Inmark Packaging located in Atlanta, Georgia is a perfect example of a longer engagement for our team. We began with a Discovery Phase in Jan 2010, and the project officially kicked off one year ago this month. The scope of work spans 9 websites across 4 different divisions of the company, focused on both Retail and B2B customers.

Long engagements take a tremendous amount of planning, strategy & heavy lifting. It also requires our team to be patient through the process, motivated and focused on the end goals. We like results, and seeing the fruits of our labor with engagements like Inmark’s is a true test of endurance and organization.

Here’s a peak into this holistic solution we’ve been building.

Identifying & Planning the Big Picture

Inmark is an established company of 35 years, with an existing customer base that extends Internationally. Yet, they also have untapped markets with tremendous opportunity. Through months of research, analysis and brainstorming, we finalized a plan to build 9 different websites (focusing on different markets) coupled with a CSR tool and custom Content Management System. All these solutions tie into their new Enterprise Resource Planning system, a multi-million dollar investment that will dramatically change their business’ operations.

Different Audiences + Different Needs = Different Websites

Corporate Re-Branding & Division Sub-Branding

Brand cohesiveness across all 4 divisions was imperative. There needed to be a common element, yet possess a uniqueness to differentiate them. We used color + iconography to embody Inmark’s International outreach and emerging markets.

Asset Creation & Art Direction

Our creative team works with a variety of photographers. Sometimes clients have their photographer of choice, and others lean on us to recommend and coordinate this effort. We had the great pleasure of collaborating with Don Matter in Atlanta. We were the bridge between client and photographer to assure style and composition aligned with the big picture.

Designing the User Experience

We’re heavy into the development phase for 4 of the 9 websites currently, looking to roll these out steadily this Fall. We targeted the B2B websites first to learn about their existing customers, and then apply this valuable knowledge to the new customers targeted within the Retail market.

We constantly remind ourselves that “we’re not the user” in our web persona development. By getting in the heads of Inmark’s existing customers, we began to understand the industry, needs & behaviors of these users. Even though the actions of the Retail audience will contrast those of B2B, we inhaled critical knowledge about the world of packaging and Inmark’s own products &  services along the way.

Rigid Container Packaging division’s homepage

Custom Content Management System + CSR tool (Customer Requests, Customer Mgt, Forums, Knowledge Base, Live Chat)

Complexity takes Time, Energy & Resources

Our long and complex engagement with Inmark exploits the very uniqueness of Caxiam Group. We helped define their problems, set a strategy, plan, organize and build 9 websites targeting very different audiences. We’ve become Inmark’s greatest ally in utilizing the web to solve business problems and amplify their brand. That takes a firm with a diverse palette of talent that can understand the challenges of mid-sized businesses and remain highly focused on the end results.

Does your business have an overwhelming challenge that needs a web-based solution? Not sure where to even begin? Give us a ring at 407.838.3158 or Contact Us today. Lets see if we can help you out!

Tyson Willey joins us as an experienced software developer with front-end development skills. For the past several months Tyson has been learning our B2B E-Commerce website framework and developing a custom solution for a client in Washington D.C. As this project nears launch he will begin working on two other custom B2B E-Commerce web solutions for large wholesale distributors in the Orlando / Tampa area. All projects had undergone design and front-end development phases prior to his arrival. He was delivered a client approved, front-end prototype and was thrilled to begin the software development process with such a clean starting point. Tyson is deliberate, detail oriented and extremely focused. Welcome aboard Tyson!

Luis Camilo joins us as an experienced software developer with additional skills in Linux server administration. Luis has been tasked with supporting some of our largest clients’ production applications by way of routine maintenance and large scale enhancements. In just two months with Caxiam Group Luis has already performed several major enhancements on large B2B E-Commerce websites for wholesale distributors. He is slowly working his way into our custom application development side and learning the ins and outs of several high-traffic sites. Luis is reliable and bright – able to work backwards through e-commerce sites and custom applications that he did not originally develop and make sense of all the pieces. Welcome aboard Luis!

Zach Stevenson joins us as a rookie software developer right out of Full Sail’s web development program and brings a wide array of skills perfect for supporting everyone on the team. Zach has worked on websites, custom applications, and several of our many B2B E-Commerce websites. He has performed website maintenance, assisted on large enhancements to custom applications and even built a smaller custom web application from scratch all by himself. Zach brings energy, a positive attitude, and a strong work ethic to the team. He is growing as a developer with each passing week. Welcome aboard Zach!

