The website cajunbrands.com's newly revamped site has been up for about three weeks and offers different shipping, payment and communication options.
Customer options and a redesign are the main changes that have come to the website cajunbrands.com.
"Mainly it gives the customer options, but it gives us options on the backend," says Vince Comeaux, an IT guy who started the website seven years ago.
The newly revamped site has been up for about three weeks and offers different shipping, payment and communication choices. cajunBrands.com carries certified Cajun and Creole products.
"Before all we were able to do was just Paypal," says Comeaux. "Now we can do credit card payments, or they can use PayPal."
The UPS used to be the way product was shipped after purchase, but now customers have the option of the U.S. Postal Service.
And where before Comeaux depended on Constant Contact to keep in touch with customers, he can get in touch with them when they make an online purchase.
"It allows us to send out emails through the shopping cart instead of using a third party," says Comeaux. "We still use a third party right now, we're still using Constant Contact, but once we get the other one up and running, we're going to use it."
Comeaux says the objective of the new options is two-fold.
"We were losing out on some sales because people either didn't have a PayPal account or they didn't want to use PayPal," he says. "The shipping was a little more expensive using UPS, and now they have an option. They can now either use UPS or use the Postal Service and save some money there."
Comeaux says more local brands have joined the website.
"We're adding new products each month," he says, adding that there's no charge for merchants to post on cajunbrands.com. "We try to do more of local vendors instead of the big name brands.
"We have a lot of mom and pops that it's just too expensive for them to build their own website," Comeaux says. "So, we'll put it on our website and try to get it out there for them."
All Comeaux asks of his clients is to get the products at a wholesale price.
"They give it to us at wholesale and we sale it at retail," he says. "And instead of someone having to go to each individual site to buy products, they have one shopping place where they can buy multiple products at one site."
While some of the companies have their own websites, Comeaux says they may not have a shopping cart or it's too expensive to add one, or to manage it.
"So what we do is they'll link from their website to our website and they'll link it to their products that we have," says Comeaux. "So it gives them more options to deal with and to market their product.
"A lot of people may not know who a local vendor is," he says. "But if they go to our website and see it, and they see a description, it may be something they may be interested in."
Based in New Iberia, the cajunbrands.com website is here.