The puntagordashopping.com web site began in January 2007.  It was created by Cindee Murphy, owner of Pies & Plates and Prepped & Ready as a way to support retailers in downtown Punta Gorda.  At that time, Prepped & Ready was located downtown and Cindee was on the marketing committee of the Punta Gorda Downtown Merchants Association.
 
Over time, the web site has been expanded to include greater Punta Gorda.  Pies & Plates and it's owners, Cindee & Dennis Murphy have continued to be the principal financial supporters of this web site.  Its one of the few web sites where local merchants can have their business advertised absolutely free!  Cindee has personally logged hundreds of hours working on the web site which is still and always will be "under development!" 
 
Once I got the hang of it, it became fun!  It's creative and I enjoy that.  I don't have a lot of free time but when I do, I often spend it working on the shopping web site!  It's a way I can thank our community for all the support, encouragment and patronage it has given Pies & Plates!  -- Cindee Murphy 
 
Attracting visitors from across the river and surrounding communities is a major goal of the web site.  Which explains why the web site has morphed from a simple shopping site to a tourism site of sorts!  The idea is that if we can lure visitors to the community...they will shop and dine!   
 
Since its inception the web site has logged over 100,000 hits.  Since one visitor may view multiple pages, a better way to count visitors is to count the home page hits.  By that measure over 10,000 visitors have viewed the site.  (That's 10,000+ potential shoppers!)  And, they stay on the web site a while...viewing an average of 10 pages each.   
 
Let me give you an example:
 
On March 3, 2008, thirty two (32) visitors logged on to the web site.  609 pages were viewed which means each visitor viewed an average of 19 pages!  (A good indication they found the web site interesting!) 
 
From the statistics we can tell that a couple visitors were looking for antiques and thrift stores because they clicked on Goodwill, Used Furniture n Stuff, Consigning Woman and Train Depot Antiques.  We had a few looking for garden supplies (Powell's Nursery, Cossties Farm and Garden, Bee's & Trees Nursery and Satori Orchid Farm).  Other's were probably planning a day trip and were looking for refreshments (Presseller's Deli, Ornery Attitude, Flamingo Yogurt, Cubby's Ice Cream, The Bean on 41, The Italian Bakery.)  At least one person wanted to purchase flowers (PG Flowershop and Charlotte County Florist).  A few were looking for home furnishings and decor (Babcock Furnishings and Carries Interiors) and we had at least one boater in the group (International Sailing Supply and Laishley Marine.)   Several of the visitors checked out the events and day trip pages and a few linked to Main Street Punta Gorda. 
 
As you can see not only is this web site a great resource for visitors, it's a great reference tool for our community.  Over time, these statitstics will give us a pretty good idea of what Punta Gorda residents and our visitors are shopping for! 
 
In short, the web site is a great tool for our community.  But, it's a tool that will stay in the tool box if we don't promote it!  We can do nothing and hope that people stumble upon the web site, or we can actively advertise it.  We'd like to send letters to all travel agents and hotel concierge in southwest Florida informing them of the site but that takes time and money.  We'd like to be able to place ads promoting the web site (and Punta Gorda in general) in area magazines and newspapers but that also takes time and money.  It is our hope that over time individual and business sponsors will come forward to help support those endeavors by sponsoring pages.  
 
We encourage you to visit www.piesandplates.com!  Be sure to bookmark it and save it in your favorites so you can find it when you need it!   
 
Suggestions and corrections are always welcome.  For information on page sponsorship contact Cindee Murphy at 505-7437 or email piesandplates@comcast.net.
 
Thanks also to Barbara Sundholm of Web-Feat Website Solutions for her hard work and all the hours she has donated to the creation of this web site.