An Executive Summary

Schawel.com becomes SCHAWEL+COLES This site is no longer maintained.

It’s easier than ever to sell products on the web, but it may be more difficult now to stand out and provide an engaging and effective shopping experience. The bar has been raised and shoppers expect more even as ecommerce site proliferate. The tools are available, but experienced designers and developers that know how to expertly craft a good ecommerce website are a rare commodity. Sites that sell stuff need to draw in viewers and make them desire the products they offer. Good design is paramount.

Most firms that offer design services to lift websites from the morass of look- alike templates are founded and run by programmers who can spin code but can’t grasp the intricacies of a beautiful user experience and pleasing design. It is relatively easy to put up a site in BigCommerce, Volusion or Magento, but requires tactful handling to build websites that perform flawlessly and increase sales.

SCHAWEL+COLES is different. Mike Schawel has worked with ecommerce platforms since the turn of the century and is recognized as one of the rare breed who truly understands the user experience. Along the way, Schawel worked with designers like Matthew Coles, who has operated an award-winning boutique design studio in Salt Lake City for nearly 20 years. After supplying Schawel with layouts for some of his shops, the pair realized their skills were complementary and ideal for developing noteworthy and successful ecommerce outlets.

Whereas most comparable firms are averse to human interaction, Mike and Matthew welcome conversation and a personal touch. Schawel+Coles has developed a system that relies on careful requirement gathering and measurable deliverables before the design phase even begins, so the process is free from many of the hiccups that plague web store development. Most website development issues are traceable to poor communication and shady salesmanship. Schawel and Coles put their name on the company and their time-honored reputations on the line.

Good design solves problems. Schawel and Coles use their experience to leverage infrastructure, database and user experience design to produce sites that just work. The studio sets out to find a client’s stumbling blocks and then uses these different types of design to overcome them and vault them to increased profits. Because S+C employees are designers at heart, they not only know what looks good but how to engage the site visitor and put them in the position to buy. Schawel has remarkable experience in analytics, digital marketing, workflow systems and management to get the most production out of a traditionally finicky bunch.

SCHAWEL+COLES is focused on hiring and maintaining designers, developers and coders who understand ecommerce design, which involves those special artists who can cross the left-right brain median with agility and skill. S+C employees understand the process thoroughly so they know the pitfalls and advantages to developing in any of the firm’s ecommerce specialty platforms. A S+C designer knows what is possible code-wise for a certain type of site and a S+C developer understands the essence of the designs he is given and produces equally elegant code. There are no salesmen to make promises the designers and developers can’t meet. The entire team is invested in every S+C project.