Browse by what it is, who made it, or what it is for
Website
Silverstone Jewelers is a jewelry store in Howell, Michigan, carrying about 190 pieces from ten designers. They sell across a counter, in person, and that is the thing the site had to protect.
Somebody shopping for jewelry almost never knows the name of what they want. They know it is for an engagement, or that they liked something a friend was wearing, or that it has to be rose gold. So the site is built to be entered from any of those directions and to end in the same place, which is a conversation.
The local claim
A jewelry store before it is a website
The first thing under the hero is where they are and what their customers say, with the store's own line about being Michigan's largest Nora Fleming retailer. Anybody searching for a jeweler near Howell is deciding whether to drive there. Three reviews and a founding date settle that faster than a product grid.
By what it is
Nine categories, one photograph each
Engagement rings, wedding bands, earrings, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, giftware. Each gets a full-width photograph of the real thing with its name set across it, instead of a grid of thumbnails. It is a browse page somebody will actually scroll, because it looks like the case it came from.
By who made it
Ten designers, each with their own room
Carla B, E. Shaw Jewels, Facet Barcelona, Frederic Duclos, Intersecting Hearts, Luvente, Nora Fleming, Stanton Color, Sylvie, Thorsten Rings. Each gets a panel set on their own photography, so somebody who walked in asking for Nora Fleming lands somewhere that looks like Nora Fleming. For a store whose stock is other people's brands, that is the whole game.
The piece
Every piece knows where it belongs
A product page carries its designer above the name, the price, what the stone actually is, and the metals it comes in. Then the tags it belongs to: bridal, diamond rings, engagement rings, each a link to a page of everything else like it. What it does not carry is a cart. Not one page of this site mentions a basket or a checkout, because a ring gets tried on and sized, so the button says Contact us.
The client edits this themselves, in the CMS
No wrong turns
Every category page carries all nine
A category page opens on its own banner and then, before a single product, lays out all nine categories with the current one marked, and offers the designer and tag routes alongside. Anyone who guessed wrong is one tap from right, and anyone who guessed right can see where they are. With a case this size the odds that a wrong turn still lands somewhere are what is worth building.
The client edits this themselves, in the CMS
The homework
The four Cs, written out properly
Carats, color, clarity and cut, each several hundred words of plain explanation and no diagram standing in for one. Somebody about to spend three thousand dollars reads this at eleven at night. The store that answered the question is the one they call in the morning.
The custom work
The part that cannot happen online
Custom design gets a page of its own: a pencil sketch, a photograph of the finished piece, and three short paragraphs about setting diamonds from previous generations into something a person will actually wear. It is the work with the longest conversation attached to it, and the clearest reason to walk through the door.
How one case becomes three routes
One category, one designer, many tags
Every piece belongs to exactly one of each and carries as many tags as apply. That one rule is what makes three different browse routes possible without anybody maintaining three different lists.
Sold pieces vanish completely
Archiving a piece takes it out of every listing and makes its own URL return a not-found as well, so an old link from a search result cannot land somebody on something that is gone.
The store runs its own case
Adding a piece, changing a price, moving something to a different designer and archiving what sold are all done by the store in an easy-to-use CMS. A jewelry case turns over constantly, and a site that needs a developer for that is a site that goes stale.
Photographs sized for where they land
The same photograph is served small on a browse card and large on a product page, converted to a modern format on the way out, so a page of forty rings is not forty full-size images.
Inquiries reach a person, and spam does not
The contact form posts to a real inbox at the store, behind a checkbox challenge and a hidden field that automated submissions fill in and people never see.
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Craig WoodCEO, Definian
Your great work deserves to look great.
Twenty-five minutes. Tell me what you're trying to do and who needs to see it, and I'll tell you what I'd build first and roughly what it costs.