The history of Bay Hammocks Company...
Seabright, Lighthouse Route
www.bayhammocks.com
With a handcrafted hammock made by the artisans at The Bay Hammock Company you can swing gently in the breeze, watch the clouds drift lazily by, listen to the waves lap at the shore, or simply enjoy an afternoon nap.
At The Bay Hammock Company Nova Scotia artisans take pride in creating a hammock we think is the most comfortable in the world. In addition to the handcrafted woven hammocks, we sell hammock swings (handcrafted woven or net) and stands, fabric hammocks, hammock stands, hammock hanging kits and woven drink holders. Made in St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia
The evolution of the Bay Hammocks Website...
The history of Bay Hammocks is a wild one. When the dot com industry crashed, many website owners just couldn't find decent easy-to-use software. No one could afford the programming necessary to create this type of online presence. With a little convincing, Bay Hammocks secured a relationship with Atlantic Webfitters and began the road to success. With declining sales from a dated website, it was decided that a marriage of CMS Web Portal Software together with Storefront Software would be a perfect fit.
It was hard slogging at first. The CMS WebPortal Software works with modules, that plug and play on the pages. So, first to be created was a database to house all of the products (with hope of expanding). "There was very little to show Anne and Archie at first," says Gifford Watkins, Founder and CEO, Atlantic Webfitters. "We were very hopeful we could get the storefront up and running by Christmas. But after our development laptop was stolen, we were practically back to square one. It was a major setback to our programming schedule."
With Christmas looming large, something happened that forced our hand in the matter. The old Bay Hammocks website suddenly went down. That's when Archie called up in a panic, "I don't have a working website!!" I called up CTO Sam MacDonald and told him we were being put on the spot, and what could we do? Sam assured me by that afternoon, we'd have Bay Hammocks outfitted with our software (although still in testing).
The first sale with the new software...
Sure enough, we uploaded the new Portal Software and held our breath. Within 24 hours we had our first buyer. It's been almost two months since the Portal Storefront software has been launched. Anne and Arch seem to be getting the hang of the software and the portal is starting to rank in the search engines. In addition to the links being organic, and the text being changed often (thanks to Anne's due diligence!), we've secured Google AdWords, which should help us until the website starts ranking naturally.
The future of Bay Hammocks...
With the purchase of a new building in the St. Margaret's Bay Region, Bay Hammocks is growing. With resellers and wholesalers taking advantage of the high quality, hand made hammocks and the Canadian pricing advantage, you never know where you'll see a hammock made by us.
As we come to understand the software we have (we've been told we have Amazon.com technology), we'll be adding special pages for wholesalers, frequent buyers and guests. You have lots of things to look forward to, as we expand, we hope to carry an even wider array of backyard high-quality enjoyable items.
If there is something you'd like to see us carry, drop us a line. Who knows, you could be a vibrant part of our future success!