Art Systems

Who are Art Systems?

Go to www.artsystems.co.uk.

The Challenge

The main challenge for the Art Systems site was to allow regular trade account customers to have password protected accounts within the website and for those accounts to each have specialist information and pricing driven by the Art Systems ERP system and provide a swift product checkout process for consumers.

In addition, the website itself had to perform well in the search engines by being very SEO friendly, especially on product ranges and product pages.

Art Systems also required a franchise system where franchise sites can be deployed quickly and efficiently with the ability for Art Systems to choose what products/ranges franchises can sell.

The Approach

We created a sophisticated Distributor-to-Reseller e-commerce system sat behind a comprehensive content managed product catalogue. We placed the user journey at the heart of the interface design and the product catalogue is cleverly constructed to simplify search and product selection. Once a product is selected, the customer can then place it in the basket without leaving or refreshing the catalogue page – it’s a simple 'click and carry-on' shopping process.

When product selection is complete, the user progresses to the next stage. For registered resellers the journey is fast and efficient – by entering user name and password the system auto populates personalized price, account and delivery details - and after checking that their account isn’t on hold – the system allows a credit account or credit card purchase. For non-registered users, the system gives the option to print and fax the order or to submit the order directly to be passed to an authorized reseller for order completion.

The system fully integrates into Art Systems back office ‘Navision’ ERP system for all accounts, stock, pricing and delivery information. This offers the company a single point of authority throughout their back office and web system to minimize admin overhead and errors.

Together with modern SEO coding into all the site's main pages, the entire product catalogue supplies “dynamic SEO” on every page which ensures the site performs brilliantly, not only on generic search terms but specific product searches too. By default pages have relevant SEO without the administrator needing to work at it.

A franchise system was expertly constructed to allow a quick turnaround in franchise website creation. Templates and themes can be selected by franchisees and their own branding added.

The Results

The new, stylish and professional Art Systems site is extremely aesthetically pleasing.

A first-time purchase for users is a simple and smooth process. This is due to easy navigation around the site, through items being sectioned by manufacturer and product ranges.

The login account, for regular trade users, gives them a seamless user experience. It allows them to have details regularly used to be saved within their account as well as encouraging loyalty to Art Systems.

In addition to its great design and technical sophistication, the site is cleverly search engine optimised. This has meant that the site performs very well in search engine rankings for relevant phrases.

Art Systems are extremely happy with the end result. The website facilitates a huge amount of direct sales.