What do you think of our new website?

Thursday, 09 April 2009 21:40

Wood You is always looking for ways to improve and we felt it was time to offer a more interactive presence on the web. There are many more adjustments we are looking forward to bringing on this site and beyond. So whether you are a first time visitor, a frequent visitor or an employee or dealer in this company give us your thoughts on the new site!

Submit your comments and let us know what your impressions are of the site. We reserve the right to edit comments, to remain on topic. If a comment is totally off subject we may save it for future discussions. Thanks so much and we look forward to getting to know you here in the blog and in our stores across the Southeast . . . We would also love to know what state and or city you are from when you post.

Comments (37)

Can not find your location ,I live in Deltona Fl, there is a store some where in castleberry fl. Pease send me the address. Thanks

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Response:
Mr Avila,
There are no longer stores in the Orlando market for now. The old owners of this company chose to allow all the company stores to close. We have some interest from potential dealers in that market - as for now come see us up in Jacksonville - same great quality, customer service and a commitment to all real wood! Look forward to earning your business . . .

Regards,
Brett
Wood You Furniutre

I loved your site but found nothing available that fits my needs. Our Seniors have a monthly fun night where we eat and play bingo, card games and various board games. We need an place to store our supplies from one month to the next. It would be placed in our fellowship hall and we'd like it to be presentable and lockable. Do you have such?

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Ms Price,
I have emailed you some info . . . have a great week! In the future (until we adjust this site) you can look at our manufacturer links on the left side of our site.
Regards,
Brett

Don't you think it would help to actually list your location (s) , Hours, Etc?

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Ms Carollee,
This site is not dedicated to all the individual Wood You stores around the country. At one time it was the corporate website but it now serves as the Jacksonville stores page. There is no corporate part of Wood You anymore, just individual stores that each have their own sites . . . You can google the town you are in for the Wood You nearest to you. In the near future this site will take on a different look for all those outside our immediate driving area.

Thank you for your input,
Brett

I was on http://www.woodyou.com/office/computer-desks

I clicked on:
Pine Promo Computer Desk
Item: WTCOF34U
Size: 44w x 20d x 33h

In the status bar, I got the "errors found" exclamation point sign. Here's the error message:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET

CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Timestamp: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 11:46:09 UTC

Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element

is closed (KB927917)
Line: 0
Char: 0
Code: 0
URI: http://www.woodyou.com/office/computer-desks/563-pine-promo-computer-desk

I tried clicking on other desks and got the same error.

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Response to Mr. Kahrs:

Mr. Kahrs,

I will look further into this but I went to the item you mentioned and clicked on the item . . . the image and details come up fine for me, on my computer. I will do some more research and look into this by trying the item on a couple different computers but from my computer it is working fine. Sorry for the frustration on your part but thanks so much for your input.

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Distributors

M Kraushaar,

Please email me at bbwoodyou@bellsouth.net. I would love to discuss this matter in a more efficient manner than the blog allows.

As I have kept an eye on the previous poll, the number one reason our customers did not purchase from Wood You was for a fear of staining their items. This is totally understandable, as I myself was skeptical about the first item I ever stained. The No Fault Finish Guarantee that Rob in Florida explained is accentually free insurance on your results. The products we now carry are so user friendly, it allows us, with confidence, to offer you this guarantee.
Also, for our customers who just don't have the space or time to stain their item(s), several of our locations, including mine, now offer "Custom Finishing" in numerous paint & stain colors. So, fear no more! Let us show you just how easy the staining process really is, or let us have it custom finished for you. Thank you for your votes. This will only help us serve you as customers better & better.

Travis
Wood You of Columbus, GA
www.woodyoucolumbus.com

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Response to Travis:

Travis,

Well said and kudos to you for the idea to create this particular poll. Just an FYI this poll's result and all future ones will be kept on the dealers page for future reference. I will put this poll back up in a month or two to collect more amswers from our guests.

Brett Blankenship
Wood You Distributors

You have some serious errors on the website. When you drill down, e.g. from bedroom to armoire to a particular item, you end up with a blank page, i.e. no item. The error message is below. I'm using IE 8.0.

Also, I was still hoping to see the interior of the armoires or at least a brief description. I found only one that said 'a bar and two shelves'. Even at the local store, the catalogs provide no better information. Very disappointing.

