American Country Home Store
CLIENT INFORMATION
American Country is a furniture store in the heart of Ames, Iowa that has over 4,000 square feet of furnishings that include denim sofas, distressed pine coffee tables, TV cabinets, computer desks, wicker furniture, bistro patio tables, chairs, garden accessories, and cottage style furniture, with unique gifts & accessories thrown in all around.
SITUATION
American Country established its first online presence in January of 2001. The main component of their web site was a static product catalogue that allowed users to browse different products before filling out an order form and indicating in a specified field which products they were interested in buying. The contents of the form would then be e-mailed to a designated store administrator who would then be responsible for processing the order. The excessive amount of manual work involved in processing orders as well as the inability to quickly change the online store catalogue encouraged American Country to contact Global Reach.
SOLUTION
The American Country web site has a collection of the following main interactive features:
- The product catalogue can be managed entirely online.
- An infinite number of product categories and sub-categories can be added into the system
- Products can be displayed under multiple categories.
- Users can easily add products to their shopping cart and get the total cost of their order automatically.
- All orders are stored in a central database and can be processed by a central administrator.
- A store administrator can specify different types of discounts to be given on any order.
- A wide variety of data collected can be presented in a number of ways through a comprehensive set of reporting tools.
BENEFITS
The application Global Reach designed and developed for American Country provided them with the following benefits:
- The online product catalogue can be updated constantly in a cost-effective way.
- The company can reach more effectively a very large market made up of spontaneous online shoppers. In fact, online sales have surpassed the company’s revenue from its brick-and-mortar store.
- The way an order is placed and processed minimizes the possibility of errors.
- Data collected can be used to refine the company’s marketing strategy.
- Since the solution is fully customized, it can easily be expanded to include additional features.
