Plymouth Co-operative

The Brief

Createanet were invited to pitch for the re-modelling of the current Plymouth Co-operative website. Over time their existing website had become slightly dated in appearance and difficult to manage from a customer prospective and in today’s fast changing needs within the retail market it was imperative that the site administrators could change and update news and special offers as quickly and easily as possible.

Our Approach

In coming up with a plan for the site we felt it was imperative that the site not only had a very clear navigation, but also provided the customers with useful tools in order for them to search for co-operative stores. One innovation in this direction was to generate a store locator, which worked on postcode GEO data, which enables the customers to put in their postcode and then filter by stores that had specific facilities, such as; lottery terminals, frozen foods, post offices, etc; Once entered the customer would then be presented with a list of co-operative stores, with the distance from their current location clearly displayed. Another innovative approach was an interactive floor plan for the Derry Store in Plymouth, this provided the Co-op with a content management system that allowed them to graphically draw a floor plan and change the departments as and when they change position within the store. This providing the site visitor with an interactive site map, that could be easily kept up to date with their entire store department locations.

The Result

Within four hours of our pitch Createanet were called to be told that not only had we been awarded the contract but that it was one of the most refreshing presentations the board had seen to date. We then embarked on the long consultation process, with design concepts for the website. Unfortunately during this process co-operative entered into new negotiations to sell their none food side of their business, which of course put the project on hold. We hope to pick up on development plans again, some time later in the year.