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Product Documentation WIKI

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Business Problems

For over 40 years, Specialized Products Company (SPC) has provided field technicians and installers in the telecommunication, high-tech, fiber, medical, public utility, high-voltage, and clean room industries with specialized, and even custom - tools and test equipment for their tradecraft. The company's website - Specialized.net - had an outdated look and was built on an unyielding platform that didn't allow SPC personnel to easily manage and maintain the site. Looking to increase sales, enhance brand awareness, and acquire new customers, SPC contacted Guidance to help achieve these goals on a brand new, flexible platform that would let them update the site as often as needed.

Solution

Applying best practices in user experience and visual design to create a new look for SPC, Guidance extensively customized Mediachase's ECF platform to build Specialized.net. The suckerfish dropdown navigation was custom-coded and it's easily manageable and extensible through the site's custom-build admin system. Filtered search capabilities were integrated using Nextopia's eComm | Search software, which allows visitors to narrow down their search results based on brand, product category, or type. A single-page checkout (SPCO) was created for the site, with a custom real-time shipping rate algorithm which uses product dimensions and weight information along with selected carrier and provided zip code to calculate the shipping rate of any order.

Benefits

Custom-build admin system allows SPC to create new static pages, use existing controls to create dynamic pages, manage navigation, promotions and merchandising efforts.

Robust .NET eCommerce platform that's easily scalable (Mediachase ECF).

Single-page checkout allows customers to register, sign up for email updates, select shipping method, enter payment information and place their order in just a few clicks.

Easy-to-change, extensible navigation, feature suckerfish technology.

Filtered search software lets customers narrow down their search results by brand or product category.

Service/Solution Area

Information architecture

Visual design

eCommerce Development

Hosting

Software

Mediachase ECF™ G5

Commerce@Work ERP

Nextopia eComm|Search

Microsoft SQL Server 2005

FedEx & USPS shipment gateways

Paypal payment gateway

Customer Profile

Since 1965, Specialized Products Company (SPC) has supplied service professionals worldwide with tool kits, shipping cases and test equipment backed by superior customer service. Orders are shipped on the same day they are received for added convenience of next day delivery. SPC's inventory includes over 300 variations of standard tool kits with the capabilities to modify or customer any kit to meet the client's exact specifications. SPC headquarters are in Southlake, TX.

"Guidance has put together an amazing website for us. They really went out of their way to accomodate all of our requirements, from design specifications to complex modules. The new site allows us to promote our products properly, just the way we envisioned it" - Pete Smith, CEO Specialized Products Company

ECF G5™ Partner Spotlight: Inspirational Stores

Company Background

Inspirational Stores, partner of high end and luxury brands for performance based e-commerce, is a startup company created by Michel de Guilhermier and Martin Genot in 2007. Based in Paris, France, Inspirational Store manages all on-line activities on behalf of its partners, in domains such as ready-to-wear clothes, accessories and personal hygiene market.

The leitmotiv is efficiency. Inspirational Stores’ teams therefore leverage all marketing, sales, logistical and technical means in order to lead to a fast and sustainable growth, and steer the brand sales potential to the top.

Two major venture capital firms joined Inspirational Stores in this challenge: Atlas Ventures and OTC Asset Management. “This funding is one of the largest achieved for an e-commerce company in France, a testament to the quality and ambition of this project. We are delighted to significantly support the company in its ambitious expansion plans.”

Why Inspirational Stores Chose ECF™ G5

Inspirational Stores considered several alternatives to build its e-commerce framework. Several challenges are at stake: to rely on an industrial and well structured, robust and scalable software framework, the ability to use but also increase a large set of features to accommodate various business domains and front-to-back processes, leverage a development community addressing state of the art e-commerce practices, and of course last but not least, TCO and price/performance.

We studied 3 types of commercial or free solutions: Java, .Net and classic open source solutions. After reviewing a selection of candidates, Inspirational Stores selected Mediachase and its .Net eCF solution. Of course, it offers a large set of functionalities and is well architected. Additional key values are the ability to access the source code and work in a partnership program to enhance it in the long term. We therefore integrate their strong e-commerce foundation and extend it to tailor it to our business domains and internal processes.

The quality of our internal IT factory built thanks to Mediachase’s product is recognized by our shareholders and partners. Bruno Emsellem, CTO of Inspirational Stores, comments: “Sharing our needs with a software editor really listening and working with us in a partnership gives us the ability to accelerate beyond the classical learning curve of a framework. Today, we deploy comprehensive and cost-effective e-commerce solutions very quickly at an international level. And I find that’s quite an achievement.”

Area of Expertise

Multi-lingual & multi-currency sites,
Catalog management with complex class of products, bundles and dynamic packages,
Optimized SEO,
Promotions and customers segmentation,
Checkout with several different payment and logistic contexts,
B2B integration with affiliates and partners.