About Encaustic Shop
Formed in 1987 by Michael and Shona Bossom, Encaustic.com is the trading name of Arts Encaustic Limited. Based in Pembrokeshire, Encaustic.com encourages, advises and assists experienced or novice encaustic artists in the techniques of encaustic art creation. Apart from advice, Encaustic brings to you an opportunity for exceptional creativity with a quality range of all the things needed. This fascinating & versatile art activity can be a hobby, a craft, a therapy, a leisure art or a fine art – it all depends on you. Suitable for all abilities in one way or another!
Project Detail
After sending out a recent email marketing campaign, Centurius were contacted by Micheal Bossom, Director of Encaustic.com. After an initial discussion Centurius created a recommendations report outlining improvements that could be applied to the website. A quote was then provided and Centurius were commissioned to redevelop the encausticshop.com web site within the Sellerdeck 2013 Business edition.
Centurius carried out the redevelopment on their servers so the client could see the redevelopment taking place in real-time, thus allowing their business to continue trade online, without disruption.
In terms of redevelopment Centurius redeveloped the core templates with a globally renovated header and footer area, allowing clear links and cart summary functionality. The header was redesigned to be more in line with the encaustic art branding, improving the relationship between online and offline branding. The mega menu navigation was reworked to work on a single line as was the brochure page navigation which was later repositioned within the footer area. Within the left hand side of the site Centurius introduced a plugin which displayed only the subsections within a specific top level section. This allowed the customers not to be reliant on the mega menu and easily navigate between sub sections.
A number of functions were included in the site to give a professional look and feel. These included a jQuery homepage advertisement rotator to allow the client to highlight specific offers and allow the customer to navigate to key products more easily. There was also the implementation of four homepage adverts which offered key areas for the customer to now navigate to in and around the web. All the additional functionality could now be controlled easily via the Sellerdeck content tree without having to alter the core html code.
The product pages were updated with external plugins to enhance the functionality of the site and thus help in converting prospective visitors into paying customers. This included a ‘Tabber’ functionality which allowed the client to enter multiple tabbed areas of content from one text editor. As video played a big part within the Encaustic.com website we also customised the code allowing the client to add a YouTube video to a product by simply entering the YouTube generated embed code. When clicked, the video would display itself within a lightbox functionality over the top of the site. Finally we enhanced the product image by integrating a product zoom functionality that allowed the client to enter 6 additional images which, when clicked on, would display a larger image to the customer.
As Centurius prides itself on building long term partnerships with its clients, Encaustic and Centurius will be working together on future projects to enhance the site further.
Testimonial
“I normally trash marketing emails, but Centurius offered a tone of invitation and professionalism that respected my time and attention – I responded to their offer of a ‘free and without obligations’ SellerDeck site report that would contain their recommendations. Duly it arrived.
Once digested I realised that their specific and professional insight, combined with their expert capabilities could indeed bring a more modern facility to my rather niche market customers. So we spoke by phone, agreed on a working strategy and price, then I exchanged the necessary snapshot file for them to work their magic upon.
All that we had discussed and agreed upon in development of the site was executed by them efficiently, effectively and within timescale. The restoration of the site was a simple import snapshot process and no online selling time was lost.
As I began to work within the new variables myself and encountered a couple of curios behaviours I discovered that Centurius were totally good to their word. They used an online screen sharing utility which was both easy to use and perfectly illuminating to identify correction of the issues. Centurius created solution to the small changes now clarified and within hours I had the corrective code to just copy into place.
It is good in these times of hectic technological activity, to find a company with a real personal concern and touch. Professional expertise to advise effectively and a fluent capability to update the software templates in question. These people proved themselves trustworthy, prompt and keen to encourage positive evolution for us as a client.
Therefore, I can certainly recommend to anyone interested in updating their SellerDeck sites, that Centurius can deliver a friendly, capable and effective evolution that can improve the potential for your own positive development of the SellerDeck online selling platform. They certainly have for us and I am very happy that we committed to work together. I also have the confidence to know that should anything arise regarding my Sellerdeck site then Centurius are there not only to help but to perhaps offer further advice and suggestions as the technologies themselves continue to evolve.”
Michael Bossom – Founder & Director
Arts Encaustic Limited