Background

Craig & Rose have manufactured quality paint in Edinburgh since 1829, and are perhaps best known as the former paint supplier for the Forth Rail bridge. Following its acquisition by Abercastle Holdings, the company has sought to reposition itself by developing environmentally-friendly products and launching its own brand paints, 1829 and Opulence, whilst manufacturing 'white label' products for brands such as Crayola, Bang on the Door and Cath Kidston.

With an increase in awareness of their brands Craig & Rose had noticed a marked interest in telephone orders which they could command retail prices for. They quickly came to the conclusion that using the Internet to sell direct to the customer made good business sense.

What we did

We designed and built an e-commerce enabled site which integrates seamlessly with their existing in-house ERP (enterprise resource planning). New products and stock availability are automatically updated on the website, and orders placed online are uploaded and processed through the normal system.

Each individual paint brand has its own style and this was echoed in the design. We commissioned a photographer to take new images for the site, and worked with a copywriter to produce the correct tone of voice for the content. The shopping basket system uses the latest AJAX technology to save refreshing the page every time the shopping basket is updated, meaning the user is less likely to lose their progress through the site. Email marketing and online advertising has been developed and used in B2C campaigns and the site is fully search engine optimised.

Results

In the first 10 months since launch the site accrued over 1500 new subscribers to their email marketing database and online transactions increased at a rate of 40% per month. This resulted in the site's ROI being achieved in the first year of online trading.

Integration with Google Analytics allows customer journeys to be tracked through the site and also the buying process - Craig & Rose can see obvious correlations between users visiting the site, requesting sample cards/pots and, ultimately, ordering paint which has also led to improvements in customer service.

The site was commended for 'Best use of visual design' at the 2007 DADI Awards.