Overview
Established over 10 years ago, Wedding Gifts Direct are one of Australia’s largest online gift registries. Creating and managing a gift registry can be done completely online, anywhere, anytime using their service whether it be for a wedding, engagement or other special event. Wedding guests from anywhere in the world can buy gifts from a registry list with ease using the user-friendly interface.
In addition to the gift registry service, the Wedding Gifts Direct website also acts as an online store, along with its sister store ‘Any Gifts Direct’ offering a vast selection of gifts that are available for purchase by casual online shoppers.
The Challenge
Wedding Gifts Direct approached Bitcraft requesting a complete rebuild of their website, expanding its functionality and help eliminate the majority of time consuming manual processes. The website code behind the original site was written by several developers over a long period of time. This had resulted in a code base that had a number of problems:
– It was written in an older website language, “ColdFusion”, which is hard to find developers for.
– The website had many limitations with the ability to add new functionality.
– There were a number of bugs in the system causing issues for end users that were difficult to fix.
The Results
The new website and CMS, built in the PHP programming language using CS-Cart e-commerce software, is packed full of new features and addresses all the limitations that caused problems with the original site. Its sister site Any Gifts Direct was also rebuilt and the 2 sites share the same administration system, streamlining the management of orders and tracking of stock levels.
The implementation of many new automated features, such as the closing of registry lists by the user online, has greatly improved the efficiency of running WGD, allowing the client to concentrate on customer service instead of manual tasks.
The WGD and Any Gifts Direct websites are continually being updated and improved with new features for both end users and for the client, ensuring that WGD offer one of the most advanced online gift registry services in their industry.
Bitcraft’s involvement:
– Digital strategy consulting
– Information architecture
– Design concepting and production
– Implementation of e-commerce gateway
– Development of website and database backend (PHP, MySQL)
– Search engine optimisation
– Ongoing maintenance and updates
– Website hosting
