How (not) to sell kitchens online

[girlyswot]

Step 1: Show a nice, large photo of the kitchen.
× MFI
Step 2: Organise your kitchens by kind and give these comprehensible names like 'Traditional' or 'Modern', not 'Uniquely Magnet'.
× Magnet
Step 3: Do not make absolutely everything on the page Flash dependent. This becomes very irritating very quickly.
× Magnet
Step 4: Do give some indication of the prices of your kitchens. No, you do not have to list every separate unit and its cost. But a price for a pictured kitchen would be a nice indicator.
× Moben

Grrrr. Does anyone happen to have any suggestions of good kitchen retailers with helpful websites? We don't absolutely have to do all of this online but, since I'm going to be in America for the next three weeks and then in Scotland from the end of August, it would really help.  Also, does anyone happen to have any ideas about how you find out the relative prices of different kitchens?  It seems to be a closely-guarded secret in which all kitchen retailers are colluding.

Comments

[ladywhizbee.livejournal.com]

Go to Ikea's website (www.Ikea.com). They have excellent kitchen cabinets, countertops, etc. and all the planning tools. You can download a kitchen planner and everything.

My husband and I completely remodeled the kitchen in the condo that we had when we were first married--it was perfect. The cabinets are really well-designed, and while some designs are very modern there are others that are more traditional as well, depending on what you want. Go look--you'll have a ton of fun checking out all the options. *grins*

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion. IKEA is a possibility, I suppose, though they don't deliver and there isn't one very near here.

[ladywhizbee.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...but ordering cabinets is different than buying a piece of furniture from Ikea. They don't stock them in the store so they have to be ordered and delivered--at least ours were. They brought them to us on a truck and carried them into our house using those fun carts they have in the store. It might be worth checking into before writing them off completely...

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Ah - I didn't know that. I'll see if it's the same in the UK.

[amamama.livejournal.com]

I'll second the suggestion to go to IKEA - and I'd think they deliver. Only a few kitchens are stored in the warehouse, the rest are brought out. Here they have what they call three levels of service. 1: Do it yourself (everything - from picking it out at the warehouse to putting it up), 2: get it all delivered, but put it up yourself, and 3: get it all delivered and put up. They really should have the same choices in the UK. And they're good quality - I don't think anyone tests their kitchens quite as strenously as IKEA does. So unless you really, really want a hardwood kitchen and can't stomach the thought of MDF, then I'd go Swedish (and being Norwegian, that says quite a lot, LOL).