Starfish Oils Switches to Magento

Nearly a year ago we gave the Stafish Oils’ website a facelift. We reshot product images, redesigned the site, and built in ecommerce functionality using Ubercart, a module extension to the Drupal CMS framework. We used Ubercart to give Starfish a quick, inexpensive, basic eCommerce solution to process simple transactions online.

Once finished, the site sat un-launched, waiting for payment and fulfillment details to be finalized by the company. While such processing was taking place, the client also decided to make some changes in production, personnel and marketing strategy.

Several weeks ago, Starfish came back to us and said they were ready to do business. Not surprisingly, the company’s restructuring now meant that its scope of website requirements had expanded as its vision had grown.

Panmedia’s Tech Lead Howard Henry then decided to use a different ecommerce solution to meet Starfish’s new demands. When he showed Starfish Managing Director Stella Rosen Magento, she was immediately sold on the robust eCommerce platform. Magento, offers tremendous flexibility, control and built-in features, and Rosen says she believes it will effectively manage the company’s new sales thrust online.

Panmedia kept the site’s clean design and modified some interfaces to make it even easier to navigate, encourage sales and to strengthen the company’s engagement with customers.
Just in time for the holiday season, the new site www.starfishoils.com will promote gift giving of its exquisite products and give a lift to what is already a widely known Jamaican and Caribbean brand.

Starfish’s aromatherapy lines – natural essential oils, incense, bath products, handmade soaps and candles – are already popular in North America and other Jamaican Diaspora communities. Rosen says the site’s enhanced ecommerce is expected to boost sales at the end of the year.

“The site can now capture the special marketing needs of the aromatherapy business,” says Henry. “Aromatherapy is about the senses: it is about touch, feel and smell and the design must precisely reflect this. At the same time, the site must be functional and user friendly so shoppers can easily find what they are looking for.”
The new site features include:

• Standards compliant code and practices to enhance search engine friendliness, improve accessibility and ensure cross-browser compatibility.
• An attractive home page JavaScript image slider (featuring Starfish Oil products) for enhanced branding.
• A catalogue that allows customers to browse different categories and products quickly and easily.
• A content management system for timesaving website updates by the client.
• A user-friendly  Magento e-commerce platform integrated with Paypal payment provider.

Starfish Oils was established in 1996.  The company’s natural products are made in Jamaica by the finest local craftsmen and women and have been featured on the pages of Bon Appétit, Caribbean Travel & Life, Mademoiselle, Natural Living and Panache.