Surplus Store Website Pt. 2

     While I had effectively caught the viewer's attention with the home page and overall design of the website, I decided to appeal the audience's sense of ethos and logos in my following pages in order to establish credibility as a legitimate business. Focusing first on logos, I created the "About Us" section. In order to show our physical location to potential customers, I added a google map of our address. This map shows where on a map we are located and expands to show the streets and landmarks around us. Also, I added in a brief description, accompanied by our logo, that tells a little about our new Surplus Store. This page helps the viewer to gain a better understanding of where are company is and where we came from originally. Though not completely necessary to the overall purpose of the website, this page allows us to provide further information about our company, while at the same time appealing to the customer's sense of logos.

      The next thing that I wanted to create for this website was an area for communication and feedback. Labeled "Contact" on the task bar, the page features a message box that gives the viewer an opportunity to ask questions or make comments directly. The box requires a name and contact information to be given, in order to better understand where the feedback is coming from, and is linked directly to my email. This tool helps not only to create a direct, formal line of communication between buyer and seller, but also gives the website a professional look, thus further establishing ethos. (more)

     Lastly, I wanted to create a page that links directly to our eBay business. Labeling the page "Online Store," I created a link at the top of the page that sends the viewer to our main store where all of our items are listed. This link to our official page helps to establish our credibility and further appeal to ethos. Below this, I decided to put a list of our store policies for things such as: shipping, returns, and payments. These written, established guidelines further appeal to the viewer's sense of ethos, as well as logos. This added section helps buyers to understand our rules and regulations upfront in order to avoid confusion later on.

     Overall I was very satisfied with the way the website turned out. My boss and coworkers also really liked the finished product and are going to feature a link to it from our eBay store and include a link in each of our product listings within the description. The website is simple, but gets the job done. I successfully remained professional and direct throughout the process and stayed focused on my main objective. I feel that I was creative where acceptable and believe that my added pages make for a more thorough and useful resource for future viewers. In terms of our Surplus Store, the website appeals visually to potential buyers' sense of pathos, gives us more credibility (ethos) as a name business, and establishes our reasoning (logos) through the given descriptions and policies of our company. In the future, I hope that this site can be continued and used as a primary resource for gaining information about our company. My plan, after continued updates and viewer traffic, is to begin accepting offers on products before they reach an actual online bid. Also, after a new shipment of equipment is brought in, I wish to move the previous "Coming Soon" items to a "Newly Listed" section that would include our current online pricing in the product description of each item. This would effectively show our price ranges on items without forcing the buyer to ever leave the page. Again, I am very happy with how the website turned out and look forward to actually see it used to help my company.