Kids Toy Barn

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About Kids Toy Barn

Established since January 2014 Kids Toy Barn is a new online toy shop, a place for entertainment, fun and learning. The real thinkers here at the Kids Toy Barn head office have children of their own, so they know just how important it is that they’re brought up in the right way. Because of this, they only offer toys that we know will help your child develop into the fantastic person you know they can be.

Project Detail

Centurius were commissioned towards the end of 2013 to design and develop the new online toy shop for Kids Toy Barn. Our brief was literally a blank canvas with no restrictions to colour, style or layout. After our initial meeting with the client we came to understand the ethics, direction, drive of the company plus the range of products that they envisaged to sell on the site.

From a design perspective we looked at a number of competitor sites, analysing their layout, menu system, categorisation and product structure. Form this we then wire-framed our proposed solution. As Kids Toy Barn was a new web site we created started our process by creating a new online brand for the site. The team felt that bright colours and bold fonts were the way forward for the brand therefore we created a number of variation sheets to show the client, illustration various layouts and fonts. From the clients approval and suggestions we then explored introducing supporting farming caricature elements which related with the brand name. From the finalised brand we were then able to create supporting web visuals that would give a clear step-by-step picture of the customers experience through the site. Our designs incorporated vibrant colour palettes of blues, reds and greens with a fixed central page column for the site content. To enhance, whilst giving maximum focus to the main pages of the site, Centurius incorporated an attractive tiling water background. Once design sign-off was obtained Centurius began to redevelop the client’s snapshot locally and uploaded the site onto a development server to allow the client to view the build.

Kids Toy Barn was built in HTML5 and CSS3. A number of functions were incorporated within the build to enhance the sites functionality.

The main homepage was designed to allow for a large jQuery advertisement rotator that allowed the client to highlight specific offers and allow the customer to navigate to key products more easily. Using a third party plugin Centurius were able to create a multi tab area that allowed the client to display the site’s best-selling items and new products within the same real estate, thus preventing further scrolling for the user.

The ease of use of the site was improved by the introduction of a mega menu system, allowing the extensive product range of the client to be displayed more efficiently and a more advanced purchase system for client.

There was a desire from the client to increase the visibility of the site and create links between website and customer. Centurius did this in two ways; the implementation of social media links on the site so that customers can go straight to relevant social media pages.

In terms of navigation, the sections were structured to display the sub sections within a top level section. Within this, the products have been set out to provide a ‘quick buy’ system for the products on the section page, or the option to click on the product for an individual product page.

Within the main product pages we implemented two plugins to improve sales conversions. This consisted of 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. Similar to the homepage function, the product page also incorporated a tabber function which allows for masses of product information to be displayed into bite-sized chunks, which can be viewed via a tabbed title.

As Centurius prides itself on building long term partnerships with its clients, Kids Toy Barn and Centurius will be working together on future projects to enhance the exposure of the new website via online marketing and the creation of a dedicated blog for news, events and relevant article writing.

Testimonial

“I went to Centurius with this idea of selling Kids Toys, but I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. I have always been passionate about kids getting away from TVs and computer screens and back playing with the toys I enjoyed so much as a child. So I had the idea, I just needed the know-how.

I knew of Centurius having been friends with one of the team for a number of years. After an initial meeting with Centurius I knew that I would not be let down. I commissioned them to do everything from designing the website to marketing to content writing to social media. I couldn’t believe that one company could be so proficient in so many different areas but they have been. Everyone I do business with has complimented me on my website. I would recommend Centurius everytime.”

Kids Toy Barn

Get in touch…

Address:
Lencett House, 45 Boroughgate,
Otley, Leeds, West Yorkshire,
Leeds, LS21 1AG

Tel: 0113 350 4095
Email: info@centurius.co.uk

Recent works

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