Online inventory management, ordering and processing are just part of what the EWM team will do for Robbin and Mike of Robbin’s Wreaths.

After the meeting, the development team at Hosting Nation had the job of choosing a system to build the new store on.  Choosing the wrong e-commerce system can be disastrous, as many of them don’t offer the right functionality out of the box, and spending days or weeks doing custom programming wasn’t in the plan.  In the end, Erik and Rick chose Magento as the e-commerce platform to build on.

“Magento is built using languages and methods I’m very comfortable with.” said Erik Weisner, Director of Software Development for Hosting Nation.  “I like the flexible pricing models for products, and the separation of the templating system from the functionality is a nice touch.  I’m looking forward to working with it.”  Magento is free software, with many free or low cost options available to modify and extend the core functions.

The next stages of development are design and product integration.  Stay tuned to Extreme Website Makeover for more episodes coming soon!

BRIAN WILFORD OCEANSIDE STAR

Rick Lawrence, general manager of Hosting Nation, explains to Robbin and Michael Lamoureux, of Robbin’s Wreaths, what his company can do to solve their website woes. Filming the exchange is Andrew Smith, of OceansideWebTV.com.

Hosting Nation wants to hear your tales of website woe. Submit your stories at www.extremewebsitemakeover.tv and you may win a free website makeover worth $6,000.

Read the complete article online at the Oceanside Star or watch the first episode online now, free!

Michael Lamoureux and his wife Robbin are poised to be two of Vancouver Island’s most successful small business entrepreneurs.  They took over the business of Robin’s Wreaths back in 2007, and once they had changed the name they began immediately with a bold new business plan which included expansion into more western markets and an additional 15 staff.

In their first year of business they shipped about 160,000 pounds of wreaths and garnets.  This year, business has so far doubled and the Lamoureux family wreaths have made their way into Butchart Gardens, Thrifty Foods and multiple locations across Western Canada.  Success hasn’t gone to their heads, they’ve kept their roots humble and still make all the wreaths by hand.  Robbin and Michael are still planning to expand their business further including a program in which local schools sell their wreaths as a fundraising tool and the launch of a website they started in 2009 that would allow them to sell their products beyond their local market.

And then things went wrong.

Michael admits that he’s not a technical person.  That’s why he and Robbin initially hired a local freelance web designer to build a site for them. What they ended up with was not what they had in mind, so they parted ways and tried another route.  That road involved another company who, through a series of seminars, suggested that they could have all the websites they would ever need for a mere $6000.00.  Through the seminar, they were convinced that selling their products online would be simple, so they upgraded to another package that would help them even further – and cost them an extra $4000.00.

“We’re really choked.” Says Robbin “We don’t care. We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t want to learn how to build it, we just want someone to do it for us.”

“We spent $10,000, and we’re sitting here with nothing.  We’re just… choked”

That’s when Richard Lawrence of  Hosting Nation and Andrew Smith of  Oceanside Web TV swept in with a solution.  They had recently decided to work together on a project where they would select five businesses over six months to receive a custom web package completely free.  The packages include a custom design from Annika Sibert of Fusion Creative, video footage and promotion from Oceanside Web TV, 3D design and animation from Niklas Andersson of Square Eyes Media and from Hosting Nation, a domain with web hosting, an e-commerce system, marketing and promotion and all the bells and whistles the team can muster.

The team at Extreme Website Makeover is planning for a launch of the new Robbin’s Wreaths site at the end of January, 2010.  Stay tuned to Extreme Website Makeover over the coming weeks for updates, new episodes and more content from the EWM team!