LPCC Member Featured in Crain's Chicago Business

Posted on April 12, 2011 in Member

Lori Andre, owner of Lori's Designer Shoes was featured in Crain's Chicago Business on April 11, 2011 discussing the important of a strong website for small businesses.  Lori's Shoes' feature is included below, and a link to the complete article is available at the bottom of the page.

If your small-business website isn't designed to sell, what good is it doing you?

By: Monica Ginsburg April 11, 2011

Three years ago, Lori Andre, owner of Lori's Designer Shoes, decided to get serious about selling her footwear and accessories online (LorisShoes.com). She'd maintained a website for 12 years and noticed that each time she improved the site, there was a jump in sales.

Ms. Andre started the business in 1983 and now has stores in Lincoln Park, Northfield and Highland Park. She declines to disclose annual revenue but says sales doubled in 2010 from the previous year.

By focusing on selection, value and customer service, including staffing someone in that function full time, she says average online sales per customer jumped 20% over the last 18 months.

“People come back to the store weekly because they know we're always getting new merchandise in every day,” says Ms. Andre, 52. “We wanted to replicate that online by adding more products and doing it more frequently. We've been really diligent about that.”
Even for small businesses, having a static website doesn't cut it anymore.

Convinced of the growth potential on the web, and with no immediate plans to open another store, Ms. Andre invested $75,000 last year in a new web hosting platform and design to improve navigation and customization. Customers now can shop for shoes by style and size, features they had been requesting for some time. The retooled site, to launch later this month, also adds user-friendly features like a “look book” highlighting fashion trends for the season and blog posts showing the clothes and accessories Ms. Andre packed for a recent three-week buying trip to Europe.

Ten employees run the Internet site, and Ms. Andre expects revenue from online sales to “far exceed” her flagship Armitage Avenue store within three years. She says international sales, which currently account for 12% of the online business, are a growth area, boosted by strong-selling brands like UGG Australia and Jeffrey Campbell, which have limited availability abroad.

Read the full article here.