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Timestamp: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:03:25 UTC

Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)
Line: 0
Char: 0
Code: 0
URI: http://www.woodyou.com/bedroom/armoires/5-pine-armoire

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Response to Mr. Kahrs

Mr. Kahrs,
I am able to drill down fine on that page and every other page I have checked. Would you mind checking yours again and seeing if the error message comes up again? I can not seem to find an error message anywhere on our site.

Other blog followers are any of you coming across errors like Mr. Kahr is speaking of? I would appreciate an email or blog post if you are. As of now I can not find any . . .

Thanks,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Distributors

Dear Mr.Blankenship,
I wanted to let you know how help I have received from you and your stores. A posted a question to you on a piece that I could not get from my local store, and you answered my e-mail. I called the Altamonte Springs store and spoke to Rob Lebo and he called many stores in Fl. and called me back to tell me where the piece was and when he could get it to me, it was not in any of the Orlando stores so he gave me the Clearwater store number and I called Patrick Hemming, he didn't have one in stock but a truck would be coming down with one on it in a few weeks. Rob called me again on Tuesday to say the truck was early and Clearwater had on. I called Patrick and he pulled it aside for us. We are so very delighted to have this last piece for our quest/sewing room. All your staff were so very helpful in locating and calling us back. The piece was ready and waiting for us this last Saturday in Clearwater,as promised. All we can say is WOW...Thank you for having all the right people working for you. Wood You is a delightful place to shop and I will bring many more customers to you.Thank you to Rob and Patrick for being true to their word and to you Mr.Blankenship for operating a wonderful business and asking your employees to always do the right thing. " Take care of your customers and they will take care of you"
Sincerely Stephanie G.

Collections is very nice . . . thanks and best regards!
Leela Export House
Mukesh

During the week before the 4th of July Holiday I decided to go shopping for a few new pieces of furniture for my son's bedroom. When I entered the parking lot, the 'Yes we are Open' was up. I retrieved two young children from my vehicle and walked to the door. The door was locked and signs were posted about your upcoming sale. I was pissed. I had to put two kids back into car seats. When I returned to the store a week later, the men in the store told me that it was intentional. If the closed sign was posted, I still would have gotten out of the vehicle to read the sign to determine when the store would have re-opened. But the children would have stayed in the car seat. Orange Park, Florida

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Response to Stephanie:

Stephanie,

I want to apologize for the way in which you were put out by our store closing for the week. I too have small children and know the time it takes to get them in amd out of the car. The open signs were used in the past intentionally, I have never been a fan of that mentality. They were not instructed to do that this vacation but where I failed was being specific with NOT to do that, so those that have been with the company for years just followed prior protocol. Ultimately it is my fault and I thank you for taking the time to express your frustration here. In the future I will be more specific with my employees and I think you will find this does not reoccur.

Have a wonderful week and take good care of those youngins :)

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Distributors

I purchased a bedroom set from here a while ago and because my husband is in the military we move ALOT, well recently a Drw of one of the dresser was broken beyond repair. I visited the valrico store and discused with the sales rep about purchasing a new one. He stated that it would have to be ordered and would take at least a few weeks to come in..... It has sence been almost 5 MONTHS! I have been very patient and called monthly to check on the order..... I love my bedroom set but it just isnt nice missing a piece! My patience has worn off!

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Response to Carrisa,

I spoke with the Manager of the Valrico store and he has ordered the drawer you need, actually twice. However, he has not followed through by getting me involved since the drawer has not come in. I first off would like to apologize to you, we have dropped the ball on you!

Tomorrow morning I am going to run down the order and then make sure it is replaced. I will also monitor it until it is in the store ready for you to pick up. Five months is just way to long for a customer to wait . . . period! Please take down my personal email and feel free to stay in contact with me if you feel it neccessary. However, I think you will find Rob over at our Valrico store to be on his toes concerning your situation. We did not follow up with you and now we need to hustle to earn back your trust. thank you for taking the time to touching base with us here.

It still might take me a bit of time to get the drawer in but I will get the drawer to you via Valrico and Mr. Rob. Please accept my deepest apologies for our mishandling of this issue, you will find the ball will not be dropped again!

my email is bbwoodyou@bellsouth.net

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Distributors

How about adding a customer's gallery section. People could post pictures of their Wood You furniture in their home settings. It could give others finishing and decorating ideas.

