Client Name: Casa Rose Boudoir
Domain name: www.casaroseoxford.com
Date Started: June 2009
Date Live: Ongoing
Website Type: Static website and Ecommerce Shop
The Brief:
When I first met Rose she did have a website but she didn’t have the ability to update it or sell online. As Rose has this wonderful shop based on Oxford she wanted to be able to increase her market reach and touch customers that maybe couldn’t get into Oxford.
Rose at the start sold designer clothing and jewellery that Rose herself went and purchased from Paris and Fashion Shows. Quite often her items were of limited stock or one offs.
Rose has her own particular style, as does her shop and she wanted to make sure that came across on the website too. Her website needed to be like her shop window – stylish, fun and somewhere you wouldn’t forget and would want to come back again and again!
Pinks, Gold and luxurious colours were a must!
The Work:
Rose didn’t really have a set logo to start with – other than her name – she we started off by creating a simple logo that would match her requirements:
Next came to creating that “online shop window” – that of course said WOW, it did take me a few goes to get the layout right – but we did achieve the WOW factor with this layout:
Once the layout had been agreed I first set up a new domain name and new hosting – this meant that I could leave the existing site online whilst I created the new site – i.e. zero downtime!
The first stage was to get the static site up – this gave Rose the place to show off her clothes, jewellery as well as what brands she sold and where she found most of her unique items. Once that stage was completed we were able to move the old website over to the new one – so that people now saw and used the new website.
I don’t always have to set up new hosting – in this instance the hosting I provided was of a higher quality and also a lower cost!
Behind the scenes I was then created the ecommerce or online shop version. Using the same look and feel. This is always the longest part of any website work, as ecommerce shops have so many layers to them – not just inserting all the products, setting up categories, but installing and testing online payments solutions (paypal, worldpay, sagepay), but working out the best shipping costs and how the orders are received and processed – as I said its a long list!
We did however get the new shop live in November 2011 and now it was time to sell sell sell!
The follow up:
Since that version of the shop went live – Rose’s website has just undergone a new transformation – whilst Rose did and still does love the old look and feel – she did think it was now maybe a bit too fussy for her clients and that those that knew her would understand her – however new clients might not!
So this year we spent a bit of time talking through a new layout – what she wanted and what she didn’t. This time I would pull the static website into the shop itself – which allowed Rose and her team to update the whole website from start to finish.
Rose has also expanded to include Gifts and Furniture as well as the Fashion and Jewellery.
Here is what the – now live – website looks like:
What the customer said:
it looks fantastic! Rose
