Complex ecommerce & systems integration for ALS.
CLIENT:
Advanced Landscape Systems
INDUSTRY:
Importer, Manufacturing & Warehousing
PROJECT:
Website Refresh
CONTACT:
Shareen Hudson - Marketing Lead
Penelope Suckling - Operations Lead
Industry Leaders
What ALS was looking for.
Advance Landscape Systems (ALS) is a well-established landscaping supplies company dedicated to nurturing and protecting plantings.
With a wide and evolving product range, and a diverse mix of customers, ALS needed a new eCommerce website capable of providing a seamless experience for everyone.
The goal was to create an online experience that reflected their dedication to quality, customer care, and environmental stewardship, including integrating their plastics recycling program and Knowledge Hub content.
Deep Understanding
Key areas of work - Planning.
Our approach began with developing a thorough understanding of ALS’s business, its varied customer segments, and their specific needs.
Discovery Workshops.
- After a series of workshops we gained a clear understanding into what makes ALS unique, from their earth-friendly solutions for native plant growth to their expertise in supplying comprehensive product componentry.
- We also examined competitor strategies, identifying areas of strength and opportunity for the new platform.
Solutions Planning.
- ALS provided a detailed list of desired functions and features, as well as existing functionality that needed to be retained.
- For each requirement, we researched off-the-shelf solutions, opting for custom development only when an existing solution couldn’t meet the precise needs of ALS or their customers.
Successful Outcome.
- This phase was crucial to ensure the eCommerce platform would not only facilitate easy access to product information and pricing for landscapers to quickly generate quotes, but also keep native nursery owners informed about the latest plant care solutions, and support robust processes for community groups with large planting projects. In view of future growth in their premium ranges, It was also required that various file formats, such as CAD drawings and Sketchup (.SKP) could be accessed and downloaded by designers and relevant professionals.
Feature-Rich
Key areas of work - Features.
Working closely with the Advance Landscape Systems team, we delivered a robust, feature-rich eCommerce platform which supports their diverse customer base and complex product offerings.
Migrating Customers & Products.
- We needed to find a way to migrate data from Silverstripe to WordPress while allowing the ALS team to make substantial changes to their product information, including restructuring some products, changing product categories, and updating several sets of pricing.
- They also wanted to bring across their existing website customer accounts with as much of the associated customer data as possible.
- We established a solution working in Google Sheets, where the project team could collaborate and work on the data together in real time.
- The Google Sheet was directly connected to the new website as the data source for a custom import/update tool, which would create or update WooCommerce products on the website, including images.
- The connection to Google Sheets avoided the problems associated with emailing copies of the data around, and made it easy to run multiple updates. Future bulk pricing or product changes can easily be done the same way.
Custom Shipping Options Across Multiple Delivery Zones.
- Shipping landscape supplies is no simple matter; you have boxes, bales, rolls and packs in all shapes, sizes and weights.
- ALS needed a way to mark certain products as ‘over-sized’ or ‘heavy’, as they cost more to ship. They also needed to have a rural delivery surcharge, depending on the user’s delivery address.
- Customers can also choose to skip the shipping costs altogether and collect their order from a chosen pickup location.
- This combination of requirements led us to create a custom WooCommerce shipping method to control exactly what customers are charged, based on what they order and where they are shipping to (or picking up from).
Two-way Unleashed API Integration.
- Though Unleashed now offers its own WooCommerce integration as a subscription add-on, at the time we could only find third-party integrations – none of which really inspired much confidence.
- So we scoped and built a custom API integration which sends customer data and orders to Unleashed, and retrieves shipping notes from Unleashed to update the corresponding WooCommerce order. This means WooCommerce can send an email to the customer when their order ships.
- This integration provides a full log and audit trail, along with an alert mechanism to let the administrator know if it encounters any issues when trying to send an order through to Unleashed, so it can be investigated further.
- It was built as a custom WordPress plugin, providing an admin interface and easy access to WordPress and WooCommerce data.
Tiered Pricing.
- The site offers tiered pricing, where products can have different pricing depending on how many units you order – generally cheaper per unit if you order more than a certain quantity.
- The core of this feature was a popular WooCommerce plugin, with a little custom styling and JavaScript on the front end to indicate when the discount tier took effect.
Group-Based Pricing.
- The site also supports group pricing, where customers can be assigned to different groups (called ‘roles’ in WordPress) and receive different pricing – including the tiered pricing described above.
- This means you can create groups like ‘Trade Customers’ and give them special pricing, either based on regular pricing (e.g. a percentage discount) or as a whole separate set of pricing for each group.
- Assigning users to groups just takes a couple of clicks, and we were able to do this in bulk as we imported existing customers from the old website.
Tax Pricing (incl and excl).
- ALS wanted to give their business customers the option of seeing GST-exclusive pricing.
- With the tiered pricing feature already requiring two visible prices for each product, we didn’t want to clutter up the page showing yet another set of pricing for GST inclusive / exclusive.
- Instead we built a simple switch to allow visitors to toggle the entire site – at least as far as checkout – between pricing modes.
Quick Ordering.
- Many ALS customers are busy people who need to order supplies quickly and easily. We designed a ‘quick order’ feature which lets you choose exactly the product variation you need in one click, without leaving a category page.
- This uses the same ‘add to cart’ area you see when viewing the singular product page, so it supports all the same features.
Multiple Addresses.
- A feature ALS wanted to bring across from their old site was the ability for customers to have multiple shipping and billing addresses on their account.
- We added a feature to allow customers to add new addresses at checkout, and manage their address book in their account settings. This was also a WordPress plugin at its core, with custom styling and branding to fit seamlessly into the ALS site.
Favourite Products.
- ALS knew that many of their repeat customers come back for the same products over multiple orders.
- We added a simple ‘favourites’ feature to let those customers build a list of products in their account dashboard, for easy and selective re-ordering.
- The built-in WooCommerce ‘re-order’ feature also allows whole orders to be repeated with a single click.
In the client's own words.
“Our website project was complex and critical to get across the line in order to move forward with our business objectives. We appreciated the expertise of Chris the developer, who was great to work with and gave us confidence in the process. His ability to come up with effective solutions for what we needed to achieve, and promptly resolve any issues that arose, made this project possible.”
Shareen Hudson - Marketing Lead
READY FOR A SERIOUS PARTNER?
Serious about your next stage?
We work with established organisations planning meaningful growth or change, where digital is treated as core infrastructure rather than ‘just a website’.
If that sounds like you, let’s talk.