As far as new work goes, we are happy to announce recent contract signings from clients in Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Flemington New Jersey and Palm Bay. We have signed multiple custom website projects, B2B E-Commerce projects and custom application development projects which touches on three of our four core offerings. Awesome!

We’ve officially been operating out of our new Altamonte Springs location for six months now and couldn’t be happier. We’re still putting the finishing touches on our new space but it definitely feels like home. Believe it or not we are already considering office expansion as our team is now comprised of 11 full time employees and 2 part time contractors. While we are hoping to avoid expansion in the late months of 2010 we are excited about the possibilities 2011 will bring!

Stay tuned for more news on additional hires, new projects and site releases!

The great thing about the USIC project was that it was so much more than a one-off ecommerce store front. What we really built was a customizable, skinnable, ecommerce web engine that offers direct ERP integration.  One of the goals of this project was to create an engine that could be customized with very little design time. Because this ecommerce engine is meant to serve multiple markets for closed audiences (invitation only, employees only, etc.) the client was more concerned with functionality than with creative bells and whistles. These sites are not meant to serve your traditional retail customer.

Some of the measures of success for this particular client were time to market, cost to customize for other programs, and ability for developers, not designers, to create themed sites. This will allow a greater number of developers to release a greater number of customized themes in a shorter amount of time. If all goes as planned, this ecommerce engine will support hundreds of similar sites for this client.

Compare and contrast the above with some of our recent work for B2B ecommerce clients where design was more of a factor.

Checker Distributors – Not only did we provide them with a custom ecommerce design, we built for them a color analysis tool that catalogs the entire color spectrum found in each individual fabric found on the site. (Across 30,000 fabrics that represents almost 500 billion color values!)

Schweppe – Schweppe distributes professional kitchen products and serves a wide B2B market as well as a retail market. They needed a site that was polished but not overly creative for the B2B crowd.

Toolweb – This will forever be a favorite project of mine, if for no other reason than their requirement for us to make the pages difficult to steal product data from. They basically asked us to break every SEO rule in the book to ensure bots couldn’t easily steal their product information across tens of thousands of dynamically generated pages. We complied by building real-time image watermarking, velocity controls, and rendering all product descriptions in a Flash format that renders on-the-fly. We also built an engine that allows Toolweb to outsource their data to approved third-parties and have their own real-time image watermarking applied.

This is what I love about our group. Four ecommerce projects from four different clients ended up being nothing alike yet all were accommodated in their individual needs. This is why we love building custom solutions. Flexibility up and down the chain!

In the works are nine more custom ecommerce solutions for three different clients. We’re currently in the strategy and planning phase with these clients so I can’t share any more at the moment. My hope is that I’ll be able to share some of our strategy and planning methods once we conclude these sessions. Check back for details!

Though we sincerely appreciate recognition from such organizations, one of the true motivators for our team is really the recognition that comes directly from our clients. When our customer’s expectations have been exceeded and they are demonstrative about it, a warm smile is put on our face that a small trophy cannot replicate (though we do like shiny things to place in our new office).

Today the Caxiam team received this handwritten Thank You note from one of our Wholesale Distributor clients located in Indiana. Joe & Will helped shape this custom ecommerce website from the ground up, and provided exceptional customer care throughout the length of development.

Along with the above letter from the Classic President & team, Will was gifted a box of chocolates (that unfortunately for him, I got my hands on) and a board game for Joe. Awesome!

So what evoked such gracious gifts? Glad you asked.

We provided Classic Products with our custom ecommerce development services to build a retail shopping solution that interfaces with their existing wholesaler order and inventory management system (PRISM). The scalable solution gives Classic’s Custom Imprint division the ability to offer a retail shopping experience for their partners. Those partners can then provide their own employees with custom imprint clothing/accessory online ordering.

www.usicstore.com

Our ecommerce solutions are never boxed or off the shelf. We don’t implement a cookie-cutter solution nor do we believe that this type of web technology works for customers with unique needs. Custom Ecommerce Design and Development is about understanding the inherent needs of a business, and then customizing features and tools to meet those online needs. In Classic’s case, they needed a partner that understood their Embroidery Division intimately and then could build a solution to maximize their value to Classic’s partners.

We know how to make our customers happy, and apparently they’ve discovered that handwritten Thank You notes, board games and chocolates keep us producing solid work.

Learn more about Caxiam’s Ecommerce Solutions or Contact Caxiam Group today to learn more