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Business Situation:
FitSense Technology had a product, and
knew they wanted to use an online store as their main retail
front. They wanted the purchase of their product to bring with
it the ability to train online, while not forcing the user to do
so. They wanted the following – running, walking or fitness
organizations to adapt the FS-1 technology into their regimens.
They wanted online affiliates as well as brick and mortar
dealers to sell the product. They wanted to offer great customer
support along with continuous product enhancements. They wanted
all of this, and turned to WSI to help make it possible.
Major Goals:
- Design and develop a corporate image
for their web site
- Create a web site that would allow
their users to upload their training data and be able to view
it in a graphical format (known as the Train site.)
- Create an online store from which to
sell their product.
- Create a system in which to manage the
orders received.
- Streamline and eventually handle the
technical support for their product.
Solution:
WSI worked with FitSense to develop the
foundation from which the entire web site would be built: Learn,
Buy, Train.
The Learn site was their online brochure.
To accompany the information describing the system, WSI created
a working demo of the watch product. It allowed the user to see
how the watch functions by pushing buttons, changing settings,
turning on and off the backlight, and so on.
The Buy site was the e-commerce tool that
allowed for end users to purchase the product directly. It was
designed to be quick and easy. All of the products available for
purchase were displayed on one page, keeping search time to a
minimum. The purchasing side of the Buy site was designed to
allow for a quick checkout, using just a few clicks to complete
the sale. Other functionality included was order status and
profile maintenance. While developing this application, WSI also
created the ability to support a web site affiliate program that
allowed affiliates to sell FitSense products on their web site
while earning a commission for each sale.
The Train site is an online training area
that delivers detailed run data in a graphical display, and
offers day, week, month and yearly views. The application was
derived from the running module of WinningStats.com, a product
that had already been developed by WSI. What was once a manual
entry running log was retrofitted to store and display
proprietary data delivered by the watch.
As with any digital consumer product, a
technical support service for the end user is a must. WSI
developed a web-based tool for use by the technical support
operator. This application allows the operator to pull up
detailed information about the customer and their product, view
their support history, and log the current call and its details.
The operator also has a solutions database available to assist
in the resolution of the call.
Benefits:
By using an online store, Fitsense was not
required to open a “Fitsense” brick and mortar store in order to
sell their product. Because of the e-commerce web site, their
“store” is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. By using
retailers for in-store sales, the product was able to hit a
larger market, quicker.
The portion of the web site dedicated to
uploading user data provides customer service beyond the product
itself. When you buy the product, you are buying into the full
capabilities of the web site without any further cost. As
updates are made to the functionality of the web site, the
customer receives them free of upgrade charges.
By using WSI to handle their technical
support, Fitsense is allowing their employees to do what they do
best, build a better product.
Technical Information:
Distributed upload application: Built with
Visual Basic 6.0 and Access 2000, it uses an ADO data access
method to directly write information to a SQL Server.
Databases: Both Fitsense’s e-commerce and
user information databases were built and are currently SQL
Server 7.0 databases.
E-commerce and Train sites: Running on IIS
6.0 servers. All of the application logic was developed using
Visual Interdev 6.0. Using this technology, these sites are ASP
based using server side Visual Basic script to execute the
logic.
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