The site
www.merlinswakefield.com

The design
We had a bit of fun with the design, and it encompased a few features that really spring life into the site. For the background we heavily styled one of our stock photographs. We wanted the header to be fun, but not get in the way, letting the user concentrate on the page.  We designed the header in house using FLASH.  We worked a dark moody style by using careful typography

The Platform
This was based on a really good open source CMS platform – Joomla, with a modified Virtuemart store.  More about that later

Dealing with users
The site does some quite clever things.  To begin if a user is just shopping, they can register, and they automatically have an account in the forum, the store etc.. or if they register for the forum, a shopping account is created automatically.  The site remembers abandoned shopping carts, and offers them back to users on a re-visit.  The site can also automatically recognise users that havent visited for a while and send “come back” emails

The forum
No need to re-invent the wheel, we used Fireboard, and re-wrote the templates to give a totally homogenous style with the rest of the site. Users are managed via the CMS system

The store
This is a specially modified Virtumart installation. The store presented us another challenge – the previous site was a 1-off database, with a 1-off structure.  To top this, the previous host, and designer wasn’t allowing Control Panel access.   Fortunatally, we managed to figure out how to mount the database, using just FTP access (dont ask), extract and convert the data and import it into the new installation.  That took a lot of work, but a lot less than typing in about a 1000 products!  The import included dealing with the 1000’s of iamges, which we had to bulk re-size using Lightroom.  The store presnted another chalenge – Postage.  We had to develop a specific postage module to allow a split postage method in-house

SEO
I can’t stress enough that Search Engine Optimisation is something that you need to keep re-visiting, and changing, but only when the data really is telling you something.  The site as we type is too young to report back on SEO, but we have put together the same superbly performing system as we used on the Lencarta site.  Titles and URLS are dynamically generated for optimum SEO.  Combined with a clever URL re-writing regime which creates pretty, readable URL’s we are sure we have another winner on our hands. Down the line we will be doing a SEO anaysis, looking at site stats, google analytics + commercial data, and we will tweak out the site as needed

Feature list
- E-commerce based on a heavily modified Virtuemart set up
- Forum
- Community based user management
- Automatic CRON based database backups
- Manual full site (with database) zip backups
- Multi user CMS
- PayPalX credit / debit card integration
- Security by design
- SEO by design

CSS
We spent a lot of time setting up the cascading style sheets for this site.  This has provided a uniform framework for user content.  At the templating stage we spent a lot of time and attention to ensuring cross browser compatibility, and ensuring the more interactive features gracefully depreciate for older or non compliant browsers.  Like all of our builds, the site was rolled out in phases – Template, store, content and backend features

Technologies
This site uses PHP, SQL, DHTML, XML, AXAX, CSS and Javascript

Security
Clearly a high profile, user oriented site needs some level of security.  We spent a long time closing doors, adjusting server settings and generally locking the site out from attack and spam.  We wont discuss security details here, but would be happy to discuss it in general on the phone with prospective clients

Hosting
We are providing our unlimited commercial hosting package for this site

The launch
We launched the site, and within minutes we had a sale!

Working with the clients
We worked really closely with the clients, providing 1-1 remote desktop training (we take over the clients machine) and telephone support.  We will continue to support the clients over the next months, providing training as needed

Client testimonial

We are delighted with the way Richard and Elizabeth from www.placeofdesign.com have produced our website. Richard is always there with help and guidance, and I would not hesitate in recommending their services to anyone thinking about a website – first class!

Phil
Merlins of Wakefield (UK)

Site history
Historically the Company used U-tube – to showcase the video’s.  This was a problem, as U-tube would then put competitors videos on the same page, which meant potential customers were going elsewhere. For this reason, to increase sales and customer retention we decided to stream video from the site, and not from U-tube

Site features
We produced a site to showcase each product. By request of the customer sales are dealt with via PayPal. The Photolearn site also incorporates a message board where users can discuss flash lighting, and a mailing list where the site owner can keep in touch with customers

Development
We begun by developing a template for the site. When the site owner was happy with the look and feel, we then populated the site with text and then added interactive features such as a mailing list, and a forum

Working with the videos
One part of the build was streaming preview videos. To achieve this we needed to convert  them from the .AVI format into short .SWF flash clips. The movies are approx 3 – 5 mins. The video on the front page is designed to just run, with no sound. The longer, larger video’s on the preview pages to have user control

Hosting
The videos immediately lead us to a problem… The customers hosting for the site was restrictive… The videos consumed all of the customers allowed bandwidth. This was resolved by us moving the videos onto our own servers – hosting the videos for the client, while the rest of the site remains in the clients existing webhost

And then a year later – Adobe steped in!
A year or so down the line, a second problem arose. Adobe in their infinite wisdom decided to change the rules and code required for the new Flash player 10, causing issues when customers using the brand new player viewed the videos. We informed the customer of this, and re-scripted the relevant codes free of charge

SEO
We also did extensive SEO – Search Engine Optimistaion on the site to increase relevant organic traffic.  The site owner is happy, long term sales are up, and the site is delivering what we both wanted
Customer testimonial – Written by company owner – Garry Edwards

Photolearn developed almost by accident, it was basically just an idea I had a few years ago which ended up growing into a business. So, in the early stages, I just produced a simple HTML site which I constantly updated in the hope that I’d get it looking professional one day.

But then I gave up that idea and looked around for a professional I could trust to do it properly. Unfortunately getting a web designer who was actually able to deliver what he promised proved difficult and I then placed the job with Richard, who delivered it on time, on budget and delivered a website that did exactly what he promised it would do.

Since then, Richard has provided outstanding customer support, updating my website as necessary.