DS Cole Growers
DS Cole Growers buys plant material from all over the world, roots the plants in their 5 acre greenhouse, then ships plants across the country and internationally. By making data easily accessible with my website redesign, my design will allow customers to book their plants (through their brokers) with confidence, knowing that we have the availability to supply it.
Role: Website Designer
Duration: 1.5 years
Contribution: This was a solo project in which I redesigned the DS Cole website. I integrated customer feedback and website analytics into my design decisions and met with key stakeholders at the beginning, middle, and end of this project.
Platform: Wix
Team size: 1
Patterns emerged out of customer feedback over a year and a half. Some of the most common questions included:
“What is your availability for ___ plant in ___ week?”
“Do you carry ___?”
“Which brokers do you work with?”
When customers know how many plants we have available, they can feel confident placing their orders.
With easy-to-find availability, customers will know that an order placed quickly will likely be accepted. Customers who can’t find our availability might place their order with another wholesale greenhouse location, leading to lost sales. In my design, I hoped to give customers easy access to our availability.
At the outset of my design project, I gathered design guidelines from a key stakeholder.
The key stakeholder wanted to highlight the
uniqueness,
quality, and
availability of the plants we sell.
1. “Plants you can’t find anywhere else!”
At a conference I attended, the brokers and salesmen we work with said over and over again, “You have the unique plants - plants we can’t find anywhere else!” Those unique plants are the reason they choose to place an order with us. In my design, I highlighted them on the front page in a slideshow dedicated to some of our most unique and popular varieties. I also used imagery of our own plants throughout the site.
2. Give customers everything they need to put together their order, all in the same place.
This would allow customers to put together their orders in one sitting without having to search all over the website for the information they needed:
New items for the 2025 season
2025 Catalog
Availability
Growers’ Guides
Well-informed customers would translate into, not only happy customers, but also happy D.S. Cole employees and happy salesmen among our brokers.
3. Answering the question, “Do I have to use a broker?”
Many potential new customers ask whether they have to use a broker in order to buy plants from DS Cole Growers. As the answer is “Yes,” I sought to make access to these brokers as easy as possible, with clickable logos leading to each broker’s website. This way, potential new customers could easily access the brokers and place an order through them.
This page benefits the brokers as well, as it generates new customers for them.
A stakeholder wanted to distinguish between Finished Plants and Young Plants with a separate page, “Product Availability.”
But website analytics showed that “Young Plant Availability” was the most clicked on button across the entire website.
I wanted to give users the opportunity to get there as quickly as possible, and an additional “Product Availability” page would only create more friction and clicks.
I reduced the number of pages required and incorporated the stakeholder’s request by giving customers the opportunity to choose between “Young Plants” and “Finished Plants” on the home page.
I also featured “Young Plant Availability” prominently on the Young Plants page.
