Kudler Fine Foods Internet Website

Analysis and Proposed Changes for Kudler Fine Foods Internet Website

University of Phoenix

WEB-410

William Duliere

Learning Team C

Executive 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 Kudler's 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 Website

Although Kudler Fine Foods has somewhat of a special niche in food market, as it is not your typical chain "grocery store", it shouldn't stop them from investing a little time and effort into the marketing of their products and services, particularly with their comapany's 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 site's effectiveness, or lack thereof, from a potential customer's perspective. The second area we'll examine is the ease of site management and updating, and how that affects Kudler. Finally, we'll 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 customer's 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 doesn't necessarily equate to a good thing, especially if the products you are carrying aren't 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 don't 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