Florida Tobacco Shop Enters the Future with Shift4Shop’s Responsive Design Services
Since June 2014, Florida Tobacco Shop has been providing smoking connoisseurs with quality cigars and accessories sourced directly from manufacturers and wholesalers. Based in Miami, a city known for its brand loyalty and discerning tastes toward tobacco products, Florida Tobacco Shop has paid close attention to detail in an ongoing mission to greet their customers with the lowest prices and best possible service.
Tradition and Technology
Cigars may be a timeless tradition to countless aficionados around the world, but the needs of the customer are always evolving. Mobile devices are becoming much more prevalent, a trend that is predicted to continue indefinitely. Today, over 58% of American adults own a smartphone and 80% of consumers rely on them for most of their online shopping. Mobile-friendliness has become so important that Google now takes it into consideration when ranking search results— non-responsive sites rank poorly and potential customers are lost.
Offering low prices simply isn’t enough if the customer finds the site hard to use, and Florida Tobacco Shop began to run into this problem. Their website’s theme was top-of-the-line in every other way, but users found it difficult to navigate from their smartphones, and the less-than-ideal mobile shopping experience was not attractive to new customers. It was time for Florida Tobacco Shop to go responsive. If their site was left behind by frustrated shoppers, their eCommerce sales could go up in smoke!
Responsive to the Rescue
It’s unwieldy to try to predict every possible device a customer could be using, so the real solution is to build a website that uses adaptive elements to ensure that its layout adjusts to the size and proportions of the visitor’s screen. Having relied on Shift4Shop’s platform to run their online store for several years, Florida Tobacco Shop naturally turned to Shift4Shop for help with their design.
Florida Tobacco Shop was already familiar with the depth of Shift4Shop’s customizable platform, and reasoned that since Shift4Shop created the software that powered their online presence and knew it inside and out, our design services would be the best option. Having an established relationship with us led to an element of trust that they would not have extended to new personnel. The price we quoted to them cemented their decision to place their store’s responsive redesign into our capable hands.
Age Verification for Cigar Sales
As a seller of an age-restricted product, Florida Tobacco Shop relies on age verification through Veratad to ensure sales are limited to customers of legal smoking age. Compliance with the law is vital, and it’s important for both the business and the customer that every step of the verification process works flawlessly. Florida Tobacco Shop found Veratad’s form to need some alterations to best suit their customers. As part of the responsive design overhaul, Shift4Shop was able to bring customization to this legally-required item to keep the user’s experience simple and seamless.
Results
Florida Tobacco Shop’s redesign has been an all-around success. Customers are pleased with their shopping experience and can once again enjoy the low prices Florida Tobacco Shop is able to provide. Fresh deals, new products, and suggested items are visible right away. Cigars have been enjoyed for generations, so a good number of customers are senior citizens who benefit from the clarity of the text. Florida Tobacco Shop’s entire customer base now has access to a site that is easy to navigate and comfortable to use.
Florida Tobacco Shop is extremely satisfied with their new site, and their analytics point to great improvements in sales, customer retention, and attraction of new customers. They are happy and proud to carry their business forward into the mobile era. With responsive website design, the future is brighter than ever.
