cultureblog

This past summer, Durrani launched SkullsAndWings (S.A.W.), our very own online retail division. Now that the site has been live for six months, we’ve seen it grow and take on a life of its own. But with steadfast monitoring, we’ve been able to adjust a variety of factors to make the shopping experience positive for our customers in a fast-paced, ever-changing retail market.

You’ve heard it many times: "If you build it, they will come." We know that isn’t enough on the Internet. A website, particularly an e-commerce site, must constantly be monitored after its launch to ensure it’s goals are being met. We like to compare it to a rocket launch. When a spacecraft leaves Earth, the NASA team on the ground doesn’t just pack up and go home. Throughout the journey, they carefully monitor the astronauts, mechanics and external conditions among many other factors to ensure the success of the mission. It’s really no different than launching a website! Well, maybe just a little different.

So with the launch of S.A.W. and subsequent findings, we’ve reaffirmed the importance of constantly keeping track of activity. Here are some our observations:

• Refining the checkout process to ease the customer’s shopping experience is absolutely necessary, and comes with time after learning what works and what doesn’t.
• Measuring analytics often is another important tool— Where is traffic coming from? How long are people staying on a page? Why may they leaving immediately? These are all questions that have arisen from following analytics, and have allowed us to adjust accordingly.
• Offering new promotions and changing promotional banners to reflect sales or new arrivals is key to keeping content fresh for visitors. Fresh content = repeat buyers.
• Monitoring inventory, even inventory that isn’t stored in-house, can be easy by maintaining constant communication with vendors. Staying up-to-date on inventory has avoided hassles.
• We’ve gained momentum by learning what customers want. If a particular product is hot, we’ve featured it on the homepage, offered promotions and begun selling similar products.

Durrani is very pleased with S.A.W.’s success, which we attribute to giving it time to find its way but leading it there in the right direction.

Durrani is excited to announce that AirVerter, a leader in the industrial spray finishing manufacturing and distributing market, is teaming up with us for their website redesign and development project!

AirVerter’s advanced technology and innovative spray gun designs have made them a favorite among aviation and marine industry painting professionals for over 25 years. Their strong focus on worker safety and environmental solutions has set them apart from competitors throughout their history, but now they’re ready to utilize a MIVA Merchant shopping cart to allow for direct purchases online. With hundreds of parts for each spray gun to choose from, we’ll be creating a custom cart that’s tailored to make the purchasing process effortless for both the customer and AirVerter.

We’re looking forward to working with Bill, Mike and the rest of the AirVerter team to take their business to the next level!

GoodSource Solutions is a nationwide organization that specializes in supplying food options to schools, relief organizations, corrections facilities, non-profit food agencies and other alternative markets.  Though GoodSource has been an industry leader for over 20 years, they recognized that they needed an updated web presence.  They came to Durrani to redesign and develop a cohesive site for their multiple divisions and to give them a fresh, professional online showcase for their products and services.

Using a Wordpress MU multi-user platform, we created a customized Content Management System that GoodSource can easily and efficiently maintain in-house.  We applied a modern, clean design and a site structure that incorporates each of their company’s six divisions, housing a unique restricted area for each division so that distributors can access pricing and additional materials which remain hidden from competitors and the general public. 

To correspond with the launch of their new online presence, GoodSource has also launched an email marketing campaign to highlight specific products and specials.  We have handled the process of programming the html emails, coordinating and sending them on schedule, and providing analysis of open and click-through rates.  GoodSource has found email campaigns to be a relatively inexpensive and effective method of online marketing, and Durrani is happy to provide strong solutions that boost GoodSource’s online presence!

Growth in a business is a great thing.  So is the ability to adapt and transform based on changing needs.  Often, we focus so intently on growing and transforming our clients’ businesses that we neglect the active and outward growth of our own.  In the past few weeks, however, we’ve been transforming our "look".  Literally. 

What we’re trying to say is… we’ve gained a few pounds, and we’re planning on gaining a few more.

So far, we’ve put up walls to create a separate work area as well as an area for private meetings, and painted and finished it’s interior.  But we still have a few projects left to complete, including creating a space in the front of our office to accommodate our retail division S.A.W., and changing up our color scheme in here with some new paint.

