Test of Resolve is a Linlithgow based company writing and selling historical wargame rules. Tim (Dr Tim Couper) first approached us for a website with rather humble aspirations. He was hoping to sell enough books to offset the cost of testing and publishing these new rules. He told me it would be a rather small niche market, mostly in the UK and USA. All he wanted was a simple eCommerce site.
Of course, life is never that simple, and Tim continuously came up with new ideas for the site. However, since he is a programmer at heart, we fell into a good work pattern, where Ruth taught Tim how to do some tasks while we tackled any he deemed “above his pay grade”. Together we worked to optimise and automate the eCommerce experience. For example, the location of a customer’s internet connection automatically determines the currency of the site. Customers who have problems with the site or change their mind and leave are automatically emailed and given help.
Marketing a new eCommerce Business
Our suggestion was to put testimonials and reviews front and centre of the site. Buying anything from a new and relatively unknown eCommerce site is always risky; reviews are the best marketing strategy for a brand new online shop. Since a group of friends had been play-testing the game for some months, Tim set to gathering reviews. As the site went live and people started receiving orders, it was even easier to collect people’s opinions.
As the site launched, it was clear that our approach had paid off. The orders started flooding in from all over the world. Now, as I write, one month after launch, the site has already brought in more than £3000 worth of orders. As Tim and David write more books I look forward to updating this eCommerce site, changing it to reflect new focuses. To see the site now please click the button below. To see it at the time of publishing, click the image at the left to zoom in.
What does Tim think of the finished product?
“I cannot speak too highly of the design service, creativity and customer support that we have received from Green Glen Solutions. A great-looking, fully working multi-currency website was created from scratch in 10 weeks and we were smoothly processing orders within days of completion.
The ease of contacting and working with Ruth was great. She was highly responsive to occasional messaging over WhatsApp, augmented by arranged meetings over Zoom, whose screen-sharing capability was key in helping agree design flows and diagnose issues.
Ruth has the ability to quickly grasp the requirements for our specific international niche market. She designed what was required from a collection of relevant images and workflows. Then she uses a great process of iterative improvement, which simply delivers additional functionality without impacting the availability of the site. Her previous experience of building sites for a wide variety of commercial and charitable organisations clearly helps, as is her perceptive analysis of the key issues that need to be addressed.”
