Online Bathrooms Blog

As promised this is the second part of yesterdays blog Online Bathrooms Tech Update.

I can proudly announce that soon after completing the blog yesterday I fixed the fault with the multi-buy which is now working correctly. You may have noticed the temporary ‘confirm options’ located at the top of the pop-up which was effectively a way for the options of the main product to be submitted with the form of product b. (Confusing I know!). This was messy and generally pointless considering you have selected the options previously. So with some fancy Javascript which copies the value of one text box to another, all the options are automatically remembered. PHEW!

On a more general note, we now have full control over our showroom site, DaleBathrooms which means we can now link the two together for a combined showroom experience and Internet site, our main business focus. We can also update the site whenever necessary, updating special offers and allowing a direct link to the online shop.

Dale Bathrooms Site - Now with a direct link to OnlineBathrooms!

I have also been working on improving the way showroom orders are input into the system, allowing the showroom staff full control over the whole process which means one less breakable link in the chain. (i.e. from the order on paper, to the order being received on the warehouse system). The process is now maintained by the showroom staff who make sure the order is online, and the warehouse can now tell who is responsible when an order is not online!

I can also reveal that our new radio ad is now LIVE! listen out on Key 103 for our new ad which is extremely catchy and gets across exactly what we want it too!

Our marketing is crucial for us to get our amazing prices and offers noticed by as many people as possible, and this means, we need a good idea of how effective different marketing types are and in what ares. This lead me to develop an online order marketing system and a showroom marketing system which tally’s up marketing type counts and sorts by area so we know exactly how well our marketing is getting to you. This will give us the information we need to invest more in marketing in specific areas, and pull away from marketing which is not quite getting to you.

That’s all for now but as always I’ll keep you posted!!

Thanks for reading!

It’s been a whIle since I updated you on the techy part of Online Bathrooms, which means I have got a lot to cover! I will split the post over two days so you don’t get too bored!

Firstly, I mentioned not too long ago about the possibility that an iPhone site may be on the horizon, well, its almost here! Myself and Michael have been working on maximising usability of the site, but minimizing file size. We want the iPhone experience to be compared to that of large e-commerce sites such as Amazon and we feel our efforts in customizing the mobile site to suit our needs can be seen throughout. We have also begun working on implementing a fully Mobile Safari compatible image gallery, to showcase all of the images attached to our vast product catalogue. This will mean flicking around our site is done with ease and you can get all the information straight from your phone. The site is fully implemented to our current checkout so orders made at your PC or on the move will be received by us in the same way, and we can get on to processing your order as soon as it comes through. The mobile site also offers full account control allowing you to view, add to and modify your details wherever you are! The full site will also have an auto redirect feature so that it will know if you are on aniPhone and can take you straight to the tailored mobile site. Upon completion we will let you all know that the iPhone site is ready, for you to begin making your on-the-move Online Bathrooms purchases!

The ‘Work in Progress’ mobile site on an iPhone

It pains me to do so but I will also keep you informed about some minor problems we have had over the past week with some of the features of the Online Bathrooms store.

The first problem was with the Next Day Delivery selection box, which failed to pass your request through to our delivery team. I do apologise for this inconvenience and this was resolved after about an hour of finding out there was a problem. And just for you interested in what the problem was, it was down to me reverting to a previous backup of one of the checkout pages. Yes, the one which writes the request to our database! Luckily only a couple of customers rang to inform us that their request had not been met, which means our ability to process orders for next day delivery even without it being requested is stillup to scratch and working as we like it.

Secondly, I have now resolved the problem with the shipping cost calculator, which for some reason decided to say that everything only incurred a £12 delivery charge, and this only when the customer was logged in! How bizarre! However after small bit of digging I realised that thepopup window which holds the data was messing with the URL of the calculator page. This meant the variables that are A, the product, and B your postcode were not referenced properly. a smalltweakand a PHP condition later, the problem was resolved.

Finally, we noticed that with our new together specials feature popup, the options selected for the main product were too not being passed though to our warehouse upon an order being placed. I am still working on resolving this problem which is very, very nearly done. We do have a temporary solution in place so if you spot it and do notice what the problem is (which hopefully you won’t), be sure to let us know. It has involved a bit of research into more complex javascript, where I normally only dip my toes in the sea that is Javascript, and that is why the problem is taking slightlyloger to resolve. Each day I get ever closer to the solution. Ill keep you posted on this and when its sorted I will explain the solution.

And touch wood, those are the only major problems with the site this week, but if you notice anything unusual at any time, pleasedont hesitate to contact us on our freephone 0800 389 4857 or via our live support feature on the site.

That’s all for today but I will continue tomorrow with back-end updates and some info on how we can now track how effectively our marketing is working! So be sure to check back tomorrow and we will keep youupto date with all the news, at Online Bathrooms!

It’s been awhile since a new range has been added to the website but as Alan has mentioned in previous posts there has been a lot going on at Online Bathrooms to make the site more pleasant and easier to use. However we now have a brand new supplier with a great range of high quality shower systems, Aqualisa are one of the leading and most desirable suppliers.

The first range is the Quartz electric shower systems with adjustable height head, the system is available in Chrome, White/Chrome & Graphite/Chrome finishes and 3 different performance ratings: 8.5kW, 9.5kW & 10.5kW (except the White/Chrome system which is not available in 10.5kW).

(Click any of the images above to see the Quartz range)

The quartz range is an ideal choice for anyone who is conscious of energy usage or needs to save stored hot water, Quartz Electric heats water for showering on demand – providing hot water for as long as it’s required. It’s control dial helps give the best performance all year round and because it’s BEAB approved, it’s safe, too.

All of these systems also come with 2 Years Manufacturer’s warranty and start from only £164 (inc VAT).

I will update with more great products from Aqualisa within the next few days, so stay tuned.

As mentioned in the previous post ‘More mods and improvements soon to come!’ we were in the process of developing the new popup suggest ferature of the site. This has now replaced the orange ‘2gether specials’ displayed on each page. The recommendation is now displayed right infront of your eyes for you to decide whether you need it or not! Have a look at this new feature on the Anico White Vanity Unit! (Why not add the matching tap?)

This feature opens up a world of opportunity for us to recommend products to you. Whether that be products that others’ bought with an item, our professional recommendations or a finishing touch that will make that product specific to your design ideas. So keep checking as you may see some changes to this pop up over the next few weeks. I have already started work on displaying multiple products within the popup and it is developing nicely and you should soon be able to add more than one recommended product to your cart at once.

I have also begun developing an iPhone specific section of the site, currently at a very early stage of developement, but soon, if browsing on an iPhone or iPod touch, the site will automatically adjust to display perfectly. This means you will be able to browse products, view this blog and login to your account, without getting cramp in your fingers from zooming in and out just to read the text.

Stay tuned for more on this!