Owosso Graphic Arts

Objective: Take die orders online

Owosso Graphic Arts has made engraving dies since 1949: brass and magnesium dies for embossing, debossing, foil stamping, and letterpress. Their customers are printers and finishers. Each order comes with a long list of specifications: metal and thickness, how the image should read, mounting, finishing, artwork, and shipping. Most of those orders arrived by phone, fax, and email.

The company asked Web Ascender for two things: a website that explains what they make to the industries they serve, and a way for customers to order dies online with every detail needed to start production.

What Web Ascender Did

The website

• Design and build - a new WordPress site with product pages for each type of die, industry pages, testimonials, a photo gallery, and ordering and tech tips
• Content and SEO - we interviewed their team and wrote the product and industry content, plus title tags and meta descriptions
• Make-ready supply store - a WooCommerce store for supplies, with custom fields, customer emails, and online payment
• Shipping cutoff clock - shows the current Eastern time, so customers know whether an order will be processed that day

The ordering system

• A custom Ruby on Rails application with an order form for each type of die and its own fields, options, and rules
• Four guided steps - product information, artwork, order details, and confirmation, with validation at each step so orders arrive complete
• Artwork and PO uploads - customers attach their art files and purchase orders to the order
• One account everywhere - single sign-on with the WordPress site, so a customer signs in once for the website, the store, and the ordering system
• Reorders and history - customers can repeat a past order, reuse previous addresses, and see their order history
• Payments and shipping - saved cards through a secure payment gateway, guest checkout, customer pickup, US Mail, and the customer’s own UPS or FedEx account
• Straight to production - completed orders are exported automatically for the company’s production system
• Admin tools - an order dashboard with charts, fuzzy search by company, saved filters, CSV exports, printable PDFs, and email notifications to staff

The Outcome

Customers order dies online, any time of day, with the specifications and artwork the production team needs to get started. We have supported both the website and the ordering system ever since: server and security upgrades, new die options and fields, and changes as the business evolves. Owosso Graphic Arts has been a client for more than ten years.