snup.com.au
snup.com.au is a custom web business to facilitate wine product bidding between consumers and sellers. Consumers can bid for items, and the Sellers can view these bids and accept or reject them, not unlike a street market!
The Brief
snup.com.au wanted to establish a custom web business to facilitate wine product bidding between consumers and sellers. Users will log into a web interface, where they select from a comprehensive product catalogue (e.g. brands, regions, vintages, etc.). Unlike typical shops and e-commerce sites, no product prices are shown (at all!). Instead, consumers will be able to place their bid of choice on a selected item, and the sellers will be able to view these bids and accept or reject them where appropriate (not unlike the way bartering works in a street market).
Another unique aspect of this system is that all bids will be genuine, with payments taking place the instant a bid is approved. This will be achieved through a secure online credit card payment process, with a pre-authorisation on funds. snup.com.au also required a substantial back-end administrative system. In particular, an interface where the Sellers can view and accept/ reject live bids, then manage the physical distribution of goods for selected orders.
Lava's Solution
Lava’s role commenced with adopting a newly established snup.com.au business brand, and evolving it into a series of full web templates. To achieve this, research was undertaken into the anticipated target demographic (age, income levels, etc.). We were also conscious of achieving a user interface that is visually impressive, balanced with a high level of usability.
The site architecture was the key driver in Lava’s planning. We worked in close consultation with snup.com.au to determine the information and functionality that appear throughout, as users move from a preliminary introduction to the business, to searching the wine product database, and then placing bids for their selection. This process helped nail down things like the field combination required for each product and ensuring users go through a simple and logical flow. Extensive reporting has also been integrated enabling snup.com.au to extract and manipulate user data for targeted marketing purposes.
On the client’s request, the snup.com.au site was built using open source coding, PHP and an abundance of Ajax, with a MySQL back-end. The Ajax is actually integral to the user experience, with wine search results pulled from the database dynamically and without the page refreshing. We feel this functionality gives the user a fun and simple method for navigating to find their desired wines. A substantial back-end administrative system was developed, so snup can act as the manager of the site. For example, key functions include; snup being able to establish access for new ‘sellers’, and update the products (e.g. adding a new wine).
The Sellers also have a unique online interface, where they can view a live reflection of consumer offers on a particular wine, and instantly accept or reject them. Sellers can filter bids by state and value, then accept or reject each individually with the click of a button. When a user places their bid, the value of the bid is set aside on their credit card, then debited immediately when a bid is accepted by one of the Sellers (similar to the way a hotel works). For rejected bids, the pre-authorised funds become available again after 72 hours.
snup.com.au launched in August ’08 and Lava believes it is not only one of our best solutions, but also an absolute ripper of a business concept. We are genuinely delighted to see our client put the site in the market using a comprehensive marketing campaign, with the digital advertising component handled by leading Australian firm eMitch.
Stop reading… go and start bidding!