The Client
Proud of their history and committed to their craft, Blackfriars are a quirky and versatile baked goods manufacturer based in Leicestershire, UK. As well as producing their own branded treats and snacks for their loyal customer base, they have been exporting internationally and manufacturing for other brands, for over a decade.
With high volume production capabilities and a dedicated product development team - it isn’t a surprise that Blackfriars were ahead of their time as early adopters of Ecommerce technology.
The Challenge
Having recently implemented a Lakeview ERP system, it was time to retire the legacy website for the latest release of Imaginet’s entry-level Ecommerce solution. In parallel, the brand building vision for Blackfriars was to focus on growing the consumer market and continue trading to B2B customers.
The Solution
Brand aspirations and design
In the initial stages, Imaginet collaborated with the client's packaging design agency. Sample wireframes were provided so the partnering agency could come up with a number of page designs. Imaginet then adapted the designs in line with the responsive code base, maintaining the integrity of the solution. This approach gave Blackfriars the freedom to explore their brand aspirations whilst keeping the web development project within the agreed scope and budget.
Mobile-friendly Ecommerce
The website was a fully responsive B2C ecommerce store with a clean, mobile friendly checkout, the latest release of Imaginet’s own CMS, with full management control of voucher codes, discounts and special offers. The shopping cart was fully integrated with the client’s Lakeview ERP system, speeding up the processing and management of orders.
In addition, a guest checkout was introduced as well as PayPal as an alternative payment option-this was all achieved without complicating the mobile-friendly checkout process.
Other features include:
- Twitter feed & Mailchimp integration
- Crossing-selling of similar products
- Discounts and voucher codes
- Blogging section, categorised for News and Recipes
Lakeview ERP Integration
As well all the best-practice ecommerce fundamentals, the new solution provided Blackfriars with Imaginet’s “best of breed” ERP integrations in collaboration with our partners at Lakeview. This produced a new way of handling complex discounts and promotional codes, ensuring intelligible web order data is exported to the ERP system and smooth end-to-end processing of transactions.
Bespoke requirements
Blackfriars needed to continue using the website for processing large quantity orders to their international B2B / wholesale customer base. A complex shipping matrix was implemented to calculate shipping costs against the order weight and specified country/region, the shipping amount is seamlessly exported with the order data to the ERP system.
The results
After just one month of launching the new Ecommerce store, Blackfriars reported their best ever performance for web sales! Who can resist a slice of cake?
