T Foley Interiors

Posted by Tim Foley

Kitchen Websites - Established in ?????

I can answer that we have been trading for over 30 years and that this history helps our case when a customer is deciding who they should order with but more recently there is an even greater concern about history on the internet and the fact that a website can be set up overnight by anybody wishing to trade and especially in our kitchen sector, can begin selling kitchen worktops or kitchen units tomorrow after setting up a website today.

So, what tools does the customer have when researching any internet trader before buying?

Well, there are two that immediately come to mind and the first will cut through claims that may appear at odds with what you read on a website’s content pages.

For instance, if a company claims that they were trading on the internet since 1999, such as Kitchensfitted have been, then you can check the facts out by visiting the Whois look up service at http://whois.domaintools.com/ Enter the web address of any company and in most cases you will discover when the domain was first registered.

Ok, so this tells you when the company first registered the domain name but how can you tell how long they have been trading on the internet?

A company domain name may have been registered and may have lain idle for many years before actual trading commenced but there is another useful too that allows you to view pages that existed in internet archives of the website address. The Wayback machine, which can be found at  http://www.archive.org/ allows you to view earlier pages of a website as they once appeared.

Our first website was launched in 1999 and pages are archived from 2000 onwards. I have to chuckle when I revisit the pages as I uploaded them after creating the site in Microsoft Publisher whilst at the time working as a kitchen contractor across the UK.

The web was at the time in it’s infancy in the UK and, as you will discover, should you visit the pages, was our website. Indeed you could perhaps be forgiven in thinking the website at the time was created by an infant.

How times have changed and from the two visitors a month traffic we enjoyed at the time, we now welcome 16,000 a month.

So how will all this information assist you when researching a company before making a decision to purchase?

This is particularly relevant when contemplating doing business with an internet company. – why?

Because you could very possibly be trading with a website that is laying false claim to it’s time of establishment or, worse still, the website operators have little or no history in the industry.

All of the above can be disregarded of course if you have prior knowledge of the website owner or if a friend or acquaintance has already recommended their services but it’s wise to remember that the advertising hook that has you hitting the link to a website with offers that appear too good to be true – could be just that.

It’s also fair to state that many good companies are only now uploading a website as they are realising the importance of the internet and the additional business a company website can bring them and so website history is something they are keen to build upon as an extension of their success in the bricks and mortar world of business.

Likewise, innovators with great ideas and business models that can make shopping easier on the internet, may appear from nowhere overnight and stake a claim to becoming the businesses of the future.

It remains important to undertake research not just on thr products and the price but on the providers too.

t.foley@kitchensfitted.co.uk

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