What is the Perfume Project?

This blog is a constantly evolving forum for thoughts on perfume, perfume-making, plants (especially orchids and flora of the Pacific Northwest) and life in general. It started out chronicling the adventures of Olympic Orchids Perfumes, established in July 2010, and has expanded in other directions. A big part of the blog is thinking about the ongoing process of learning and experimentation that leads to new perfumes, the exploration of perfumery materials, the theory and practice of perfume making, the challenges of marketing perfumes and other fragrance products, and random observations on philosophy and society. Spam comments will be marked as such and deleted; any comments that go beyond the boundaries of civil discourse will also be deleted. I am grateful to all of you, the readers, who contribute to the blog by commenting and making this a truly interactive perfume project.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

NEW OLYMPIC ORCHIDS PERFUME WEBSITE COMING

July marks the seventh anniversary of Olympic Orchids perfumes, and it is only fitting that there should be an update of the online store that has been essentially the same since 2010. A couple of years ago I did make a halfhearted attempt to design a new website on Shopify, but it never really took off, partly because I never put all of my products on it, and partly because Shopify is not the best platform to use. No need to go into its shortcomings. Website design and implementation has been taking most of my time for the past week. Such is the life of a perfumer who doesn't outsource anything. 

It turned out that I was able stay with my primary web hosting company and design an entirely new website using a Wordpress front end and a Woocommerce infrastructure. The URL will stay the same. It’s a nice combination, and extremely easy to use. I have re-photographed almost all of my products, put them up on the e-store with pull-down menus for sizes, shipping options, and other attributes, added a few new products, and added some cool new features. For example, there’s now a system for customers to receive points for their purchases and redeem them for discounts or free products. If this website works well, I will discontinue the Shopify site and consolidate everything on one e-store. This will be a lot less confusing for everyone. For continuity, I've tried to keep some of the original graphics, but everything is cleaned up. 

The hardest part has been completed, but I know there will be lots of ongoing tweaks and corrections as people use the website. I'll also continue to add new features and graphics. Right now it's pretty bare-bones. 


I am tentatively planning on the new website going live this Wednesday, July 5, and will need some people to test it. I added an almost-free test product for the first 10 people who are willing to go through the entire cart, checkout, and ordering procedure on an untested website, so look for this to appear next week. There will also be a seventh anniversary discount via a “coupon” that can be added at checkout. I’ll give people the coupon code in my July newsletter, on this blog, and on Facebook.

I hope people will like the remodel. 

[All photos are mine]

11 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you, Nelle25! It's been an amazing journey!

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  2. Replies
    1. Frederic, the new perfume website is not up yet, as far as I know, but it will look good!

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  3. Looking forward to the new website, I'm sure it'll look great :) The reward system sounds neat as well!

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    Replies
    1. Tarena, I think the reward system is going to be fun.

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  4. Congratulations! Looking forward to trying it out!

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    1. Triniti, Thanks! Try the URL on Wednesday afternoon and with luck the new site should be live.

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  5. Happy Anniversary! Excited to see the new website design.

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    1. Anne, thank you! And thanks for your feedback!

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