News Feature

New BCS Website Launched

It has been several years since the BCS website had its last major upgrade. This time as well as an all new look, we have built in dozens of helpful new features to improve the shopping experience.

Technical Lead Peter Howarth explains some of the fantastic benefits of the new website:

The website is now much clearer and easier to use. We have paid particular attention to the shopping experience, and have increased the size of the product images, and improved the product information.

We are currently working to replace all 6,000 plus larger size images with better quality versions on the enlarged view.

Finding products quickly is one of the key improvements. The search is now far more intelligent, and ranks results not only by keyword matches but also by popularity, putting the most relevant results first.

We have also introduced facilities to display products by Brand, and by Groups such as all items on sale, all items with extra reward points, all organic items, most popular items etc.

Icons have been introduced so you can see at a glance if a product is organic, if it's new, on sale, buy one get one free, gluten free or if it has a short date for example.

The product information panel has been enlarged to better convey product features.

As well as the improved search, browsing by category has been made clearer. The white highlight indicates which aisle you are currently in.

Within a given section you can now sort products alphabetically A-Z, by price, or by popularity, and long aisles are paginated.

The shopping basket has been given a major overhaul, weights are now clearer and a graphical indicator has been provided to help optimise delivery costs.

This clever progress bar shows you how full your current box is, before you clock over into the next delivery price bracket.

Registered customers will see some of the biggest improvements with the new 'My Account' feature. Address fields have now been broken out, so a quick one-off update of your account details will be needed initially.

As a registered customer, you can now change your login username and password, specify a currency preference and provide a mobile and landline phone number.

Reward Points balance can be checked, along with how much your balance is worth. You can also view your saved basket before you load it.

Order History is the biggest advantage however, allowing you to access previous orders for quick repeat shopping. Order history also includes online parcel tracking details.

We're also offering registered customers up to 15% Off by recommending friends and family. This system is now automated, quick and easy to use so you can monitor how many of your recommended friends have ordered.

Checkout is now clearer, with a progress monitor and payment option screen.

We have also introduced Gift Vouchers that can be purchased online, and sent to friends or family to be redeemed at checkout. If you don't use all of your gift voucher, the balance will remain on the voucher code so you won't lose out.

One major advance we have made is to be able to offer different products to different countries. For example, our cured bacon is available for Europe only. Now when you select your shipping country in the shopping basket, you will only see the products that can be delivered to that country.

We've also built in the technical capability for Chilled products, and will be gradually introducing these as our supply chain permits. Look out for the chilled aisle coming soon.

Wholesale customers will notice that at present it's only the Retail website that has been launched in the new format, we are working on the wholesale site as our next priority.

Article Date: 10th August 2010