Well I have had a chance to talk to the site owners about the competitive review that I’ve done for them and touched on the sample personas. We have not had time to think about user profiling yet.
As you might imagine, this has been a completely new way of looking at a website for them. So far, they have used an enhanced “brochureware” approach to raising awareness of the company, backed up with advertising campaigns in national magazines covering the home and lifestyle niches.
Here’s a bit of hand-held footage of the shop so you can see where I am. (It’s so much easier with 2 cameras and a tripod 
)
(Tip: Those customer testimonials pinned to the shop noticeboard need to be put online Pronto! )
Thinking about what information the website visitors need to read to be able to make a confident purchasing decision has taken a bit of a backseat in terms of website goals for the site owners.
We had a look at the two sites I had picked for the competitive review and a major point came to light immediately.
Lots of the other sites offering fireplaces were competing solely on price by selling huge volumes of discount fireplaces from their warehouses – a totally different business model to the more specialised, personal service offered by the Chiswick Fireplace Company.
The site owners felt that it was difficult for inexperienced shoppers to make the right choice by clicking on images and buying purely based on price, materials and a few measurements. They explained there are a lot of unknown parameters involved when planning a new fireplace project and it’s not easy for a telephone customer serviced based seller to be able to work out all the specifics of a particular job. They told me on several occasions they had to help people who had not made a good choice of fireplace because they bought had bought online and their property/circumstances weren’t inspected first to check everything was going to be compatible.
On double-checking their site with them, it became clear that their many years of experience and expert judgement was not being communicated online very well. There is a small about us section, but it only skimmed the surface of the additional services that were available. The benefits expert assistance ensuring a hassle-free installation were not communicated effectively, leaving the site owners more likely to being judged on price alone. I felt this needed to be addressed as a priority.
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