At Optima, we understand the critical role that e-commerce plays in modern business success. That’s why we offer our clients a customised Shopify e-commerce solution that perfectly suits their specific needs and goals.
We specialise in crafting tailored Shopify solutions for our clients, with brand at the core of everything, to create unique, visually appealing, and engaging websites with excellent user experience that are effective at driving sales. Shopify is a versatile platform that provides a high level of security and reliability, ensuring a safe and stable, PCI-compliant online store. It has experienced incredible growth in recent years and as of 2022, it powered a staggering 3.75 million active stores in over 175 countries, with a total gross merchandise volume of $307 billion. This makes it one of the world’s leading e-commerce platforms, with a 20% market share. Shopify users include famous brands such as Pepsi, Gymshark, Unilever, WaterAid, Redbull, and Tesla Motors.
We can create Shopify sites that cater to businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprise-level brands. There is a wide range of themes, templates, and integrations that we can use to enhance the functionality of our clients’ e-commerce websites. In addition, the Shopify App Store contains over 3,200 apps that can be used to add various features and integrations, including payment gateways, shipping and fulfillment solutions, inventory management, and more.
One of the main advantages of using Shopify is its user-friendly interface and seamless back-end administration features, which offer comprehensive reporting and integration with external systems. This means our clients can easily manage their online store without any technical expertise.
Shopify POS (Point of Sale) is another valuable feature we can add that allows businesses to sell products and services in person using a mobile device, tablet, or desktop computer. It includes hardware options such as barcode scanners, cash drawers, and receipt printers, making it ideal for businesses with both an online and physical presence. With Shopify POS, businesses can manage their inventory, track their sales, print or email receipts directly to their customers, and easily sync their inventory levels across their online and offline channels, streamlining operations and improving efficiency.
Our team of skilled and experienced experts is committed to crafting customised Shopify e-commerce websites that perfectly align with our clients’ specific needs and goals and reflect their brand. Our focus on tailor-made solutions ensures that we deliver websites that are unique, visually appealing, and effective in driving sales. Moreover, we offer comprehensive maintenance plans that include customer support and ongoing updates, ensuring that our clients’ websites always perform optimally and provide an excellent user experience, allowing them to focus on running their business.
In addition to creating outstanding websites, we also provide Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Paid Search services to help promote the website and attract more traffic. Our team will optimise the website for search engines, ensuring it ranks highly in search results, and run targeted advertising campaigns that bring in high-quality leads and conversions.
At Optima, our goal is to provide a complete e-commerce solution that includes website development, maintenance, and promotion. We are committed to delivering exceptional service and results that help our clients succeed in the highly competitive online marketplace.
Our Approach
1. Strategy
Optima work closely with clients to develop a shared understanding of their business objectives and user needs. We listen, absorb and reflect on what you tell us. We ask lots of questions and challenge preconceptions, and we will always bring new possibilities and ideas to the table based on our experience and skills.
2. Scoping and specification
Optima undertake research that, depending on your needs, may include UX workshops with different stakeholders and users, a review of analytics and competitor analysis. During this phase, all the resources and requirements needed to build the website are detailed and aligned with user and business strategies and objectives.
3. Site structure
Optima then design a website structure defining how users will interact with the website and how the system will respond to these interactions. We create a detailed sitemap determining how the website is organised, and information is prioritised. An SEO audit, strategy, and consideration of the customer journey through different digital touch points underpin this process.
4. Wireframing
Optima creates ‘skeleton’ page plans for each website that show the arrangement of elements and content on different devices. These plans are essential to understanding site navigation, the responsive grid and the priorities of different content. We refer to these skeleton plans as ‘wireframes’ as they demonstrate the website architecture underlying the visual design.
5. Website design concepts
Building on the previous steps, Optima design stunning websites which develop a distinctive online brand presence for your brand. We ensure the design treatment fits your website and business objectives and reflect your brand vision and values. We consider specific design elements and how they contribute to user experience and create memorable associations with your brand.
6. Website development and build
Optima build robust websites on a variety of content management systems. We build page templates and stylesheets to current web standards and mobile responsive technologies and deliver pixel-perfect web pages. We have built hundreds of responsive websites using HTML5/CSS3 and are experienced in delivering websites to W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1.
7. Testing
Optima complete a high level of testing before websites are deployed. Our code is rigorously tested across the main browsers and devices, and any bugs are addressed. We also test website functionality, such as forms and data capture and do a final proofread, ensuring no placeholder content is visible before it is presented to the world.
8. Website launch
Optima coordinates website launches in collaboration with client teams to ensure a smooth and timely transition. Pre-launch, we confirm we have the necessary details to deploy the website to a client’s server or in the server space we provide from our trusted UK providers. We are proud of the websites we launch, and each go-live is celebrated by ringing a bell in the office!
9. Website maintenance
Optima continue to monitor and tweak the performance of newly launched websites to ensure they are working effectively. Beyond this, we offer a range of maintenance packages which enable us to continue to update the site and monitor site health as it develops and grows alongside digital technologies.
10. Website promotion
Optima can assist with promoting your website to ensure it is discoverable and remains visible to your audiences. We offer various digital marketing services to support this, including SEO, pay-per-click, digital advertising, content marketing and email marketing.
