The concept behind BuyStudentArt is original: BuyStudentArt is an on-line art community where students can upload and sell their art to the public. Students are allowed to upload 5 pieces at a time to sell in different sizes formats and prices. Visitors to the site can browse or search for artwork and purchase on-line.
As a start-up business we had a fairly tight budget for this project. The graphic design was created by http://www.pellingdesign.co.uk who also worked with the client on their brief/specification/functionality.
In order to stay on budget we advised the client to make a small number of sacrifices to the desired functionality. In an ideal word the students would have their own secure admin area to manage their accounts, see stats & upload products. But we have kept things for phase 1 very simple. BuyStudentArt will have some manual processing of student accounts. The idea is that we can get the project up and running and revise the back end functionality in a later phase.
We like to phase many of our clients projects for a number of reasons:
- Start ups can test the market without massive initial investments
- Phasing allows investments to be made in-line with growth/return
- Project to go live sooner (and start earning money quicker!)
- Live user feedback will allow for better specification of future enhancements
The key to a successful phasing is identifying the core elements of a project that must be in place to launch. To ensure the best possible chances of success the look and feel of the website need to be spot on from the outset. It also goes without saying that it’s also really important that the site should be really well coded – skimp on this and you’ll miss out on all important visitors. Where you can make some cost savings without too much sacrifice is usually in the back end/processes. But it’s really important that you discuss these with your developer so that the site can be built to grow – you don’t want to have to start from scratch 12 months down the road.
Back to BuyStudentArt. This website has been built using Actinic v10. This powerful e-commerce platform includes a ton of brilliant features which we have been able to incorporate without reinventing the wheel. Chris is an experienced developer so has been able to dig deep into the core Actinic code to customize functionality to allow us to create a pixel perfect interpretation of the original design.
The site is not live yet, we have a few custom forms and an integrated blog to add in and then we are ready to go!
Here’s what Kerri had to say about working with B Websites
B Websites is literally a one-stop shop for all of my web needs. Not only have Zoe and her team done an amazing job with my website, they have coached me in SEO, blogging techniques and are great advocates of small businesses. Zoe and the team are always available, friendly and the most knowledgeable people I have met in their field. The whole world of websites seemed like a daunting and scary place but the team literally hand held me through the process without a hint of patronising, elitist IT speak. I whole heartedly recommend B Websites, their approach, knowledge and support – thanks guys.
