We’re on a roll here in the Purple office this month, with another website going live! This time we’re launching a brand new website for John Pickard & Son, a small family business of Monumental, Memorial Masons based in Aysgarth.

We were approached by Georgina and John who were looking for a brand new website to replace their existing out of date site. Their old site featured out of date elements that could not be updated, leaving them unable to move forward with the existing site and in need of a new, modern and functional website. There was also an element of confusion with the previous site due to the feature of a shopping cart option despite the company not wanting to sell online.

We worked with Georgina and John to design and build them a new bespoke website, displaying the huge range of memorial stones that are available for people to purchase through them, rather than implementing an online shop. On the new site, the Memorial Stones are split up and broken down by categories, making it much easier for customers to browse the selection. Despite not selling online, the business has a showroom in Richmond where you can browse and buy the stonework, as well as an office and workshop in Aysgarth.

Georgina and John also wanted the new website to focus on the history and heritage of the company founded 130 years ago. The business was established in 1890 as a builders by John Pickard and began to work as Monumental Masons in 1926. Now in its fourth and fifth generations, John Pickard & Son has continued to stay within the family and is run by David Pickard the great grandson of the founder and John Pickard the great great grandson of the founder!

Despite not including a shop on the site, Georgina and John wanted to keep the ability to customise the Memorial stones online, but in a much simpler and easier way than was featured on their previous site. To do this, we created a Customise category in the top menu of the site, with some clever functionality allowing customers to easily customise bestselling stones with a small selection of fonts and colours.

It has been a pleasure to work with the John Pickard team on their new site and help make their customers’ journey much simpler and easier. Take a look at the new website here!