Caiston Elle - Urban Design Apparel

[mlipscomb]

New site launched - full custom design and special integrations:
http://www.CaistonElle.com

Site #1500 on the Joomla! Community Site Showcase:
http://community.joomla.org/showcase/sites/business/beauty-a-fashion/caiston-elle-urban-design-apparel.html

Description: Caiston Elle - Urban Design Apparel is the virtual shop extension of Caiston Elle of Gadsden. The provide a unique line of clothing and accessories for the fashion-forward woman. This site extends the great product lines to a virtual audience and is branded the same way the physical store is.Case Study: This site was developed in multiple phases. The site has highly advanced integration between accounting, order fulfillment and social media. Built on the Joomla! 1.5 platform and powered by a custom built version of VirtueMart 1.1.4 we were able to provide the client an e commerce experience that rivals much larger chains.

Phase 1 - Coming Soon Landing Page:
The coming soon page was the first portion of the design process. A landing page that provided e-mail newsletter opt-in was required as the client understood it would take more than a few days to perfect the full site. This mini-site was also built on the Joomla! framework.

Phase 2 - Initial Site Design:
Phase two was the original design of the full site. The client required that the site match (exactly) all other branding. This was accomplished using a full custom graphic design and conversion. Everything - even down to the ONE PAGE CHECKOUT is fully custom. Additionally, the client required wishlist, affiliate, RMA and FAQ system.

Phase 3 - Integration with Accounting/ERP:
The site had to be easily updated and an automated order fulfillment process was required. Additionally, integration with QuickBooks Point of Sale and QuickBooks Premier was required. This was completed with a custom solution through Intuit Developers (on staff with us) and custom VirtueMart setups.

Phase 4 - Integration with Social Networks:
Social Media Marketing is an integral part of the site and the client's marketing plan. Through "share" buttons on every product page and streamlined links to the client's social profiles this was partially achieved. However, the client wanted to go further. So, integration was enabled to allow auto publishing of new products to all social networks. Additionally, special pages were setup to publish as "Tabs" in FaceBook.

Phase 5 - Product Data Feeds:
Phase 5 was the final phase of the project and included developing and distributing product data feeds (automatically) to over 10 different shopping comparison sites. The main one being Google Merchant/Google Base.

In the end, this two-month project was a complete success. The client is so happy that they are considering even further advancing the site and adding more features and abilities!

[TomC]

What application did you use for your "wishlist" feature ??

[mlipscomb]

Partially Forrest's wishlist hack - found here: http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=66530

And partially a custom one I wrote.  I've been through (and used) all the ones available commercially, but have never found one that I actually liked well enough to use on a high-end site.  So, I finally broke down and customed one out for this site.

[beltoforion]

Hello, did you manage to add the share button on each of your products?..

I am trying to use the open graph with this., could u share some info on that?

[mlipscomb]

I included a module position so I could later add in other modules if I wanted to.  Module positions are pretty easy to call into the flypage template so it was the best solution for this one.

[beltoforion]

why did you pick black :S..

[mlipscomb]

Why did I pick black on what part?

[Template Designer]

So clear-designed. I think it's better than commercial templates.