So if you come in for a meeting, don’t be alarmed by the lumber sitting atop a spare desk or the power tools huddled in the corner of the room.  It’s all a part of the process of adding to our office to transform it into a more effective space that will allow us to grow in new ways.  And we’re excited for that growth!

The Restaurant Depot is one of the nation’s largest restaurant suppliers, with over 70 warehouse locations nationwide. But in order to truly compete in this modern digital age, you have to be represented online. That’s where the partnership between Durrani and The Restaurant Depot was launched. We’ve been with them from the beginning, designing and developing their first online storefront with MIVA Merchant version 4 and recently embarked on a design overhaul and major migration upgrade to MIVA Merchant 5.5. MIVA 5.5 provides online merchants with a ton of flexibility and expansion opportunity. The Restaurant Depot, online at TheRDStore.com, relies on Durrani to support their online store and product database of almost 10,000 products – one of the largest online restaurant equipment and supply retailers. 

 
But we didn’t stop with just their main online store. The latest and most exciting development with Restaurant Depot has been the creation of several prototype in-store kiosks, which feature a cloned version of their primary website and allow customers to easily search for available products both in store and online. This gives customers a much wider choice of equipment and supply items then just their local neighborhood warehouse can provide. If the Kiosk prototypes are successful, Restaurant Depot hopes to roll them out to most of their regional stores.  For us at Durrani, this project was a huge success for many reasons – one of which is that it demonstrates the strength of the MIVA Merchant e-commerce platform. Clients always ask us if MIVA is the right choice for their business and The RD Store is a great example that shows MIVA can keep up with the best of them and perform at an enterprise-level that will grow as big and as fast as your business.

With the launch of the new Durrani online retail division, S.A.W., we have had to take all of the advice we’ve given clients through the years about e-commerce and put it into practice in a very real way.  We always tell clients to stay in touch with their customer and their industry, and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new trends, products, and techniques.  Since tradeshows are often a great way to do this, this weekend meant a trip to the Action Sports Retailer (ASR) show in downtown San Diego for the Durrani / S.A.W. team. 

In the Action Sports apparel industry, ASR is THE place to be, as it showcases products from over 700 brands in the action sports fashion and streetwear industry and promises to "ensure the growth of your customer base and keep your current customer satisfied."  It’s a place to check out new product lines, get a feel for the way the industry is trending, get some face-time in with the brands we already carry and forge relationships with those we’d like to carry.  Michaela McNamara, lead buyer for S.A.W., said,

"Meeting with others in the action sports retail community and networking are invaluable to our business.  The biannual ASR show is a great opportunity to see what products and trends will be a hit next season. It gives us a chance to forecast our purchases and determine the direction we’d like to take S.A.W." 

Some of the people and brands we were introduced to over the weekend include: Andre Sickinger with Filtrate Eyewear, an Australian sunglasses brand breaking into the US market; Ryan Farrelly, co-founder of Freeline, a company that invented and sells custom skates designed to give the feeling of skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing all in one; Malan Lai, owner of Laiph (pronounced Life), a Hawaiian brand that is dedicated to surfing, the ocean, and the outdoors. Their music, art and surfing influences are translated into their t-shirt, boardshorts and hoodie designs; and Ryan Davis with Spacecraft, an eco-friendly brand that specializes in handmade beanies that are knitted by local Indonesians in their villages.  These are some of the newer brands we’d like to incorporate into S.A.W.’s product line in the near future.  Check out S.A.W. online at www.skullsandwings.com

We were recently quoted in the September 10th issue of the online newsletter Ecommerce Notes, by Practical Ecommerce. This is something we stress to clients all the time. Sometimes in the rush to get their site designed and launched, many overlook just the simple basics like having solid product descriptions and clear images.

“Image is everything and online shoppers need to come as close to touching and feeling a product as possible. You need to overcome the obstacle of customers not being able to experience your product, like they can in a retail store. Take time to present your products in the best possible way with clear and vibrant images and accurate descriptions."

Joe McDonald, Managing Partner, Durrani Design

Click here to view the full newsletter and learn more about Practical Ecommerce.

The team at Twitter has published a new online guide to help businesses wade through all of the chatter and confusion over how Twitter can be a useful resource for a business.

