Co-Op #2: KT Crystals
The Story
KT Crystals was my second co-op during the summer of 2005. The owner wanted a website to showcase her jewelry and hopefully increase sales. It did... sort of. The original website is now defunct as the owner decided Etsy was a better venue for her products. The domain name now points to a landing page which then redirects to her Etsy shop.
KT Crystals was my first foray into WordPress long before WordPress had all the neat toys that make our life easier today like widgets, nested menus, and child themes. Additionally, poking through WordPress's code gave me insight into how enterprise-level applications in the "real world" might function.
What I Did
- Acquired domain name and set up hosting
- Installed and configured WordPress with a pretty but customized skin
- Hand-coded entire administrative backend for insertion of new items
- Hand-coded a simple shopping cart (defunct)
- Implemented the PayPal APN for payment
- Analyzed site traffic and noticed that since there were no sales through the webpage (through the phone only), removed shopping cart and converted store to gallery-style display
After the owner decided to move to Etsy:
- Set up Etsy store with basic products
- Created a banner based on the original website
- Took down the original website and coded a placeholder to redirect traffic from the domain name to the new Etsy shop
Screenshots
