OXID online store development from www.bettymarcus.com

Creation of a web store for home and gift ideas

WohnSinn oHG, a store for gifts and home accessories in Mainz-Bretzenheim, expanded its product range in 2015 to include the self-founded label "Betty & Marcus". In order to be able to present the new brand more nationally and internationally in the future, eWorks was commissioned as a Hessian OXID agency to create an online store for the complete Betty & Marcus range. WohnSinn wanted to have a web store created in order to open a second eCommerce sales channel in addition to the retail store sales and to be able to realize real multi-channel sales.

After carefully weighing up all the pros and cons together with the client, the OXID eShop software in the Community Edition (OXID-CE) was chosen as the store software on which to build the new online store. As an open source platform for new online stores, the OXID Community Edition offers the advantage of full OXID functionality and security at minimal cost - namely €0 for the OXID CE license.

Because WohnSinn not only wanted to have a new online store created, but also wanted to shut down the existing website at the same time, it was important to generate maximum recognition value through appropriate design and color scheme in the online store. Accordingly, the store design was carried out in very close consultation with the client, as they naturally knew their corporate design and target group best. Since a completely new web design had to be created for the store design anyway, a responsive design was also developed at the same time: Mobile devices such as cell phones / smartphones and tablets are given a more compact, easier-to-read and easier-to-use store design, depending on the display size, and can therefore also participate in the shopping experience without hindrance.

Following the store design, the OXID eShop was adapted to the customer's needs, for example by configuring all the necessary shipping and payment settings (store customizing). In order to be able to offer future store customers a sufficient number of payment methods, the two popular payment systems "PayPal" and "Heidelpay" were also integrated into the online store in this step. To further enhance the shopping experience, OXID programming added one or two mini-features, e.g. cross-selling by displaying the last items viewed in the store.

The OXID eShop Community Edition was primarily used for software development, as well as PHP and MySQL, on which OXID eShop is based. The web design - typical for OXID - was done with Smarty and jQuery as well as HTML and CSS, of course. In addition, the OXID template "RoxIve" was used specifically for the responsive design (digidesk media solutions). (Technical background: RoxIve is an OXID theme for all those who want to have a responsive OXID online store created - because unfortunately OXID does not yet support this out-of-the-box).

Once the web design, customizing and OXID development had been completed, there was a short warm-up phase, which allowed the store operator to add articles to the Oxidshop and carry out the final fine-tuning of the content. eWorks, in turn, used this phase to carry out final functional tests and rectify any defects. Finally, on 20.07.2015, the newly developed web store went live for all internet users at www.bettymarcus.com as planned. Even after the store went live, the eWorks OXID developers continue to make adjustments, changes or extensions to the OXID store on request, correct any errors found and provide reliable support for store operation at any time.