10 Reasons to Love ISM’s Redesigned Website
Improved Navigation and User Interface
.jpg "A screen capture showing the ISM website improved navigation and side bar navigation.")
Our previous website was a good website. Over time though, we found ourselves wanting to improve functionality and navigation beyond what it was capable of. Added to that were occasional customer requests for more features, services, and capabilities we really wanted to provide.
Well, after a lot of work and planning, we launched our new website and it has the design flexibility we wanted. This flexibility has allowed us to continue to enhance and improve it and we believe it provides an even better, more complete e-commerce experience than ever before.
What you’ll see and some of the reasons why we think you’ll love it
Our updated website has a more modern “flat” design that ensures straightforward navigation that is easy to use.
The catalog is also laid out in a more logical way and we’ve added a side-bar and other navigation options to make it even easier to drill-down to the products you’re looking for.
1. E-commerce Capability
This is probably the most impactful, game-changing feature of our redesigned site. In the past, we were unable to provide accurate product pricing and quantities. Our only option was to do it manually; a difficult task when there are more than 80,000 product Items. The information would always be outdated and would have been a bad experience for everyone involved.
Our enhanced e-commerce system now allows us to provide availability and pricing information that is updated in near real-time.
A relatively low ($25) minimum purchase limit (for USA only) makes it easier for customers and visitors to make a quick purchase of just a few items. It also speeds up the process since an email or call no longer needs to be placed to our sales team.
2. Easily Compare Products
You now have the ability to add different products to a “Compare Products” list to see the differences between similar items. This can be done for any number of products and works across different types of products. For example, you could compare single-barbed fittings to multi-barbed fittings in order to see the differences in size and materials that exists across each type.
After checking off items you want to compare, you get a summary list of them. Click “Compare”.
In the “Compare Products” window, you can directly compare the items you are considering, see their pricing and availability and add any of them to your cart.
3. Filter Products by Attributes
Sometimes there can be numerous variations of the same type of product, ranging from connection sizes to materials to filter size and so on. This could be overwhelming and time-consuming to go through each one to find what you’re looking for.
To make this easier, we’ve added functionality that allows you to filter products by the type of attributes most closely associated with what you’re looking for.
The example below shows there are nearly 30 items available for a specific type of luer x barb plastic luer fitting but you may only be interested in those with a 1/8” hose barb. You can filter those out by using the drop-down associated with that connection.
4. Google-Powered Site Search
Being able to search a website is a critical and often-used feature of all websites today. Providing a great experience and being able to serve up results as relevant as possible to the visitor’s search query is essential to a great user experience.
That’s why we decided to implement Google’s Site Search. Since Google is the leader in search, especially when it comes to serving up highly relevant results, it was a no-brainer to go with their search functionality.
Unfortunately, Google will be sun-setting their Site Search platform in Q4 of 2017, so we are in the process of evaluating other options that will provide an even better user experience. Stay tuned! We will update this post once a decision has been made.
5. Lots and Lots of Resources
Another beneficial outcome of our redesigned website was our ability to easily add and update the wealth of resources we offer to our site visitors. We’re always developing and creating new resources and charts that our customers will find useful as they are in the research and testing phase of their product development.
A few of the resources we offer include:
- Commercial Product Chemical Compatibility Chart
- Medical Product Chemical Compatibility Chart
- Mesh and Microns Sizes Chart and Information E-book
- Thread Size Chart
- Up-to-Date Downloadable PDF Versions of our Commercial and Medical Catalogs
- And Much More
6. Requesting Quotes and Samples is a Piece of Cake
Requesting a quote or sample became MUCH easier. If you already know what you’re looking for and don’t need to navigate through our catalog, you can simply click the “Request Pricing” link that is on nearly every page of our site and list what you’re looking for.
If you are browsing through our catalog and need samples or pricing, you can select the items you’re interested in and simply click the “Request Sample” or “Request Quote” link.
7. Super Easy to Contact Us or Ask Questions
We’ve made it quick and easy to contact us without having to send an email. We provide multiple links that lead to a simple form to contact us. This allows you to contact us from any device: smartphone, tablet or desktop. It also makes things faster and easier by avoiding the need for another app or doing a copy-paste.
8. Optimized for Mobile
Prior to our redesign, only part of our website was optimized for mobile devices – essentially everything except our catalog, the most important part of our site.
By updating and improving our website we were able to not only improve the user experience on desktops and tablets but create a great interface for our catalog. It’s now faster and easier to shop or request a quote from a mobile device.
9. Easier to Navigate and Purchase Overstock Products
Now that we can more easily update and add content along with adding e-commerce functionality, we’ve created a much nicer overstock shopping and browsing experience.
Looking for a bargain? Check out our updated overstock clearance section.
10. Coming Soon: Customer Self-Service Portal
Now that we can more easily update and add content along with adding e-commerce functionality, we’ve created a much nicer overstock shopping and browsing experience. We’re in the process of building out a customer self-service portal that will allow you to order products according to your negotiated terms as well as access past invoices and order details and much more. We’ll send out an email once this functionality is live.
If you’re not subscribed to receive our emails (which are infrequent, but full of lots of great information), don’t wait. Subscribe now!
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