MEPS International Ltd. are a leading independent supplier of steel market information. Customers can purchase Steel Prices and indices from across the globe, Steel Price Forecasts, Monthly Steel Reviews and Long-term Steel Outlooks.
Outdated legacy system with a limited lifespan and bespoke functions
Their existing eCommerce system was outdated and had a limited lifespan, so the team needed a new eCommerce system which was more flexible, supportable and easier to develop moving forward.
The new system needed to take payments and manage annual subscription renewals, but also then display the purchased data to customers and users for a set amount of time based on what they had bought. Customers required an easy-to-use Portal where they could manage their product subscriptions and access purchased data (to be displayed as graphs and tables) and view their invoices.
High levels of administration override were also necessary to give the team flexibility in pricing and delivery of products. They needed to be able to mass upload data to products on a monthly basis; adding and amending hundreds of datapoints.
None of this was possible from any eCommerce packages available on the market, so we were tasked to build a custom solution for this large project.
Process simplification for customers and system administrators
The complexity of the MEPS product offering meant they needed a simplified pricing and subscription structure that would be easy for customers to understand and in turn, increase purchases.
We started first by creating a comprehensive outline of all requirements from both a customer and system administrator perspective. The dynamic nature of the eCommerce portal meant that each User of the system had to be mapped out and available actions to each User identified.
Arkom had worked with MEPS for a number of years so fortunately we had a very good understanding of their products to guide them in how best to display the content. We created Portal dashboard designs and user journey flows to map out how we could aid customer’s using the new system.
We took into account the worldwide coverage of MEPS’ customer base so implemented an iconographic menu to aid usability across languages. We also needed to provide sample product data feeds to an external system they were going to be using for marketing purposes.
Flexible, custom-built eCommerce system
Working closely with MEPS, we have created a flexible custom-built system which gives the team the freedom to manage their products and pricing structures.
The system has had a much-needed facelift which makes it far easier to navigate and customers now have a user-friendly online platform. Phone and email purchases have massively reduced; customers now feel more comfortable in self-serving their needs, which has relieved valuable admin time answering customer queries.
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