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Response to Billy:

Billy,
Great idea! I will look into putting a page like that up. Thanks for the great idea!

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

Great store on Blanding Blvd. The employees were friendly,knowledgable, and very informative.The store clean, laid out nicely, great variety of product,Cant wait to return...that is after I finish up alot of staining and top-coating my dining room table and chairs.

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Response to Ms Degen:

Ms Degen,
I can not express how much we enjoy hearing such kind words. We work hard to give our customer's an enjoyable and unique experience. Thank you for taking the time to come on our site and share your experience with us. I know the employees at the Blanding location will take great pride in reading this! Make sure and bring in some pictures of your finished products after you are done.

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

My experiences with Wood You has always been good ones, the staff makes my shopping experiences pleasant and FUN!!!

(comments edited)

I regularly shop at the store in Brandon Florida (suburb of Tampa) and have bought a few pieces from there. The store is wonderful and the sales people are very friendly and never pushy.
The last piece I bought has been in the garage waiting to be finished but one thing led to another and a long time has passed before I could get to it. Of course I have lost the finishing instructions and my memory has become hazy on the finer details of what to do when as far as using 100 grit sand paper or 120 grit initially to prepare the wood for staining and when to use the fine sanding (pre or post first coat of varnish and/or inbetween coats).
I came to the site looking for those finishing instructions as well as perhaps some helpful tips to finish the piece and make it looks its best but was somewhat disappointed when I didn't see them here.
A friendly suggestion would be to add those instructions under the resources section for those who would like to reference them or need them for the first time if they lost the initial steps given by the sales people.... :)

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Response to Craig:

Craig,
Great point be looking for our finishing instruction on the site in the near future. Thank you for the idea. However, You need them now . . . why not email me at bbwoodyou@bellsouth.net and if you have a fax machine we can fax it to you or if not I can email you our intructions. Thank you for your patronage at our Brandon store, we appreciate your business! As always please tell your friends and family about our real wood furniture.

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

I live outside of Anderson, SC and have always enjoyed visiting the Wood You here. The website represents the company well. some of the pictures need touching up but overall it is a nice website.

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Response to Darlene:

Darlene,

That is good to hear. All of us in Wood You work hard to maintain a fun atmosphere in our stores. As for the pictures on the site I totally agree. We are in the process of cleaning them up and adding new ones from the manufacturers. I hope next time you come back to our site you will be able to see the difference. Thank you for taking the time to comment and especially to shop with us. The loyalty of our customers is so very much appreciated!

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

Just wanted to say the site is nice. I enjoyed visiting and got some good ideas for what I was looking for.

I've been looking at armoires. It sure would be helpful to have photos of the interior of armoires along with the exterior ones.

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Response to Mr. Kahrs

Mr. Kahrs,

Thanks for taking the time to post your comments. I will have to look into that, unfortunately the manufacturers do not take those pictures so it would be something Wood You would need to do. I see where that would benefit you as a customer and will keep that in mind as we develop our new site.

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

Amy,
Thank you for letting me know about the issue with the site skipping pages. It is now corrected. Your extra effort is much appreciated!

Regards,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

I was saddened to see that the store in Casselberry closed down. I have found the Altamonte Springs store, which made my wife very happy . . . (edited) . . . I look forward to filling my new home with more of your products. Keep up the good work and thank you!!

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Response to Mark,

Mark

Yea the Casselberry store was the first store in Orlando for us. It was tough closing that store. However, chin up, we did not intend to close it forever, just to reposition it for future growth. You will see another store come back in that market just closer to the newer growth. Thanks for looking around for the next closest store we work hard to make the drive worth it!

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

I LIKE THE PEOPLE AT THE MIAMI STORE IN CUTLER BAY. THEY ARE SO NICE AND HELPFUL. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THEM FOR ALL THERE HELP.

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Response to Ed:

Ed,

I am sure they will enjoy hearing that. With all the kudos going around, which none of us in Wood You take lightly, I think I know what the next topic is going to be here on the blog:)

regards,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

I have visited your website before and really like the changes. Some of the pictures are different sizes, I would change that :)

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Response to Adrianne:

Adrianne,
Thank you for your view. We are still in the process of adjusting the sizes of the pictures. The ones you see that are larger are a test set to see what size works best.

