Holiday Cards Unlimited Ecommerce Case Study
January 2008
Holiday Cards Unlimited approached us with the most customized site requirements that we've ever seen for a Miva Merchant store. Their design team had created unique layouts for the product and basket pages, and the functionality surrounding their method for building personalized greeting cards presented several new challenges.
Customized Products
The hardest thing to work with was the highly customized products. The product page had to appear straightforward to customers, while at the same time guiding them through a number of attributes, including a verse and custom imprint for the inside of the card, an optional logo, a return address, extra envelopes, and more. Certain attributes needed to have flat-rate pricing, where the cost of the attribute was independent of the quantity of cards order (for example, the fee for importing the artwork for a company logo).
We approached the product page layout by visually grouping attributes based on function:
- Step 1 covers pricing and card details (such as size)
- Step 2 covers the inside of the card, including the verse, custom closing, and logo
- Step 3 handles the envelopes, including return address imprinting, self-seal options, and extra envelopes
- Step 4 asks a few questions about customer preferences
We also developed a custom module that aggregates flat-rate options (typeset proof, logo), as well as the pricing for extra envelopes, which have their own independent quantity, and calculates and displays them appropriately once the customer reaches the basket page.
Finally, the product page displays the customer's information on beautifully accurate images created by a dynamic imaging platform. The URLs that generate the custom images are built with Javascript based on the information the shopper enters into the card's attribute fields, then passed to the third-party imaging system for rendering.
The Shopping Cart - Organized and Dynamic
Once a card is customized and added to the basket, another unique aspect of the site comes into focus. Rather than facing a cluttered, information-overloaded basket screen, the customer sees the card(s) in their basket organized into card projects. The attributes are grouped together under headings that help organize the different options selected for the card. All the options are hidden in the initial view, but each card can be expanded and collapsed to display the options at will.
The shopping cart again displays customized images for the card front, inside of card, envelope type, and envelope printing, all configured by the dynamic imaging system.
Personalized Shopping
Customers purchasing personalized greeting cards often take a while before making the final buy decision. The process sometimes involves multiple people within a company. To facilitate this shopping process, we gave customers the ability to save their favorite card designs as Top Picks. And once a card has been personalized and placed in the shopping cart, customers can save the entire cart for future review, without losing any of the work it took to personalize their card.
The most useful aspect of this process, however, is the fact that customers can edit the card projects after placing them in their cart. Any of the options for the card project can be altered - the verse type, wording, envelope printing, et cetera. The edit card screen has the same organized layout as the original product page displayed.
Top-Notch Customer Service System
Holiday Cards Unlimited required an advanced system for customer service, and more importantly, customer self-service. To meet this need, we developed a Customer Care Center for the website. The Customer Care Center is a portal where customers can view their order history, status, and tracking information; any correspondence they've had with Holiday Card Unlimited's customer service department; their saved shopping carts; their Top Picks; and links to general information and help pages.
The Customer Care Center takes information from Miva Merchant and rolls it into a dynamic, robust PHP system for handling all aspects of customer service. It also utilizes a third-party helpdesk software package that was customized by NetBlazon at the source code level.
Performance
Because the site was developed using Miva Merchant 4 and OpenUI Supermod Templates, we faced a performance hurdle. The category and product pages had unacceptably slow load times. To compensate for this, we implemented a product called Merchant Optimizer, that makes static copies of each category and product screen within the store. And to allow dynamic information, such as the customer's name, to appear on the static pages, we created a custom MivaScript file to support AJAX processing.
NetBlazon Modules Used
- Basket Tracker
- Remember Me
- Subcategory Navigation
- Category Breadcrumbs Plus
- Attribute Prompt in Basket
- Ultimate Feed Generator
- Force Multiples
- 1-Click Basket Update
- My Favorites
"When we contacted NetBlazon, we were looking for a company who could handle a large-scale project and had deep knowledge of Miva that could translate into allowing us to cost-effectively customize our website as we wished. We were also interested in working with a company who could consult us on how to achieve our business goals through our website via increased conversions, SEO, and customer centered site processes.
"NetBlazon was excellent in meeting these requirements. They would get into the trenches with detailed development while at the same time maintain a full view of our business goals through their "click to customer" approach. They were great at providing ideas to further enhance the site as well as collaborating with us on design concepts we generated. NetBlazon also met some very difficult deadlines for us, which was of critical importance. Additionally, they were able to creatively problem solve tough development issues that arose. They are likeable and good people to work with, and we feel they very much care about our business."
- Tim Christopoulos, Holiday Cards Unlimited