Imtakt USA is a Portland-based company that sells chromatography columns. It’s ok if you don’t know what that means, we didn’t either until they explained it. Basically, it’s a scientific instrument that is used in a variety of chemical and pharmaceutical research. Imtakt USA has a strong existing customer base, who have been using an aged, unfriendly site to find important articles and make purchases. They asked us to build out a website in WordPress with the following requirements to meet their marketing objectives:
- Custom WordPress theme per supplied design
- E-commerce functionality for 1000+ products over 16 product lines
- Advanced search functions for technical library of 750+ scientific papers
- Seamless URL transition for customers who relied on information from old site
We are seeing about an 80% increase in online sales and probably double the amount of technical requests. – Robert Puryear, COO
Front End Website Design
The design mockups they supplied were great, with clear page layouts and easy navigation. They also included robust product data sections for their target market of PhD wielding scientists. We built out the custom theme and loaded it onto a WordPress install. Next we needed to set up the E-commerce functionality.
Woocommerce was an easy choice for the shopping cart, as it could handle the complex product requirements and would be easy for the client to use down the road. We built a selection grid and linked it to the product database where you can pick out the specific size of product you want to buy. There are even tabs for higher pressure applications that feature addition SKUs.
Back End Design
Since Imtakt works directly with scientists, the search functionality had to be top notch. We exported their existing database, then rebuilt it to modernize the structure and speed it up. The results are pretty cool. The first box is an autocomplete text box of over 1000 compounds. The second box is a category list. And the third box is product line specific.
These can be used stand alone, or combined with each other to refine the search. It is possible to see all of the application notes for say, amino acids, but filter by the ones you can run on the column you already own. Now you can read all about “Use of the Intrada Amino Acid column along with tandem mass spectrometry allows for separation and detection of all 20 standard amino acids in under 20 minutes.”
Even if you don’t want to read any of the papers, you should still swing by and check out Imtakt USA!
e just moved to the Eastbank Commerce Center, on Water ave, and even though we can almost see our old office across the river, as far as food options go, it’s like we’ve moved to another city fifty years ago. From the previous office, we were right around the block from a slew of food carts. (Oh how we miss you Sonny Bowl) There were also tons of other vegan / gluten free options within easy walking distance.
ve discovered why the east bank is referred to as the “industrial” district. It’s clearly a reference to the size of the deep fryers at the brew pubs littering the area. Imagine going from 6 great vegan options at one food cart, to 6 options within a couple blocks, and three of those are actually deep fried. And really, can you even count a side of tots as an option?
pe though, veganism appears to be sprouting and sending out gluten free shoots in the area. A Kure juicing company has opened across the street, and I discovered Cookies Cupcakes and more, which opened a few weeks ago under the hawthorne bridge. The more includes a fairly robust menu of vegetarian options. and if you get at least 3 flavors of cupcakes, that makes a complete meal, right?
Everyone has heard the old yarn about the cobbler whose own children are left barefoot. We can relate to that poor overworked cobbler, as we’ve been making do with a very basic website here at Modern Interface for far too long.