Makeover Magic

Our second installment of the Pursesnickety! makeover finds Deborah Nail, 40, up to her shoulders in business changes. As if rebuilding the Web site and business technology wasn't enough, when we last talked with Nail, Pursesnickety! was also gearing up for its new summer line of purses and baby bags. On top of that, the company was deep into making arrangements to move from the upper floor of Nail's house into a new building.

Interland Web designers Ann Vo and Karen Rubido took the original Pursesnickety! Web site and built a sample site with new colors, a redesigned frog logo and a more professional sheen. After an initial face-to-face meeting, Nail has been communicating with the designers over e-mail to tweak the site's appearance. "We've been going back and forth. It's pretty easy. It saves a lot of time," Nail says. The four main colors they've settled on are hot pink, orange, lime green and blue. Now that the basic template has been set, they'll move on to building the site.

Nail feels it's important to incorporate the bright, fun nature of the purses in all marketing materials. That means the summer print catalog will share the look and product photos of the Web catalog. The new Pursesnickety! look will even extend to the retail store Nail plans to open. Nail has been enjoying working with Interland. "They've got the right ideas," she says. "It's so much easier to give somebody feedback than to try to create [a site] yourself."

On the hardware front, new IBM laptops are on the way, and Nail has already received a couple of Sprint Treo 600 Palm OS phones. "They're intense," says Nail, who will attend a training session to get up to speed on the Treo's features. "I'll be able to get faxes, e-mail, everything on this handheld."

By the time the business moves into its spacious new digs-and when Interland, Sprint and IBM are done-Pursesnickety! will be nearly unrecognizable. Stay tuned next month, as we check in to see how the hardware is fitting in and where the Web site goes from here.