A Next Step for Deckor8 Outdoor Furniture

Businesses evolve, and so do their Web site strategies. Cal Hunter, founder of Deckor8 Outdoor Furniture, approached IdeaStar over two years ago with plans for an informational site. That site has grown to a recently completed, online retail store.

"We started out in a new market, outdoor furniture, with the idea that we would sell through independent retailers and wanted an informational site that would support the local retailers and refer prospects to them. For several reasons, we determined that this was not the ideal strategy, and decided to go direct to the consumer with an e-tail site, where we can sell at a lower cost and be in closer touch with the marketplace," Cal said.

He added IdeaStar has done two major and three smaller projects for Deckor8. "With IdeaStar, you always know what each project will cost up front and how long it will take to implement. And, IdeaStar has very good project managers and programmers."

The most recent site was built around an osCommerce framework. osCommerce is an online e-commerce solution under on-going development by the open source community. Its feature-packed installation allows easy set-up and maintenance of online stores. The site includes various sections to showcase the teak-like outdoor furniture designed by Cal. It also includes featured product sections, frequently asked questions, a customer registration sections, a "shopping cart," and administrative pages.

Behind the scenes, the site can be easily updated by a non-technical person and offers a statistics package. "The whole program is very easy to navigate - almost intuitive. It is very easy to change product information, and the statistical information is very helpful," Cal said. Various tools keep track of who is online viewing the site, what has been purchased, and whether or not the item has been paid for and shipped. There is also a link to an osCommerce support site where many concerns are addressed.

There were two main challenges in the use of osCommerce. IdeaStar Software Developer Steve Harrison explained "The package works well if you want to use the base style; however, if you want a custom layout - as most customers do - you pretty much need to get elbow deep into the code. While the base code is well organized in classes, the implementation is spaghetti, and needed to be rewritten to suit the new layout. "

He added the main compensating factor was that the essential business logic and code were bug free. "That's much of the time right there. Wiring the commerce package into Authorize.net's credit card processing was a snap as well. One of the requirements, to use FedEx's rate calculation, was not included with the base distribution. However the osCommerce community had already passed that hurdle and provided a module to fill that need."

All-in-all, Steve said osCommerce provided a cost-effective solution that was backed with years of community support. Because Deckor8 wanted a standard implementation osCommerce worked well. "Regardless of any hurdles, we still managed to roll the site out in short time."

Cal added Deckor8 is a small company and it is important to establish a professional brand image while still having a site that is promotional, attractive, and easy to do business with. IdeaStar's design met those goals. Now the next step is sales. With the site completely search engine optimized by IdeaStar, Cal said "We want to get to a point where we are converting two percent of our visits to orders. The business model works very well for us at that low of a conversion rate." And, Cal is very satisfied working with IdeaStar. "The staff takes a personal interest in a project and they are very easy and friendly to work with."

For more information call Mary Fisher at 216-587-9300