BigCommerce Development and Improving Customer Satisfaction

Barndoorz (Barndoorz.com) shoots straight. They sell barn doors. Not the sort that go on actual, literal barns. You know, the sort that have been taking America by storm. The ones you find on the inside of peoples’ houses, as so prominently featured on HGTV and similar venues.

As you can imagine, installing a sliding barn door inside a home offers no standardized process. There aren’t really any sort of “one size fits all” options for homeowners that want to add barn doors to their homes’ interiors.

The process must be planned, carefully, and, as you can imagine, the act of creating a largely hands-off online ordering process is no walk in the park. It requires attention to detail, as well as forethought. At least enough to see what could go wrong with an order, and set up a purchase experience that does as much as it can to prevent those hiccups.

That’s the sort of thing we specialize in. Here’s how we did it for Barndoorz, with a little help from our skilled BigCommerce developers.

The Challenges of Ordering Barn Doors (Literally!)

As stated above, buying a barn door is not a typical process. Setting up an online purchasing process that works takes some additional foresight and creative firepower.

For instance, when you buy, say, a hammer online, you know what you’re getting. Excuse the blatantly simplified metaphor, but it serves the illustration perfectly.

There are few tools simpler than a hammer. Buy one online and you can easily see on a product page how heavy it is, what materials are used in its construction, and so on and so forth. You use a hammer to drive nails and stakes. It’s all right on the surface. What you see is what you get.

Well, with interior furnishings like sliding barn doors, sometimes what you see is not quite exactly what you get.

Size, finishes, compatibility of hardware, and other factors can complicate the process of buying a barn door that not only can be installed in a given location but also the process irself of installing it.

Customers that buy, large, expensive doors like these, understandably do not want to have them arrive only to realize they can’t install them as they’d have hoped. They also, understandably, don’t want to have to deal with the process of returns. It’s time-consuming and can be expensive.

So, basically, for a client like this, we knew we had to make sure that the end result – the product pages – we delivered removed as many question marks from the purchasing process as possible, and guided the buyer along the journey.

However, this was an atypical case.

Putting the Pieces Together

Barndoor originally came to us in a very unique situation. Typically, we work with clients on BigCommerce development and design projects from start to finish. We scope out the process and then design and develop the pages and tools as needed by the customer.

Barndoorz had already been working with another partner to complete its page redesigns and product page customizations. Barndoorz ended up needing some additional customizations that were better suited for an Elite Certified BigCommerce partner with extensive experience to handle – so they came to us with some of the design files ready to go, with others needing some adjustments.

Part of our work was easy. Barndoorz had most website design files queued up. All our developers had to do was implement those.

But it was the changes we made to the product page templates that really set the record in order for Barndoorz and their customers.

BigCommerce Development and a Near-Perfect Product Page

If you visit Barndoorz at the link above and take a look at, for example, their Mirror Barn Door, you will see just how we set the product page in order to guide the purchaser’s hand.

As you can see in the image above, the first thing the page template requires the users to do is take the measurement of the width of the door frame in inches. This comes before any other customizations can be made.

The purpose is, clearly, to prevent customers from investing too much time in configuring a door that won’t properly cover their door frame in the first place! It helps to prevent frustration and hiccups along the way, too.

Let’s say the customer determines that the door is, in fact, the proper size for their home. Then, in order to properly configure the order, the customer would also have to measure the height of the door as well in order to make sure it would fit. Detailed instructions for how to measure height and width are on the page as you can see from the image above.

We also added some custom functionality to the product page with respect to finish options with realistic photos showing customers what sorts of finishes are available with each barn door so they know what to expect before making the purchase. This can be seen below.

The process we created continues to guide the user through the journey of configuring and purchasing a door, helping to eliminate guesswork and ensuring that, at each step of the way, the customer is configuring a door that can be installed in the intended location and which comes with all of the necessary components and hardware.

As you can see from the image below, the process we created through this BigCommerce custom development project prompts the customer to choose “Rolling Hardware Options,” as well as “Rail Options.”

In the latter case, the page explicitly and prominently informs the user that this step is only necessary if he or she selects a hardware kit with the door.

As you can see from the image above, we also integrated helpful pop-ups with useful information into the product pages. All a user has to do is hover over a question mark icon and the pop-up will walk the user through the process of selecting a rail size that is compatible with the door.

The custom product pages we developed also prompt the customer to configure the purchase with front and back handles, handle placement, a privacy lock, and soft close and header board options.

Again, in each instance, the page layout guides the user’s purchase in order to ensure that everything that is necessary is added to the order and that nothing that is necessary is omitted.

Aside from a newly redesigned website with unique, differentiating functionality, Barndoorz has reaped a few additional benefits.

Primarily, this page has helped to provide a passive level of customer service. Instead of bogging down their customer service department with live queries on how to configure their purchases, customers can just use this easy, straightforward interface to make sure what they purchase meets their needs and fits in their homes.

This initiative to develop a better, “foolproof” product page has also been completed with the intention of improving customer satisfaction. Barn doors are a sizable investment and in many ways, each order is customized in some way or other.

It’s also discouraging to buy something like this and have it not meet your expectations – but rectifying the issues can be time-consuming and potentially expensive. This product page interface helps prevent simple mistakes and all but ensures that an order is configured and placed accurately and in a timely, efficient manner.

For this eCommerce client, it wasn’t just about optimizing the pages of the eCommerce platform for conversion rates. That was an aspect, but a greater aspect has been to create a page that not only encourages conversions but ensures that the customer gets what is needed, as needed, boosting buyer satisfaction.

See Past Your Own Hurdles (with the Help of Our BigCommerce Development Team, That Is)

A BigCommerce development project for expanded product page functionality that enhanced the user journey is exactly what Barndoorz needed. Some eCommerce clients like Barndoorz need similar development assistance. Others don’t, but need mobile apps developed, payment gateways integrated, or search engine optimization marketing plans devised.

Each eCommerce website has its own unique needs and serves an equally unique segment of the market. What your customers need may be entirely different from what this client needed. But it’s not about product page customization. It’s about customization as a concept.

Thinking critically, acting creatively, and understanding the strengths and limitations of the platform. That’s what our BigCommerce development team excels at, and it’s how we delivered success to Barndoorz.

For those of you reading this with BIgCommerce websites who are wishing the platform could deliver a little something more, don’t try to figure it out on your own.

Check out our eCommerce case studies to see some more examples of the work we’ve performed for past clients. Many of our projects have been for BigCommerce stores. Then get in touch with us for BigCommerce development services and let us do the in-depth creative problem-solving. We’ll create a high-quality, one-of-a-kind solution for your online store that will please you and your customers with a high-level user experience.