Maiden Marine had a long-standing relationship with an international advertising and software company for the marine industry, specialising in brokerage sales. With their own bespoke software, Maiden Marine were relying on an ‘off the shelf’ website from the same provider to accommodate their boat listing solution. The website had many limitations and was not easy to update or change. However, a new bespoke website would require deeper development work to integrate the boat listings which are crucial to their second-hand brokerage sales.
Offering a personal service for boat buyers from their base in the Lake District, across the UK and internationally, a new website would have to capture the premium services and products that they offer. To do this, they would require a website which was unique to them.
One of the key aspects of the development project involved the seamless integration of the new website with an XML Feed supplied by their software provider. This technical endeavor necessitated the establishment of a Cron job, allowing the system to automatically scrutinise the XML feed for updates at designated intervals throughout the day. The process involved extracting newly listed boats, updating prices, incorporating new images, and implementing other modifications. Furthermore, any boats that were no longer listed in the XML feed were also promptly removed from the website to ensure data accuracy and consistency.
After the website had been operational for approximately a year, our client decided to transition to a new provider for their boat feed service. Due to the effective manner in which we had initially integrated the XML feed, the process of switching to the new feed provider was straightforward. We were able to easily adapt the system to accommodate the new feed and establish connections with the different form fields seamlessly.
Furthermore, we implemented another significant update by enabling support for WebP format to replace JPG. This modification was particularly beneficial as it contributed to enhancing the website's loading speed. This improvement was especially valuable considering the substantial volume of boat listings on the site, which could sometimes reach hundreds. By supporting WebP, we optimised the site's performance and ensured a smoother user experience for visitors browsing through numerous boat listings.
Based on the shores of Lake Windermere, but also as the main dealers for Beneteau in the North of England, we were spoiled for choice with a large image bank. This allowed us to design and build a website which was eye-catching and reflected the aspirations of boat owners. We worked closely with Maiden Marine to build a unique homepage which stood apart from the rest of the site and clearly displayed their suppliers.
The website has many components, from new boat sales to brokerage, from engine sales to engineering services. All aspects of the website had to be built with each unique offering in mind. This was not something that an ‘off the shelf’ solution would be able to deliver.
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