G.E. Forge & Tool

In 1946, George Earnest set up a small shop in Klamath Falls, Oregon, making tools farriers asked for. The Garner family has run G.E. Forge & Tool since 1973, and Josh Garner is the third generation. For years the only way to buy a G.E. tool was through a dealer. The old WordPress site showed the tools but no prices, and sent everyone to "Find a Dealer." The family wanted a site where a farrier could one day buy straight from the people who make the tools.

The Website

We rebuilt the site on Squarespace, product first, with the shop's story close behind. The homepage leads with the tools. The About page carries the history: the 1946 shop, the Garner family, and a crew that has been at the bench for decades. Dealers still have a home on the site, and so do farrier schools, with a directory of programs G.E. supports.

We prioritized function before polish. Test orders ran end to end before the final design review, and the site stayed separate from the old one until it was ready. Then we moved the domain over.

We also produced the photo and video shoot, hiring a photographer and videographer in California, so the tools and the people who make them are shown as they really are.

The Store

Online tool sales are built and go live in January 2027. We built the store around how a farrier looks for a tool: by the job and by the size. The tool directory is a single custom block on the shop page. It filters by tool type, by job, by series and by size, and every option narrows the next so there are no dead ends. Sizes sit in one dropdown in the order G.E. chose, and Add to Cart adds the exact size picked.

When a tool runs out, the card shows a backorder badge and an "Email me when it is back" button with the tool's name already filled in. The block takes its fonts and colors from the site's own styles, and every line of text passes accessibility contrast. Building it ourselves meant no monthly fee for a third-party directory.

Behind the Counter

Selling direct means orders have to land somewhere useful. We connected the store to QuickBooks, worked through G.E.'s shipping setup, wrote the setup guide, and built a monthly storefront report that reads sales from the store and explains them in plain language.

Outcome

G.E. Forge & Tool has a site that tells its story and a store that is ready to sell direct, at its own address, while keeping its dealer relationships intact. When sales open in January 2027, farriers will be able to find the right tool by the job in front of them, buy the size they need, and deal with the family that made it. G.E. now has a care plan with us to keep the store running well as it grows.