online ordering Archives - IFI: Grand Rapids Web Design, Development | Digital Marketing

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What If?

September 27th, 2021 by Ima Admin

Many of America’s greatest innovations began with the big question, “What if…?” and the solutions were even bigger. Virtually every business, large and small started with the question, “What if…?” Often one ‘what if’ leads to other ‘what ifs’.

Let’s assume that your ‘what if’ has lead you to develop a business, but your current ‘what if’ has you on the fence about the need for a website. Let me save you some time – you need one. A good one. Professionally designed to catch leads, increase sales, tell your story, differentiate you from the others – regardless of your industry. Want to know why?
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Online Sales Tax

June 25th, 2018 by Ima Admin

On June 21st, 2018, the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) overruled 1992’s Quill Corp v. North Dakota case in South Dakota v. Wayfair in a 5 to 4 vote.

Back in 1992, Quill stated that US states could only change sales taxes on companies with a physical presence in the state. Effectively, Quill determined how state taxes worked with e-commerce from the web’s first days. Started in 1956, Quill, a direct and mail order office supply retailer, has grown to be one of the largest business-to-business office supply retailers in the U.S. at over $1 billion in annual sales with 70% of that coming from internet sales. Quill was acquired by Staples, Inc. in 1998.

The 1992 Court did not have before it the present realities of the interstate marketplace or how the Internet’s prevalence and power would change the dynamics of the national economy. Here’s some of the 2018 reasoning…
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Site Launch: Cutting Horse Training Online

August 9th, 2016 by Ima Admin

IFI_Blog_CHTO2_552x587 Similar to a previous client, Simone & Duncan, owners of Cutting Horse Training Online (CHTO) out of Texas had built a successful online video education program that was functional but had outstripped the underlying design and technology of their current partners.

Having seen the transformation the Imagination Factory for the other client, they asked what was possible. CHTO had a few more things happening in their site, so once again we spent a lot of time investigating their specific needs, researching current technology they were using, and especially discussing the shortfalls of the current site – for both the owners and the users.

The result is a subscription-based, members-only, ecommerce, mobile-responsive site with hundreds of streaming videos & podcasts from multiple sources and by numerous training partners and grooming experts from around the world. Additionally, this site also needed to tie into third-parties InfusionSoft & Click Funnel for extensive email marketing campaigns, Dartfish for private video critiques, and SoundCloud for Podcast streaming. The site allows members to search and view streaming categorized videos on their desktop, tablet or even smartphone. In addition to basic ecommerce for books, DVDs and apparel, the site also needed to support an event calendar/ticketing system for clinics and workshops. Members may subscribe monthly, quarterly or annually to one of three different membership levels via several payment gateways to gain access to videos that are searchable by category, by training partner, by title.

This one raised the bar, yet again, on the built-in functions and capabilities that we’ve been asked to design into a site!

Mosey on over to the NEW CHTO site.

Site ReDesign: Kentwood Office Furniture

July 14th, 2016 by Ima Admin

IFIblog_KWOF_552x587 Although many of our website solutions are built to serve our clients well for many years, technology continues to march forward providing new options and marketing channels of which to take advantage. At a minimum, we suggest revisiting the site design every five years or less.

Kentwood Office Furniture is the Midwest’s specialist in high quality remanufactured, used, and new office furniture and is well aware of rapidly changing environments. As a result, Kentwood Office and the Imagination Factory takes a look every 2-3 years at the site and how best to leverage the new technology and aesthetics in their site.

For your own closer inspection, visit the NEW KENTWOOD OFFICE site.

Ecommerce: Minor League, Major Food

March 20th, 2016 by Ima Admin

baseball_suite-300x224 Yessir, it’s baseball season once again and time to update over a dozen client’s “SOCS” (suite online catering system) websites.

Team IFI’s SOCS sites are customized for each participating club and allow baseball fans who have rented a game day suite to order online from their club’s catering menu.

Each year we added a few more clubs to the IFI SOCS roster. If your favourite ball club doesn’t offer it yet, have them contact us at the Imagination Factory.

Site Launch: Green Wellness

February 27th, 2016 by Ima Admin

IFIblog_GWL_sm Welcome to Green Wellness, Grand Rapids’ home to holistic oils, tinctures, salves, lotions and supplements containing the highest grade of Cannabidiol (CBD), which comes from the NON-psychotropic cannabis plant known as Hemp.

Owners, Jim & Brandy, wanted to put a website to put their holistic products based within reach of people seeking healthier lifestyles and relief from symptoms of disease. They found many of the sites out there selling similar products were garish and appeared to cater to an entirely different audience than they intended.

For this startup business, the team at the Imagination Factory designed their logo, their business cards and their mobile-responsive ecommerce site.

Take a health look at GREEN WELLNESS

Site Launch: Wheeler Business Machines

October 30th, 2015 by Ima Admin

IFIblog_WBM_sm Following Google’s ‘mobilegeddon’ updates, Wheeler Business Machines, began noticing a fall-off of site traffic and phone calls, despite their continuous SEO efforts.

The site was large, with a lot of good product content, but it was also quite old – predating tablets and smartphones, so it was still an HTML-based site, not mobile responsive with no real ecommerce function.

The Imagination factory re-designed the site into a CMS-based structure and gave them a much easier e-commerce setup which was not only mobile responsive, but easier to search optimize AND manage the site content. Client is much more productive at managing the site, the site is regaining its search ‘juice’, calls AND orders are flowing at a higher rate.

Visit WHEELER BUSINESS MACHINES

Site Launch: The Q Smokehouse

July 31st, 2015 by Ted Bailey

A man with a unique concept and a clear plan, David, came to the Imagination Factory while his new restaurant/smokehouse was still on the drawing board.

The owners of the Q SmokeHouse, asked us for help in designing a new logo and a website that would serve both short term and long-term goals. First, while they were breaking ground and building the restaurant, they wanted the site to generate interest of both future employees and patrons. Then, once operational, the site needed to easily expand to allow them to take online orders.

During site training, one of their newest key chefs, said that seeing the site’s quality and professionalism is what impressed on him that the owners were serious about doing things ‘right’ and helped make the decision to seek them out. We couldn’t agree more.

Visit the Q SmokeHouse.

Site Launch: Bamboo Studio

June 29th, 2015 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_BBS_sm Bamboo Studio is a fusion of paint party and asian cafe, bringing you the fun of learning to paint while sipping on Grand Rapids’ best bubble tea.

Cafe Boba came to the Imagination Factory to help them put together a site to 1) help explain the concept and 2) allow people to sign up online for paint parties, classes, and asian fusion meal/paint packages.

So we fused a gallery, a visual event calendar, and online ecommerce together to meet their needs – then made the whole thing mobile responsive.

Come visit the NEW Bamboo Studio and schedule your next paint party.

Site Launch: Meyer Music

August 22nd, 2014 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_MMI_sm Meyer Music, after watching web designers come and go for several years, came to the Imagination Factory, back in 2005, to have their first web site built. Over the years there have been a variety of changes and enhancements to benefit their customers, but no major re-design…

Until today!

Meyer Music has revamped and enhanced its internal operations, so it made sense to also give the website an overall facelift and make it mobile responsive. The redesign would require also integrating the public facing web site to a secure portal where Meyer Music clients will not only rent musical instruments (as with the old site), but also access their accounts and pay online.

This latter portion of the project meant not only getting the various computers to play together nicely and securely, but to make the aesthetics match as closely as possible across different computers, operating systems, and applications.

Come visit the NEW Meyer Music site, today.

Sounds interesting! Let's talk.