Chic-Looking E-Commerce Website with Drag & Drop Tool

This is an easy project for someone who knows what they’re doing. If we are satisfied with your work, there may be other projects that follow. The following project outline is a summary of what is needed, highlighting our basic needs. Once awarded the bid, we will submit to you a formal outline of the project, which will be reviewed and discussed in detail. Overview We are in need of a clean, chic-looking UNIQUE e-commerce website that showcases our high end, luxury eco-friendly bridal jewelry. We DO NOT want just another fashion site that looks like every other QVC want-to-be. This is a quality product in a very, very tight niche that deserves its own identity. We want the site to SELL the product; so preference will be given to those bidders that can balance clean, focused design with a clear sales message. Those that can demonstrate previous client successes through ROI of their websites will be considered first. About You • You don’t mind communicating by phone, especially in the beginning of a project and you always return phone calls and emails in a timely manner • You meet deadlines • You abhor sloppy code and refuse to be associated with any website that has bugs; you test your work in different browsers to ensure it runs smooth and does what its supposed to • You understand what “fool proof” or “intuitive” navigation is and how to create it • You do not wait until drafts are perfect before getting feedback from clients to make sure you’re on the right path…instead you use open communication in each stage of a project to save yourself and your clients time and hassle • You follow directions well. When you’re given a website outline, you actually read it, and use it as a checklist. You do not need to be reminded about functions that were already requested in an outline. • You are an expert at creating CLEAN, appealing designs that SELL Our Goals 1. SELL the product: which means the user must FALL IN LOVE with the site 2. Quickly show the luxury and environmental-friendliness of the product on the landing page…the user must “get it” immediately 3. Make it easy for buyers to find what they are uniquely looking for. That means site navigation and product browsing must be intuitive and not make them think. 4. Create a fun atmosphere for shopping, learning and connecting with us…while still feeling very pampered by the luxury of it 5. Have a bug-free, frustration-free website for customers and an easy-to-use administrative back office for updating and maintaining it E-Commerce Browsing will be similar to this, once they’ve selected the type of jewelry they want (necklace, sets, etc.) …note the drop down categories that allow the user to further filter their preferred search [login to view URL];mcat=148206#p+2-n+12-cg+viewPaged-c+288196-s+5-r+-t+-ri+-ni+1-x+-pu+-f+ There will be a few special features to the e-commerce system. Wholesale customers will be able to log in and view only wholesale pricing (all other elements of the website are the same.) Some products will be available for leasing and the system will retain a database of leased products and their date range of rental. The system will incorporate suggested products and will recognize Sets of jewelry as being associated together. Use of this system will occur both at the product page level (“You may also like…) and during checkout “Would you like to add…?) Certain ordering and form-related activities by the user will generate about a dozen or so auto-responders that we will draft content for. Back Office The site will include a content management portal that allows us to administer the site by editing pages, fields, database items and other data. Each section of the content management system should show a summary of all items, such as orders, and should be sort-able by column heading. The content management system will be easy to use and include the following • Jewelry Product database (each product will have Components associated to it) • Component database (this is what jewelry is made of; see Custom Tool for details) • Pages • Customer Accounts • Coupons • Orders (standard and custom with quote) • Blog • Other items (shipping options, promo photos, testimonial database, customer credit transactions, customer cases/issues, internal users, reports) It is important to note that some of the back office databases will be integrated with each other. For example, Orders may be accessed from the Order History section OR the Customer Account (at least, the orders for that customer). Further details provided upon awarding. Customization Tool We would like a customization tool built for the site that allows the customer to, at a minimum, modify certain aspects of the jewelry (such as its clasp, chain, beads etc.) and, at best, create the product from scratch. The final tool we settle on and the way in which it is incorporated into the site will depend on your recommendations and capabilities. We are open-minded about the way this might work…whether as a step by step series of windows that walks the customer through the customization process or a full drag-and-drop tool to create a more user-friendly, intuitive experience. Either way, we expect that the tool will pull from a database of “components”, or individual beads and findings that make up the jewelry. We can be responsible for the uploading and management of this database, but we expect you to guide us on how to edit the photos in Photoshop to the right sizes and specs needed to accurately show up in proper proportion in the custom tool. Please include a thorough description of your vision for satisfying this need in your proposal and indicate the time frame needed to produce the tool you propose in your delivery estimate. Examples: • [login to view URL] • [login to view URL] • [login to view URL] • [login to view URL] (can only change chain selection) Design The design should be clean, uncluttered and appealing to a sophisticated, fashionable bride. Think Tiffany & Co.; only more personable. The site will require some basic illustrations, or icons, on some of the pages, but nothing too fancy. The site, and all of its illustrations, needs to come across as luxurious with a personable touch. All key content and images should occur ABOVE THE FOLD for a standard 15” monitor. Examples…although NONE of these truly captures the look we want so don’t get hung up on them Vrai (landing page is classy…ignore the rest) [login to view URL] Froote Jewelry (luxurious and magical, but too sensual/abstract…and we don’t want a black background) [login to view URL] Stella and Dot (vintage shapes and sensibility –far too homely and down to earth) [login to view URL] Nimli (captures “chic” and clean…fails on browsing simplicity and has too much going on) [login to view URL] Content & Product We will handle all uploading and data entry of product and page content. Likewise, we can deliver certain content to you before the administrative portal is active if it is needed. Other Details We will want the site to have an SSL certificate, to be hosted by wind power (we provide), utilize “captcha” codes and use ALT tags. Facebook We are also interested in creating a very, very simple Facebook application that will post to the customer’s FB page after a purchase (with their permission) and be linkable back to our site. Your Proposal In your bid, include the following • Bid • Time frame for completion (we must have the site live by the end of August or sooner) • Proposal on how to develop the custom tool in a way that may serve both modification and custom-from-scratch needs…provide details on what you plan to build • Your standard process of working with clients by stage • A mock-up design can only help your chances