Temple of Bloom flower shop of Raleigh, NC, came to O6 looking for their first corporate web site and an online storefront.
The people behind Temple of Bloom had worked with O6 before on the Capital Area Team Sports projects and were familiar with our methods. Similarly, we knew that many of the tools used on the CATS site worked for them and could be carried over into the new site.
Just as CATS used a database-driven, Flash-based navigation system, so did the Temple of Bloom site. As we knew that the client felt no need to abide by the “Rule of Seven” in these navigation areas, three different sets of nav items were used to make sure that all of the site’s content would be available, with the client able to edit exactly which links would appear.
General content on the site would be managed by the client using Adobe Contribute. The exception would be in the store, which featured a custom administration system.
Each store page featured a block of descriptive text, a photo, the price and an “Add to Cart” button. The first three of that list could be managed through the administration system, which also allowed products to be pulled from the store as needed.
Editing the site’s home page required a combination of the two content management methods. Three randomly-selected products that had been flagged as “featured” would appear on the home page alongside a block of text that could be edited in Contribute, giving the client a space for announcements while still giving prime space to their products.
One unique challenge of the site’s shopping cart was allowing shipping on different addresses to different locations for each product purchased. Shipping charges would be determined by grouping the products by address and date.
Also constructed but never used was a “microstore” that allowed a small amount of product to be placed for sale through a streamlined checkout process. The microstore was intended to be used for the high-traffic Valentine’s Day season.
The above text and images were copied directly from the portfolio of my former development company, O6 Web Services, as I imported it over to this blog. It was not updated for re-publishing. This project launched in April 2010.