Case Study
The Client
 Cambabest Limited is one of the largest Independent Builders
and Plumbers merchants in the Midlands area. From small beginnings in 1979,
they are now a well-established family owned and run business with friendly,
experienced staff. The Company has been growing successfully for 25 years.
However, the directors recognised that in today’s competitive marketplace,
continued growth would only be achieved by adapting to changes in market
forces, demand for their products and how they sell them.
The Challenge
After years of selling domestic appliances through its kitchen centre,
Cambabest decided to open a separate retail store dedicated to selling cut
price branded domestic appliances. The store was a great success but found its
market was limited to customers within 30 minutes drive of the shop.
Cambabest believed the Internet would provide a solution to this problem,
realising that a number of its competitors were already selling goods online.
Cambabest asked Pin Digital to help it create the means to market and sell its
products online.
The Solution
 The online marketplace for domestic appliances is fiercely
competitive. Pin Digital was commissioned to design and build a professional
yet friendly e-commerce site, recommending the adoption of a strong brand to
help Cambabest stand out from the crowd. Pin Digital created an e-commerce
website comprising dynamic pages and a dynamic menu system. Not only does this
enable the Company to add and update new products to existing sections, but
also create whole new categories that appear automatically in all the menus
displayed on the website.
The website was developed using PHP scripting language and a MySQL database. An
open source approach was selected as it offered considerable cost savings over
other comparable technologies.
Wickedsavings.com encapsulates the Company’s concept of money-saving offers,
whilst conveying a friendly personality. This personality was led by the
creation of a devil character, designed by a local artist James Hodgkins who is
responsible for artwork in many of the DC and Marvel comics.
With such a wide and diverse target customer base it was essential that the
site was easy to use. The final design allowed customers to easily reach any
product on the site by offering no fewer than five different methods of
selection - all within just a few simple clicks. Integration with an online
payment provider via a 128 bit SSL encryption provided automation to the entire
process, with Cambabest only having to mange the logistics of delivering the
ordered goods. 128 bit encryption is a technology that ensures the safety of
data transmitted over the Internet such as credit card details. Experts believe
that 128 bit encryption is virtually impossible to crack, meaning a higher
degree of safety for all customers to the site.
The site contained a back-end administration and order management system. This
enables the staff at Cambabest to easily manage orders, products, as well as
generating reports, sales receipts and the processing of payments.
The Bottom Line
Wickedsavings.com now receives over 60,000 new visits per month. Within months
of the launch, the site was generating a turnover equivalent to well in excess
of £1million pa. Moreover, the automation of systems and processes
enabled the business to operate with just one dedicated member of staff,
reducing costs considerably.
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This was our first real venture onto the Internet. Pin Digital understood this
and not only provided us with a solution that really worked, but took the time
to explain the process without confusing us with technology talk. Within months
of the site going live we had already recouped our investment and we are now
working with Pin Digital on a number of related and equally successful
projects.
Dali Pnasier, Director, Cambabest Ltd |
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Project Specification
| COMPANY: |
Cambabest Ltd |
| SECTOR: |
Retail |
| THE SOLUTION: |
E-commerce website |
| URL: |
www.wickedsavings.com
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| TECHNOLOGY: |
Windows 2000 Server
PHP, JavaScript
MySQL Database |
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