Twitter 101 takes you on a guided tour from “What is Twitter?” to the lingo and best practices.

From Twitter 101:

So what does Twitter do for businesses?

Twitter is a communications platform that helps businesses and their customers do a number of useful things. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you’ve had a great–or disappointing–experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

Here at Durrani Design, we have many conversations with many clients about how to best implement a social media strategy for their company and we are always available to help in person to fill in the gaps where the online guides, such as Twitter 101, leave off. Many business owners and managers can be overwhelmed or even intimidated at the prospect of tackling social media but the key is to just start off slow with small manageable pieces. Don’t try to become the social media king or queen overnight. Setup your Twitter account or Facebook accounts and just build them over time. Take the time to make your online identity credible, trustworthy and personable. If you are constantly pushing marketing or sales pitches without engaging in the online community, your followers will become bored and disengaged about you and your business. You need to participate and contribute to the community at large.

I know it’s hard to find the time. We are all maxed out with busy schedules and floods of information on a daily basis, but a methodical and consistent approach to social media will eventually be a rewarding investment for any business. Just a post here and a tweet there is all you need to do to eventually become a fully fledged social media guru that even your 13 year old will be proud of. Remember to be patient; there are no get popular overnight gimmicks. Be yourself online and your customers will follow.

I always tell people, building a social media campaign for your business is much like giving someone who is in trouble CPR, you don’t always know what you’re doing, but doing something… doing anything, is better then doing nothing at all.

Click here to read the Twitter 101 Guide For Business.

Durrani Design and the launch of the new online apparel division, S.A.W. (at www.skullsandwings.com) was mentioned in the Regional Report section of the recent issue of the San Diego Business Journal.

ENCINITAS: Can’t Find Apparel You Want? Surf on Over to S.A.W.

Durrani Design has launched an online apparel division called SkullsandWings.com, dubbed S.A.W. The new operation sells boutique skate and surf brands that are hard to find on the shelves.

Durrani Design started in April 2007. Co-founder Joe McDonald says S.A.W. will address the gap in the market between what core retail stores will carry and emerging brands that are hard to find. The retailer has collected a lineup of local and edgy brand lines such as Raen sunglasses, Dekline Footwear, Ogio gear and Vestal watches, as well as green brands, including Elwood Clothing, Hippy Tree surf wear and MNKR Clothing.

“These days it’s getting harder and harder to separate the clothes from the lifestyle and the person,” said McDonald.

— Ned Randolph

Read more online at www.sdbj.com

They say a doctor is his own worst patient and the saying holds true with most businesses as well. Our own internal projects are always the last to get attended to but we were finally able to squeeze in some design and development time to re-launch or own company website. Previously, we had a relatively thin site that showcased some of our portfolio by type of work, as well as a company blog. The two sites, however, had very different designs and layouts. As with most companies, when we launched our blog a few years ago, it came after our primary site was already done and it was put together without spending much time unifying the sites and their themes. Many companies end up taking this approach just because they are limited on time and resources and they really just want to get their blog up and running. They compromise on design and branding and the blog ends up being this orphaned website that does not match their overall corporate look and feel.

It’s important, however to constantly go back and refine and polish your brand and your look so that you are always presenting a unified and coherent look to your customers.

Even though we just redesigned our website last October, we wanted to keep things fresh. So a task that has long been on our own to-do list is now complete and we are very excited by the end result. Our main site, our portfolio and our blog are now all using the same global design theme and the navigation is unified and consistent across all pages.

For much of the site, we used Wordpress to manage the pages and content, as this is a superb content management system. We also separated our portfolio by type of work (website, photography, print and branding) and also by client and their industry. We think the presentation worked out well for us.

The lesson here, which is one that we also try to convey to our clients, is that your company website should not just be a “set and forget” one-time thing. It should grow with your company and be an ongoing project that is updated frequently and is part of your marketing plan that reflects your brand, products and services. Many companies just use their website as their online brochure that they create once but it can be so much more if you spend a little time building it right. It should be a tool that helps your business succeed, not just another to-do on your list weighing you down.

We invite you to browse through the refreshed presentation of our work, and as always, please let us know what you think… we love hearing your feedback.