We’re Blooming

Have you ever watched the first green shoots of a new garden peeking up through the ground and wondered what it would look like? Then, after a little while the flower buds take shape and you can see how beautiful it will be.

Over the winter while you’ve been perfecting your beading skills and longing for spring, we’ve been planting the seeds for a new website and waiting to see how it would grow. This season is extra special for us because now our dreams are becoming a reality. We’re blooming!

Devin and Cynthia Kimura

Our old website had plenty of wonderful things to enjoy, but it was starting to look a little like a garden that had gone to seed, and some of your favorite things were getting hidden amidst the jumble. We arranged everything so that it’s easier to shop and easier to get inspired, too. Don’t worry! The things you’ve come to know and love about Artbeads.com are still here.

You’ll still find plenty of inspiration in our Design Studio. It’s just that the look has changed and we’ve added some exciting new things, too. The Jewelry & Tutorials section has the project instructions and supplies lists you’ve enjoyed in the past, but now with the handy option of adding everything you need for the project to your cart with one click in all the right quantities. Amazing! The Artbeads Cafe episodes are all tucked in as well, and we’re still working hard on setting up our technique videos and inspiration gallery for you to enjoy.

We also gave our rewards program a complete makeover to make it more fun and to help you earn points for things that you already love to do like shop and write reviews (just to name a few). Visit Artbeads Rewards to learn all about it. Spoiler alert: it includes earning cash back on future orders and special access to purchase rewards items with your points!

So, what else is new? We’ve changed the purple navigation bar on the left of the website to a drop-down at the top of the website. Search is much easier to use and more detailed so that you can narrow your selection and get better results. New products, discounts, and deals have a permanent home at the top of our website so that you can access them at any time as you shop. Oh, and now you can have multiple carts! Find everything that you need for a project and then save it for later instead of discovering that everything has disappeared right before you decide to purchase (yep, we fixed that).

We’re also proud to announce the Artbeads Guide To Everything, a place where you’ll find answers to common customer service questions, charts, definitions, and measurements.

We’re at the blooming stage of our website and most things are ready to explore and use, but every garden can use a little weeding and adjusting once it’s planted. You can let us know what you think about the new design and report any issues by contacting us at [email protected].

Thanks for being such loyal customers, we hope you love it as much as we do! We’re so excited to grow with you!

Devin and Cynthia

Check out the new site!

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Comments

    • Duckins
    • July 15, 2017
    Reply

    I used both the menu options and the search functions of your previous site and could easily find what I wanted or could browse your product catalogue looking for inspiration. Your new site is definitely not intuitive for someone who just wants to browse. For example I tried looking at the Toho seed bead collection and all the old options for sorting finishes like metallic, silver lined and AB are no longer there. The “metallic” option is just for gold silver or bronze colours. I have seen the responses of previous posts to use the search function to browse. It seems silly that a customer would need to use a search function to browse your product catalogue because menu options are not available. I also have a repetitive injury from my work and your new site is less efficient and flexible so it requires more time to navigate and more mousing and clicking. I like change and it is necessary but your updated website is not an improvement. Please don’t ask me to take some time to get to know the new layout because I might learn to love it more than the old one. And yes, we can now save different carts and favourites. That is not related to the usability of the actual product catalogue. In this competitive market websites should be easy to navigate for all users without having to spend time to learn how to find what they are looking for.

    I am also encountering a major problem with your new site. The shopping cart does not let the item limit go above 6 and sometimes it does not go above 4. I wasted time adding items to my cart only to realize that the item number wasn’t changing and the items were not being added unless I went in and removed an item and then added the next item. And when updating the amount of an item in the cart it sometimes doesn’t update. So to get all the items I want I need to place multiple orders and pay extra shipping. Very frustrating!

      • Anna
      • July 17, 2017
      Reply

      Hello, thank you for sharing your shopping experience and concerns with us. We appreciate your feedback and just wanted to let you know that we hear you and we know that you’re frustrated—we are, too. We have our teams actively working to provide improvements and updates as quickly as possible for a better shopping experience. We are also experiencing an issue with the shopping cart as of this morning with the limit of items you can add to the cart—this is not our shopping carts’ normal behavior and our team hopes to have this corrected very soon. Thank you for taking the time to let us know of your concerns and for bringing this issue to our attention.

  1. Reply

    I am having trouble getting someone to contact me about my return. The phone has recorder, the chat is off and i have emailed and left chat messages. NOTHING

      • Anna
      • July 21, 2017
      Reply

      Hello Lori, thank you for contacting us here on the blog. I’ve forwarded your information to our customer service team so someone can call you back about your returns. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience, someone should be getting back to you very shortly.

    • Susan Marie Lucas
    • October 9, 2017
    Reply

    Hi, guys! Just some feedback about your new site when viewed on tablets.
    I have a 10.6″ tablet so it’s a good-sized one and not tiny. Tonight I tried to order your Artbeads Designer Wire in different gauges and colours… a nightmare! The tick boxes are so tiny that it was near impossible to select the attributes to filter from – for instance 20 or 21 or 22GA… and then it was playing up and not deleting sizes when I was able to deselect gauges, colours, etc.
    I then signed in on a PC with a 24″ screen and was able to complete my order – yay! Perhaps you could make the boxes bigger and run them further down the left hand side???
    Regards –
    Susan
    New South Wales, Australia

    1. Reply

      Thanks for the suggestion, Susan! I will pass your comments on to our development team.
      -Katie

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