"Keeping Up with the Joneses" doesn't only mean keeping the right jewelry out in your store, it means making sure the Joneses can get to your store's website!
As technology improves your customers' lives, it means you need to keep up with them and make sure they can access you at all times. When people looked in phone books, you made sure your name was bold and clear. When people wanted to browse online, you got (or should've got!!) a website for them to see your items and information. Now people are using mobile devices to access the Internet and if your website isn't both accessible and worth their time, you aren't going to help anyone out.
- Catalogs that fit comfortably in the different sizes of mobile device screens
- Quick on-the-go info on your services and hours. Think it's possible someone will lose an earring backing while on the road and will check online to see who in the area can repair it? You bet.
- Coupons for mobile users-- track directly that people are using your mobile site when they show their phone to get a discount or free item with purchase.
- Repair Status alerts... Appraisal Status alerts... Wish List updates!
What About Flash Steve Jobs, then-CEO of Apple, made it abundantly clear in April 2010 that he no intention on ever striking a deal with Adobe for the proprietary Flash technology to work on iPhones. Jobs' unfortunate death notwithstanding, the Apple company has maintained that they are in agreement with his business model.
iPhones are presently the highest-selling mobile device. Blackberrys, the Other Smartphone as it were, also don't have support from Flash.
The iPad, the latest in funky mobile devices (not a phone, not a laptop... somewhere in the middle) is from Apple so no Flash there either.
Androids support it, but you have to ensure that your customers already have the proper version, and that's another thing to demand of your customers.
Flash looks pretty. But what is the point of something pretty if there's no one who look at it?
Google never really liked Flash because it was hard to permeate the image to read the text printed on it, with the animation and music causing Flash sites to have incongruous (re: ugly) footers that were nothing more than cheaply arranged keywords in pretend sentences. That way Google could recognize those phrases and still rank them. The problem with that is Google doesn't just grab phrases for keyword searches and assume they're right: it looks for the full copy to be consistent and if it's not a real 250-word-plus page, it doesn't do anything.
Flash looks pretty. But what is the point of something pretty if it can't be found?
If look at the successful a-list of jewelry sellers on the Net, not a one uses Flash. So, we not only don't recommend it, we won't do it on principle. You will never make money on a Flash website.
