Izzy Maternity Gets a Major Facelift

16toads is proud to launch our second big project of the new year.  Izzy Maternity is a local Atlanta retail clothing store specializing in high-end maternity apparel.  The owner and his daughter, Israel and Hannah Vahaba, were looking to completely overhaul their original web site and online store. After an extensive search for a local design and development partner, they chose 16toads Design to translate their ideas into reality. Over the course of the build, we worked closely with them to meet their demanding design and technical requirements.

Using their basic logo colors, we created a clean and contemporary design that avoids a lot of the visual cliche's of their competitors.  Which is to say, the look and feel of their new site is more "Vogue" than it is "Teen Beat", which helps to bridge the contemporary chic of their retail stores and their online presence.

Izzy's biggest challenge is also their most basic reality: Their customer base turns over every nine months.

Izzy prides themselves on their superior personal customer service and that service is evident every time you set foot in one of their stores. How then do you take that philosophy and apply it online?  How do you create an online experience that is more than an easy shopping experience?  We suggested that they consider adding a forum to their new site in order to create an online community where their customers can discuss their experiences, give advice, share ideas, and even help sell Izzy products through their recommendations. The purpose of the forum is to keep their customers engaged with Izzy when they are at home or the office. They loved the idea.

Under the hood, this baby (pun intended) shines. We completely reengineered their site to improve the site's overall usability, search optimization, and web standards compliance. The main site is built on the Expression Engine platform, which provides a solid foundation for future expansion.  An internal administrator can easily change every piece of content on the web site. We added a blog, event calendar, forum, and dynamic features that allow different entries to be cross-referenced with related entries.  The administrator also has the ability to approve article comments and moderate the forums. Mailing list email submissions and new member email addresses are automatically added to specific lists hosted with their 3rd party web-based email marketing platform.

The new Izzy Maternity Online Store was built using, Magento, the most popular open source shopping cart available today. This platform has a reputation for being a bear to work with, despite the claims of it's programmers. We did a marvelous job skinning the basic templates to look as much like the main site as possible without having to customize the basic templates. As a result, the store can be updated with new Magento versions without serious consequences. We added a number of non-standard, custom features like the Popular Brands and Featured Products modules to enhance the customer's experience.  Lastly, we tied the cart into PayPal Web Site Payments Pro to create a seamless shopping experience - the customer never leaves Izzy's web site.

Here's to a successful project, a happy client, and a prosperous 2009.