About Elite Toys and Models
Elite Toys and Models specialises in the supply of high quality toys and models from a range of distinguished manufacturers such as Britains, Bruder, Joal and Siku to name but a few.
Their aim is simple, to supply quality products at affordable prices whilst maintaining the highest levels of customer service.
Project Detail
From an initial enquiry, found through Google, Centurius was commissioned upgrade, redesign and redevelop Elite Toys and Models new ecommerce web site from their existing version10 site software to the current version of the Actinic Business Ecommerce (V11).
From initial telephone conferences with the client, it was proposed that the new look of the website required a complete redesign to allow for clear recognisable brand navigation links, nice clear advertisement areas and enhanced site functionality to encourage customer purchasing. To reinforce and support the new site, Centurius also carried out a brief brand redesign to incorporate the new colours, fonts and styling.
Our client had his own importing software to implement his online catalogue therefore we needed to keep the clients existing import variables as well as introduce and list our own to increase the site functionality and layout.
The main homepage was designed to allow for a large jQuery advertisement rotator, three supporting mini advertisements as well as introducing a multi tab best sellers and new arrivals section which displays up to ten products per each tab. As the client had recently set up a new Twitter page for social media networking we embedded a new Twitter feed for the homepage as well as a welcome introduction area for content.
For the section layout the client required a particular layout similar to the dabs.com framework which displays the products in a row list layout. The client had purchased an external third party plug-in for increased stock control functionality which needed to be bug fixed and implemented within this new template.
Regarding the global design layout of the site, we introduced a new navigation plug-in to allow for top level section brand images to be displayed for immediate brand recognition. As well as this additional layout fragments such as ‘Testimonials’ and ‘Why Buy From Us’ were as introduced to increase trust. Within the footer area we introduced four key point of interest boxes for our client to populate. By default we apply links to the client’s main social media and information pages such as Facebook, YouTube, Blog and Delivery pages. From a data capture perspective we implemented a new newsletter signup form by integrating it with the email marketing software Mail Chimp.
A number of external plug-ins were integrated into the site to entice the customer into purchasing products, such as an automatic zoom magnifier which shows the product in far more detail. Centurius also created the ability to easy add a YouTube video to a product by simply entering the YouTube generated embed code. When clicked the video appears over the top of the site.
Testimonials
“Choosing a web design company is a major decision and I could not be more pleased with our choice of Centurius. They listened to our ideas for the new site and contributed many of their own. Throughout they were friendly and helpful and have created a great new website for our business. I look forward to working with them on other projects in the future”
Sean Pearson – Director
Elite Toys and Models
