The Meta Blog

NewZealandStories.com is the official website for the iconic New Zealand book Whitebaiters Never Lie by photographers Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig.

The book Whitebaiters Never Lie documents and celebrates the characters who catch that most-prized Kiwi food – the whitebait. Whitebaiters are a breed apart, and photographers Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig spent over three years travelling the country talking to and photographing New Zealanders about their passion, and documenting the uniquely Kiwi lifestyle that surround it.

We were privileged to be invited by Murray and Anita to develop an eCommerce store where people can buy iconic New Zealand photos and prints from the book Whitebaiters Never Lie.

Built using the powerful Magento eCommerce platform, NewZealandStories.com is an online New Zealand Photo Library which currently features over 2,000 individual whitebaiting photos and images from many of New Zealand’s major whitebaiting rivers. Photos have been categorised by region and river name and can be purchased via a secure payment gateway.

The website offers a number of purchasing options with photographic prints up to 760mm x 480mm. Larger panoramic canvass are also available.

NewZealandStories.com is intended to become a library of New Zealand photos and images featuring classic Kiwi pastimes including whitebaiting, hunting, living in the wild, Kiwi characters and other images that capture our unique New Zealand culture.

Client: Whitebaiters Never Lie (Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig)
Website: NewZealandStories.com

We last discussed a few issues around being prepared to embark on an eCommerce project. Today We will look at a basic checklist for organising your product inventory.

Being organised before you begin not only simplifies the entire project, but can ultimately save you time and money – and your ecommerce website developer will love you for it!

Right.. Let’s get organised..

Product Categories

Determine how many product categories you are going to need and which categories your products will appear in.

You will need to name your product categories, prepare a description of 160 – 200 words to introduce the products in for each category and create an image to visually describe the category. Finally, choose 10 to 50 keyword phrases which relate to your product category.

Checklist for each Product Category:

• Category Name
• Category Description
• Category Image
• Keywords associated with Product Category

Product Details

Product Attributes & Variations

Product Attributes are the configurable characteristics of your product or its components. For example, you sell a product in three colors. As part of creating this product, you would define an attribute called ‘Color’ and assign it the three colors. Other common products attributes or variations include ‘size’, ‘colour’, ‘gem type’, ‘materials’, ‘weight’ and so on..

What attributes, variations or options are relevant to your products?

Product Descriptions

For each product, you will need a Short description (one sentence) and a Long description (paragraph or more).

You want to attract and intrigue potential shoppers so be sure to use interesting copy that is full of adjectives and possibly a bullet list of features in the long description.

Product Images

You will need product images to sell you products. Ideally we recommend a professional photographer. It is essential that your photos be of high quality. In some cases you may be able to get them from the manufacturer. Poor quality photos can look unprofessional and may create a barrier to selling your products.

(Ideally product images should be no less than 640 pixels at the longest edge).

Checklist for Product Details:

• Product Name
• Short Description
• Long Description
• SKU or product #
• Shipping Weight
• Price
• Product Image(s)
• Keywords associated with product
• Attributes / Options: (colour / size etc.)
• Category(s)
• (optional) Related Products

Our customers with online stores built on Magento eCommerce we have often asked about the built-in cross-promotion features for Related products, Up-sells, and Cross-sells…

There are three types of product relations in Magento: Related Products, Up-sell and Cross-sell Products.

When viewing a product, Related products appear in the product info page as well, in the right column. Related products are meant to be purchased in addition to the item the customer is viewing.

For example if you are viewing the mocka ‘Aspiring Cot’ a related product is the ‘Inner-sprung cot mattress’ as the two products are ideally purchased together.

Upsells for this product are items that your customers would ideally buy instead of the product they’re viewing. They might be better quality, produce a higher profit margin, be more popular, etc. These appear on the product info page.

For example, if you are browsing the Dean Hawkins ‘Sterling Silver and Paua Tree Pendant’ an upsell product would be the ‘Sterling Silver Paua Hoop Earrings’ which have a higher value.

Finally, Cross-sell items appear in the shopping cart. When a customer navigates to the shopping cart, the cross-sells block displays a selection of items marked as cross-sells to the items already in the cart. They’re a bit like impulse buys – like displaying magazines and lollies at the checkout in supermarkets.

As a store owner we encourage you to explore your product range to see if there are cases where you could use this fantastic feature of Magento eCommerce to ensure the best opportunity to offer the right product to your customers.

If you are not already using Magento eCommerce to manage your online store speak to us about our packaged Enterprise eCommerce Solution using Magento to get your shop online.

Mocka Designer Childrens Furniture is one of New Zealand’s leading niche online retailers in childrens furniture.

Mocka had outgrown their previous OS Commerce website. As their business continued to grow and more online orders were being made daily, administration was becoming a real problem for them. The goal with the website redesign was to build a brand new ecommerce website built on the Magento framework that would provide a solid platform for growth in future years.

An important aspect of any website redesign is that the current customers still feel acquainted with the new site. Mocka had an existing logo and brand identity which their customers love.

We were very keen to maintain the general look and feel of the existing website, whilst introducing some great new features provided in the Magento framework – such as the ability to link related products and upselling at the checkout.

As mocka.co.nz is a 100% online shop, we didn’t want to leave any aspect of their website marketing and search engine visibility to chance.

As part of our web marketing strategy we first researched the most requested search terms and related search phrases for children’s furniture to discover targeted keyword to ensure the website was highly visible to search engines.

Next we implemented a number of product targeted Google AdWords campaigns to fill in any gaps in their ‘on-page’ SEO.

The new and improved Mocka site is leaps and bounds beyond what was previously in place. The resulting mocka.co.nz website is a great example of what can be achieved using Magento eCommerce and already the website is paying for itself with it’s early success!

Client: Mocka
Website: www.mocka.co.nz

Flair Gourmet Foods is a new online delicatessen where you can buy Extra Virgin Olive Oils, Caramelised Balsamic Vinegar, Dukkah, Relish and more from the comfort of your home.

The Flair gourmet website is powered by Magento eCommerce – one of the most robust and feature-rich eCommerce platforms we have ever worked with.

Flair Gourmet Foods is run by our in-house eCommerce guru Richard Morrison. We are absolutely lucky to not only have a guy who knows how to bring together the raw power of a Magento eCommerce shop – but he actually runs his own online store! This truly is a case of ‘eating our own dog food‘..

With mouth-watering photos and gourmet treats which make perfect gifts, we really love this website – it’s an example of a simple but effective online web store in action. Well done Richard! Great work yet again..

Client: Flair Gourmet Foods
Website: www.flairgourmet.co.nz