The Curtain Factory Outlet is a returning client who where actually one of our first major retail outlets to have a website designed and developed by us over 8 years ago! Originally there was no requirement for online shopping but more of a brochure and brand awareness type content management system. After the initial website that we built for them, the company decided to go ahead and develop an ecommerce system in house, using their own IT guy to project manage a development with a non reputable firm. They eventually ended up with a very sub standard system which generated very few sales through it and which actually crashed the hosting server and it consequently had to be taken off line.

Approaching Active Webdezign once again was a big step in the right direction and we soon had a specification and plan of action prepared to take the ecommerce arm of the company to a much higher level. The new system features a new fabric calculator making it easy for users to work out the exact amount of fabric required for their window size as well as an intuitive navigation system for simple one click shopping.

The site is currently experiencing a surge in traffic with impressive retail figures and all easily managed by their small team of in house operators. With online sales in the UK now exceeding 60 billion pounds and every month of 2010 saw an increase of between 11% – 23% over the equivalent month in 2009. October saw the largest rise of 23%, resulting in UK consumers spending a staggering 5.2 billion pounds in total compared to October 2009.

And they said ecommerce would never catch on…. !!