The reason we're building the Wedlockers website is to increase transparency in the wedding industry so that suppliers and their customers can more efficiently find each other. We want to make it easier for customers to access and understand the full range of services available in the industry, and to find the suppliers that most closely match their requirements. To achieve this we created a brand new type of wedding website that gives unique recognition to every wedding supplier in Australia.
Because we've created this concept from scratch it has yet to be proven effective. So we needed a way to ensure that the site's features genuinely improve the planning process for Brides & Grooms, and genuinely increase supplier bookings while also reducing fruitless enquiries. It was decided to build a cost effective version of the site that could be tested with real Brides and Grooms who were in the middle of planning their wedding. They would tell us if Wedlockers solves their wedding planning headaches and give us feedback for improvement.
Having created the Wedlockers prototype, we invited a selection of NSW based wedding suppliers to have a profile created for them on the site. These are the businesses that our Brides & Grooms will search for and differentiate between as they use the site and test the Wedlockers features. Because the site concept is new to the industry we wanted to limit its exposure until as close to launch as possible, and so the businesses who agreed to participate in the prototype were asked to take a leap of blind faith in getting on board with us. Only in the past week were these suppliers given access to the Wedlockers prototype, and after 4 years in the making we nervously awaited their response which would be the first feedback we'd received from industry. The extent of their positive feedback has been overwhelming and we are extremely grateful to them for their faith in us.
The process of compiling a team of 50 Brides and Grooms to conduct user testing is now well underway. The first 25 have generously offered their time and have already received an initial survey asking them about their experience in the industry so far. These experiences provide us with context for the feedback they'll shortly give about the Wedlockers website, and we'll soon find out to what extent our site improves their planning process.
In 2016 we will compile the feedback from our expert team of betrothed and complete the final development of Wedlockers. Given the extent of positive feedback we have already received from businesses in the industry, plans are well underway for the official launch of Wedlockers.
Further updates will be available on our Facebook page.