For me the larger size fits the website better. So bear with us over the next couple of weeks and we will get all the sizes corrected and the site tightened up even more. Always appreciate your input!

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

The Furniture is all so lovely! I have shopped here for years and will continue to! Nice job on the website too!

Wood You Furniture is GREAT. I shop at the store on Beach Blvd in Jacksonville, FL. The people who work there are always quick to be helpful.

(comments edited)
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Response to Darla:

Darla,
Thanks for the encouragement! It is always nice to hear positive feed back about a store. Actually that store is the first Wood You store ever, started some 32 years ago.

Regards,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

I have items from your Melbourne store in almost every room in my house, and I really like the layout of new site. However, there seemed to be an issue navigating from one page to the next. In several furniture categories the site would skip pages and go directly to the last item page. Also, it would be great to have prices listed. Maybe listing them based on store location choice would help.

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RESPONSE TO AMY

First off thank you so much for your business and kind words about the layout of the new site. Wood You is really excited about the future of our company and believes that the internet will play a larger and larger roll in that. I have tried to recreate the issue you are speaking of but have been unable to do so. However, I will continue to monitor the site and see if I can recreate that issue, thanks for the heads up!

The question of pricing has always come up as we have grown from site to site and town to town. With stores overseas in Nassau,Bahamas, Trinidad and the Abaco Islands it really puts us at a disadvantage in this area. The way they must price things overseas is totally different than our American based stores. However, it is an issue I am working on but I don't believe I will have a good solution for a while. I know this does not fix your issue but hopefully it helps clarify why we refrain from pricing on the web.

Amy thank you for chiming in on our site. Keep coming back to the blog and touching base with us I enjoy conversing with our customers. Your insight is greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

You web site lack a real contcat number, it seem like your hiding something.

I hope you post this message

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RESPONSE TO DAVID:

David,

Not sure why you would think we would not post your comments, it is a legitimate question. If you have a question or concern go to the store locator page and select the store that is nearest to you. There you will find the local numbers to the store that can give you the focused attention you deserve. Wood You's goal, in our business, is to earn each and everyone of our customers and we feel putting you in touch with your neighborhood store accomplishes that the quickest.

However, our corporate number is (904) 354-0300. Feel free to call and leave me a message and I will get back with you in short order and assist you in any way I can! We appreciate your visit on to Wood You's website and always welcome your comments here. More importantly, thank you for taking the extra time to send in your comments, they are much appreciated as you are.

David have a great week!

Sincerely,
Brett Blankenship
Wood You Furniture

First off I love my local Wood You store. I found your store just under a year ago. Such a neat place to let my imagination roam and the employees are always willing to help. Almost every room in my house has Wood You Furniture in it.

Secondly, your new website is very user friendly and has a clean wonderful look. My family and I are customers for life!

I love your new site! But I just wanted to drop a note and say what a great shopping experience that my husband and I had at the store in Orange Park.

Your staff was great to us and worked out a simple issue for us with out thinking twice about it. Thats why I shop with ya'll!

I used to live in Melbourne and was an avid shopper there to . . . I can't get enough of Wood You, thanks!

Donna,
Thank you for your kind words. We appreciate your business so much. Keep an eye out for the Specials page it will change from time to time.

regards,
Brett B.
Wood You Furniture

I have been a customer of Wood You for a few years now. I like the new look, it is very easy to navigate.

Bill,
The links to some manufacturers available are on select individual stores sites. You can find them by selecting the store closest to you in the store locator menu button.

As for the main Wood You site we have never had a link page. Hope this helps and thank you for touching base with us.

Brett B.
Wood You Furniture

I like the new site. But there used to be a link to all the different furniture manufacturers that supplied Wood You. I miss that. I liked being able to see all the different products available from each manufacturer. Can you add that back?

I really like the new website. Makes it a whole lot easier for my wife to shop!

The new look is awesome

The new site is really good and makes it very easy to find the piece of furniture you are looking for. Bought my first piece of Wood You Furniture over 10 years ago and have 3 rooms furnished with only Wood You Furniture today. Love the simple clean style.

Well this my first visit to this site and I find it very clean and refreshing!

I really like the new look.