A redesigned web site for Pride Communications Services' PCS-Ltd.com will contribute to sales growth of 25% this year, after years of 15% growth, president Anthony Croucier tells InternetRetailer.com. Croucier expects that new features, such as best-seller lists and product reviews written by customers, a la Amazon, will fuel that growth. Pride Communications launched the new site a month ago. It sells cases for cell phones and other handheld devices. "People like to talk about their handhelds and what cases are best for them, and we want to learn what customers are thinking," Croucier says.
New York-based 10E20 Web Design created the new site using open-source software from OSCommerce.com, a web site that offers software tools contributed by a global community of open-source software developers. The software is available for free. In turn, developers are expected to share their ideas on how to improve software applications. By using open source software Pride executed the redesign for $6,000 vs. $10,000 plus development costs for commercial software from Microsoft Corp. and other vendors, says Chris Winfield, president of 10E20 Web Design. He adds that with open source software, Pride will be able to more easily continue site modifications to accommodate expected growth.
In addition, the redesign optimized the site for Internet searches, moving PCS-Ltd far ahead in search results, Croucier says. "We used to show up in the 10th to 15th pages of searches, but now we're in the first two pages," he says. "We've already seen an increase in visitor activity just by moving up in web page searches."
Among other new features 10E20 built for PCS-Ltd.com are multiple-language content and the ability to have multiple shipping addresses stored for each customer, such as for home and office. Winfield notes that the open-source software can support up to 25 languages, though Pride uses only English and Spanish.
The redesign also supports better back-end operations, Croucier says. Under the former design, he says, his staff had to manually input customer data to print out invoices for each order. Now its shopping cart data integrate with its back-end accounting software to automatically produce electronic invoices that can be printed on demand.
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