will provide an in-depth proposal on how a new website, if marketed correctly, can boost revenues and make Kudler Fine Foods known around the globe.
Analysis of the Kudler Fine Foods WebsiteAlthough Kudler Fine Foods has somewhat of a special niche in food market, as it is not your typical chain “grocery store”, it shouldnt stop them from investing a little time and effort into the marketing of their products and services, particularly with their comapanys website. The members of Team C have put together an analysis of the Kudler Fine Foods website that includes perspectives of three different aspects of the site. The first aspect will be the sites effectiveness, or lack thereof, from a potential customers perspective. The second area well examine is the ease of site management and updating, and how that affects Kudler. Finally, well discuss effective design elements and why they are effective. Based on this analysis, we will subsequently provide some proposals for potential changes to the site.
Looking at the Kudler website from a customers perspective, the most obvious shortcoming that jumps out is the lack of information provided. Although the site does offer basic information, it is lacking in the type of information that so many similar sites are offering these days and that could ultimately bring in potential customers. The information that we are looking for should include some type of pricing information such as items that are currently on sale or coupon offers. This type of information is what catches many consumers attention. If someone is taking the time to research a potential place to purchase a particular product, it would be a pretty safe bet that they are a smart consumer and most smart consumers look for ways to save money. Sometimes just the word “Sale” can draw people in even if the prices may be higher than in other places, so at least they are lured into your store and thus more likely to make a purchase than if there was nothing to grab their attention in the first place. Other types of specials or offerings should also be included in the site. For example, instead of just mentioning that you offer wine and cheese sampling, it may be more advantageous to include which wines and cheeses will be available for a particular week. A more detailed list of available products would also be welcomed information to list on the website. Just saying you have products from all these different countries doesnt necessarily equate to a good thing, especially if the products you are carrying arent recognized for their quality. Therefore, mentioning a few recognizable brand names will give the customer a better idea of exactly what is available to them. Addressing these shortcomings in the type of information provided by the website will go a long way in improving the overall marketing strategy for Kudler, but there are additional concerns about the website that we must address as well.
With the Kudler website possibly being the first experience a potential customer may have with the company, it would be safe to reason that Kudler would want that experience to be a positive one. A well designed web page can provide that positive experience, but a lot of thought and creativity must go into this process, and we dont feel that much thought or creativity went into the Kudler website design. As far as visual appeal is concerned, there is just nothing about the site that jumps out at you or even make you want to visit one of the three Kudler locations. The Kudler Home page is the starting point to this very unappealing website. The dark, dreary colors chosen seem more appropriate for an Alternative music band fan website instead of a company selling items typically found across the world in open air type markets. The very plain fonts used throughout the site could also be spiced up a bit to at least give the impression that some effort was put into the design process. The lack of any actual photos of the store itself is a big deficiency we noted. Just as packaging of an individual product can influence a buyer, so can the “packaging” of a business which is the physical appearance of both the outside and inside of the building. Although the link to Mapquest to get directions to the locations is a nice touch, it would help the customer to have an idea of what the store actually looks like. We have also noted that Kudler currently does not take advantage of any e-commerce capability with its site, and thus misses out on an exponentially huge pool of potential customers.
Maintaining a website can be a full time job depending on the complexity and scope of information that the website provides to the public. In the case of the Kudler website in its current format, the maintenance is virtually zero. None of the information currently being provided requires updating as it is very basic and general in nature. If some of the deficiencies previously noted are addressed, then the maintenance and updating efforts would become a bit more intensive, especially if Kudler decides to add e-commerce capabilities to its site. That being said, there are still a lot of great tools out there that take some of the complexity out of keeping inventories updated by automating the whole process. There are also options to “outsource” the website maintenance to a company who offers those types of services. Either way, we will definitely recommend one of these options for Kudler if they choose to add e-commerce to their site. Whether they choose to do
maintaining them, it must be an extremely high degree of dedication to the project and quality of services that provide an excellent base to build and maintain, and I’m sure they will follow through. As such, I have recommended the site maintenance to Kudler for over a year. However, this is now the time for me to move from the design of the site to an understanding of its future in terms of design and functionality.
In January of 2013, this was the result of having a technical proposal that had been approved by the Council for a final implementation which was approved. This is only an informal final, and an effort is yet to take place. I’m also curious about what the future will hold for Kudler’s website.
This is why the site should never be considered the end-all, be-all for the site.
The final outcome of the site maintenance was that Kudler, in its final form, agreed with a request that Kudler’s maintenance staff, by their own criteria and with their financial and legal support, might take over the maintenance and updating function of the website if they were unable to find any other way. In such a situation, the website would need to receive the changes and keep it updated indefinitely without providing any technical support. It is thus a situation where the maintenance team would have to take over the maintenance in-house for all the different services available to them.
This could be considered another example of “technical debt”.
I cannot stress this enough, since only an informal final is a good situation.
I do believe that Kudler and the others will make an effort after the final outcome was reached to work on new services for the site which could take the site down.
This is why it is important to understand the terms of this final outcome and what kind of services they would be offering to Kudler after this.
I assume that this all sounds rather interesting when you read through the above, but I know nothing about your personal use case on this topic. If it turns out that most people understand these terms well enough, they will get the benefit of the doubt. In fact, in the same essay, you have suggested that a simple “just as a website should be an end-all be-all for every site, Kudler Should be an end-all for every service”.
In my case, they don’t have a business-first philosophy.
This is why a simple, simple rule would not be wise.
Kudler will continue to make updates to its current layout and other aspects of its website as they develop.