Customer engagement modules and admin reporting for an arts store

The challenge

An Indian web agency was building an online store for a UK arts retailer on a custom theme. The default store covered the basics of browsing and checkout, but the store needed extra features for engaging visitors and handling customer contact.

The agency needed features that let customers subscribe to news, find products more easily, read and leave feedback, and get in touch, with the retailer able to manage all of it from the admin. Some items were time-sensitive: the agency asked for the search assistant to be finished by the following midday, with the remaining points close behind.

What we did

• Newsletter sign-up. We added a newsletter subscription module so visitors can join the retailer's mailing list from the storefront.
• Sidebar search assistant. A search helper in the sidebar makes it quicker for customers to narrow down products.
• Featured and latest products. We added modules to highlight featured items and the newest additions to the catalogue.
• Testimonials and guestbook. Customers can read testimonials and leave guestbook entries, with a guestbook management page in the admin.
• Contact history and replies. The contact form now records enquiries, and the admin includes contact history and reply reports so staff can see and follow up on every message.
• Admin product form. We modified the product form across its controller, model and view to suit the retailer's catalogue.

All of these were added to the store's custom OpenCart theme, with the front-end features and their matching admin pages delivered together so the retailer could manage the new content from one place.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart, custom theme