The Marble & Granite Centre’s new website responds to the increased use of smartphones and tablets for connecting to the internet.

Well over half of internet connections now come through smartphones or tablets, so if you don’t have a responsive website that adapts to the smaller screens of mobile devices as well as looking good on the larger screens of desktop computers you are likely to be missing out.

You will also be losing out on your search engine rankings because Google and its cousins are seriously downgrading websites that are not responsive.

That is why stone wholesaler The Marble & Granite Centre, which is also the exclusive UK distributor of the new generation of Lapitec sintered stone, has relaunched its website.

It is only three years since the previous website was launched but technology moves quickly. The best aspects of the previous website have been retained, including the scale that let’s you see the size of the sample you are looking at as you zoom in on the photographs of slabs in stock at The Marble & Granite Centre’s stockyard.

The premises are ideally located close to the M25 at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, to supply London and the South East and to connect to the motorway network for the rest of the UK.

The product range is paramount, both at the premises and on the website. Stephen Pike, the Managing Director of The Marble & Granite Centre, is exceptionally knowledgable and well connected regarding sources of stone worldwide and the requirements of the market in the UK. But in the virtual world, just as in the real world, the stock has to be accessible to the customers of The Marble & Granite Centre, their customers, and their customers’ customers.

The Marble & Granite Centre supplies stone processors and masons only and will only ever discuss prices with them. But stone processors’ customers (architects, designers, kitchen and bathroom showrooms) and their customers (clients including developers and the general public) often want to visit The Marble & Granite Centre to select their stone from one of the largest collections of slabs available from stock in the UK.

There are 400 or so different materials in stock at Rickmansworth that can be viewed. For registered trade users’ eyes only, there is also a not generally accessible part of the website showing additional stock at The Marble & Granite Centre’s international warehouse in Italy.

The website has to cater for the same spectrum of clientèle as The Marble & Granite Centre in Rickmansworth. “We have taken a lot of advice from our customers and our customers’ customers about what they want from our website,” says Stephen Pike.

The four different groups of clientele are addressed individually on the website, making the site user friendly for all of them.

And before the site was officially launched, it was given a soft launch, with feedback from customers, mostly about how they search for products, being used for final tweaks before the site was introduced to the wider market.

Consumers tend to need some hand-holding when selecting worktops, so a video is immediately available to familiarise them with the process – and as well as providing easy access to information, videos are another feature search engines love.

There are more videos of customers and designers providing testimonials. “They really established the relationship of The Marble & Granite Centre with the whole supply chain,” says Jessica Danby, who heads the wholesaler’s marketing push, including its online and social media presence.

 The main video guides consumers through what will for many be their first experience of The Marble & Granite Centre.

It makes clear that The Marble & Granite Centre will accept orders from stone fabricators only, not from clients, kitchen & bathroom studios or specifiers.

An important aspect of the process highlighted in the video is the significance of The Marble & Granite Centre’s stock sales enquiry sheet (SSES), which is used to record the customer’s choices, so they can be passed on to the stone fabricator.