Yahoo! Store Blog by Colorado Web Solutions » coffeecakes

CWS Client CoffeeCakes.com Celebrates 15 Years of Online Success

Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:50:08 +0000

Colorado Web Solutions is pleased to present this article from the PR wire today about our friends at CoffeeCakes.com and their 15 year anniversary selling online. That is quite an accomplishment and we celebrate with them! Enjoy the article.

CASTLE ROCK, Colo., Feb 03, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ —- This year marks the 15th anniversary of Colorado-based CoffeeCakes.com, one of the first Internet retailers to offer high-quality gourmet gift items online. To celebrate its fifteen year milestone, CoffeeCakes.com will offer select anniversary-priced coffeecakes for $15 throughout the remainder of 2010 as well as free shipping on any order within Colorado.

In 1995, CoffeeCakes.com started as an Internet cafe (the first of its kind in Colorado). Realizing that the Internet offered incredible opportunities in the marketplace, Sherry Comes, the company’s founder, decided to move her business exclusively online. Applying her many years of IT consulting expertise to her new entrepreneurial venture, Comes has grown her online store into the profitable entity it is today.

In the fifteen years since the company’s inception, Comes has experienced the usual challenges of running a small business while maintaining a full-time career. Over the years, the company has revamped its website for Search Engine Optimization, taken the functions of fulfillment, inventory and warehousing in-house, and streamlined its order management, inventory control, and shipping processes.

Since the early years, CoffeeCakes.com has greatly expanded its product line (which initially centered on coffeecakes) to include travel mugs, teapots, and items such as coffee presses and tea samplers. “In the fifteen years since I founded the company, I have seen a huge change in customer shopping patterns,” Comes said. “My customers are super-savvy Internet shoppers. They expect high-touch customer service and a broad and appealing range of products.”

For Valentine’s Day, the company is introducing its new line of “Chocolate Surprise Squares” and “Chocolate Bliss Gourmet” gift baskets that can be shipped anywhere within the US and Canada.

The company plans to launch a sister web site sometime in 2010 that will focus on an even wider range of gift items spanning children’s wear to home decor.

To place an order, visit www.CoffeeCakes.com or call 1-800-830-2696.

About CoffeeCakes.com

CoffeeCakes.com (www.coffeecakes.com) is a privately-held company that markets specialty food and gourmet gift items exclusively on the Internet. Founded in 1995, the company is headquartered in Castle Rock, Colorado. CoffeeCakes.com’s product line includes corporate gifts, specialty gift baskets, coffeecakes and other cakes, tea samplers, travel mugs and products to enhance the enjoyment of coffee and tea.

SOURCE CoffeeCakes.com

Matt Sampson | CEO | Colorado Web Solutions
http//www.ColoradoWebSolutions.com

New Yahoo! Store Book features Colorado Web Solutions

Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:40:40 +0000

Last week a new book on Yahoo! Stores was released and Colorado Web Solutions was one of the selected few featured Yahoo Store designers. The book is called Yahoo Income: How Anyone of Any Age, Location, And/Or Background Can Build a Highly Profitable Online Business with Yahoo and was written by Sharon L. Cohen.

In addition to featuring Colorado Web Solutions, the book also featured three of our clients. Congratulations to CoffeeCakes.com, PopDeluxe.net and ChildrensOrganizers.com for wonderful reviews.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this book, please click here to buy it directly from Amazon.com

Here’s the Preview from Amazon.com:

Today Yahoo! is the top ranked, highly trafficked Web site on the Internet. Word of mouth grew into what is now a publicly traded company. A Yahoo! listing is as important as one in the phone book. Yahoo! has evolved into a multinational Internet and communications phenomenon. 88 percent of adults who purchase items online conduct some sort of online research prior to completing their purchase.

If you are in business, you need a Yahoo! store front. Yahoo! bases much of its consumer brand on the fact that it is a leading portal and search engine dedicated to connecting people and hopefully customers to online information quickly and easily and to making the vast, complex Internet into a useful resource.

Yahoo! has changed the way products and services are purchased all over the world. In 2006 Yahoo! sellers posted an estimated $18.5 billion in sales. There are businesses earning $1 million a year selling products on Yahoo! today. Yahoo! also allows you to run a business that requires no advertising costs.

