It’s been a year since I did the last buyit247.com website design. This year saw the site get a complete rebuild from the ground up. It previously ran on a heavily modified Actinic platform. However, as the company expands and moves into ever differing product lines the website needed a more capable platform. The 2009 design is based on open source e-commerce software with a VERY heavily modified template/skin design. It took a good few months on and off to get it all playing nicely together but here are just some of the new features on the site…
Product tags - customers can tag any product with keywords which automatically creates a ‘tag cloud’ on the site
Customer Reviews - the old site had a vbulletin forum which never really took off. Hopefully having a built in product review module for customers will help things get a little more interactive
Customer Account area - customers can now log in and view their past orders and amend contact details etc
About Grade2 Video - nothing to do with the e-commerce platform but I shot and edited together a very quick ‘What is Grade2′ video to hopefully explain buyit247.com’s Grade2 products.
Full stock online updated daily - as the platform uses a SQL database (the old Actinic based site uses Access style mbd files) it means stock exports from their back-office system can be uploaded with ease on a daily or hourly basis. Previously there was only product highlights, now the entire stock inventory can be loaded online.
Customer Wish-lists - customers can add any product to their very own wish-list, which they can then share with others.
Social bookmarking - all the products now have a easy social bookmarking link built into their template - so they can be easily shared and recommended across sites for better Search Engine Optimisation
Product compare feature - multiple products can be selected and compared by customers. Making product selection a quicker process.
Other random improvements include: ability to refine search by product price, ability to stack products in grid or list view, addition of a recently viewed products section, new single page checkout, interactive Google map with directions on ‘Find Us’ page, ability to credit peoples online account (for manual administration of referral scheme etc) and RSS feeds for new products, coupons etc
Anyway, you can view the 2009 revamp here: www.buyit247.com