This expertly written new book will show you how to take advantage of this business phenomenon and arm you with the proper knowledge and insider secrets. Filled with actual examples and anecdotes from real Yahoo! entrepreneurs, this book is as engaging as it is informational. Start making money on Yahoo! today.

The book starts with a complete overview of how Yahoo! works. Then, you are guided through the whole process of creating the store front, photography, writing copy, text, formatting, managing the store front, shipping, collecting payments, registering, sources for merchandise, multiple sales, programming tricks, PayPal, accounting, creating marketing, merchandising, managing e-mail lists, advertising plans, taxes and sales tax, the best time to list items and for how long, international customers, electronic commerce, keywords, key word marketing, and Yahoo! secrets; everything you will ever need to get started making money on Yahoo!

This complete manual will arm you with everything you need, including sample business forms, contracts, worksheets and checklists and dozens of other valuable, timesaving tools of the trade that no business should be without.

Matt Sampson | CEO | Colorado Web Solutions
http//www.ColoradoWebSolutions.com

CoffeeCakes.com Featured in Internet Retailer

Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:05:33 +0000

This article was published this week about Colorado Web Solutions’ (www.coloradowebsolutions.com) client CoffeeCakes.com. The article was published in Internet Retailer and can be found here.

CoffeeCakes.com reluctantly redesigns its site and boosts traffic 70%

After 14 years with its original site design, CoffeeCakes.com recently overhauled its site. The dramatic results have convinced the e-retailer not to wait so long for the next redesign.

As part of a session called “First Responder: What Your Site Needs Now” at The Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Boston last week, Sherry Comes , founder and president of CoffeeCakes.com, said the fall 2008 redesign —the first major update for the site since it launched in 1995—produceed a 70% lift in traffic within the first few days of testing.

“We were reluctant to redesign the site because we were experiencing 30% year-over-year growth,” Comes said. “We knew it was time to change when we started to hear that our print marketing was far more professional and attractive than our web site. Also, SEO and SEM experts were telling us a major overhaul was critical to search engine success.”

Comes contracted the redesign to an outside firm that took its direction from the site’s business goals and needs, users’ goals and needs, regulatory issues, and technology and industry considerations. “All the work goes into having detailed requirements upfront,” Comes said.

The outcome was a search engine-optimized site that was less cluttered and easier to navigate, on which high-quality photos of the cakes took a starring role. Besides the increase in traffic, Comes says revenue has grown 9% since the redesign.

Based on those results, Comes advised e-retailers to redesign at least every two years, and says it’s critical to optimize for search engines and to make consumer navigation easy. “At CoffeeCakes.com, we know we have a great product and exceptional customer service, but that’s all meaningless if our customers and prospective customers can’t find our site or find it difficult to use,” she said.

CoffeeCakes.com Draws Critique from Entrepreneur

Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:27:28 +0000

Colorado Web Solutions re-designed CoffeeCakes.com in the Fall of 2008, and since then, the press and feedback has been phenominal for them. Their most recent feature came in the February 2009 Edition of Entrepreneur Magazine and again was very flattering.

Here is the text from that article:

Website Makeover

CoffeeCakes.com, Castle Rock, Colorado

coffeecakes.com
Founder: Sherry Comes, 44

Behind the makeover: Comes’ creative consultant had been bugging her for six years to redesign the website. “But we were growing at 30 percent per year,” Comes says. “I was afraid to touch it.” When a colleague told her that her print marketing was light-years ahead of her website, she decided it was time to take the plunge. With an upscale clientele that has more money than time, she purposely kept the design simple so the web page would load and function quickly. Website design was handled by independent creative director Tami Dickson and web design firm Colorado Web Solutions.

What the Experts Say

Xanders: The redesign is far better. The visceral effect of reducing clutter and increasing the experience is always good. The product is the hero in this case, as it should be.

Fisher: They did a great job of not losing an established identity in the website upgrade.
I don’t think a lack of interactive features is a negative for the site. Too often websites are over-designed with too many special effects and bells and whistles, so the usability suffers.

Post: Because this company is all about generating sales on the web, redesigning its website is a major brand evolution factor. The new look is appetizing and sends a strong message of trust from a friendly company.

Original Post in Feb 2009 Editiion of Entrepreneur (read it here)