The Bihar Foundation approached HashPro Technologies to renovate its existing website. In addition to its objectives of Bonding, Branding and Business, the web site connects people of Bihar residing outside the State with the Government of Bihar, helping build lasting relationships around the world.

Until September 2008, officials at Bihar Foundation, an initiative by the government of Bihar to facilitate interaction between Non-Resident Biharis (NRBs) and the government, was under tremendous pressure to do more for citizens, and to do it better. The Foundation officials were left trying to accomplish more for NRBs with fewer resources. This posed a difficult challenge, of course. But for the Foundation officials, it also presented an opportunity to transform the way government delivers services.

To meet these growing expectations, HashPro worked with Foundation’s CEO Vivek Kumar Singh (IAS) and manager Satyajit Narayan Singh, to find, evaluate and deploy technologies that helped produce a leaner, more agile forum on the Web that exceeds its citizens’ expectations.

Several technologies that are used extensively in the private sector also offer the same kinds of advantages to governments. The Foundation site was built using open source applications such as WordPress (for CMS) thereby reducing the maintenance and upgradation cost upto 75%. HashPro led the development of a site which contained multi lingual capacity, as well as an in depth registration and member management system as a foundation for a community driven website.

Since then, the Foundation has added half-a-dozen Chapters across the country as well as abroad. It has opened five offices in all metros – Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi. Its newly added Chapters in foreign countries are in the United States (West Coast), Dubai (UAE), Doha (Qatar), Sydney (Australia) and Seoul (South Korea).

Website: www.biharfoundation.in

Figura Fashion is an international house of  Indian tradional wear, especially Bridal Gharara, Lehenga Choli, Anarkali Suit, Salwar Kameez, Saree, Indo – Western, Sherwani, etc. They have been recognized for their innovative but equally traditional design, and the unique beauty of their products.

The Challenge

Figura, approached HashPro Technologies to take on the challenge of developing an online business-to-consumer e-commerce marketplace for their products. The goal of the site was to create a virtual clothes store show room that was an interactive experience for the user, enabling them to browse and purchase clothes online based on their individual purchasing needs. The business objective to be achieved through this initiative was to create an innovative e-commerce site that was easy-to-use, intuitive, and user-friendly during the transactional process. The design, functionality, and architecture of the site all needed to assist in kick-starting the online sales cycle activity. The Website would include advanced search options, favorite’s folders, a shopping cart, online payment and more.

This was a huge opportunity for Figura, but they had some consumer misconceptions to overcome before they would achieve success from the site. Figura needed to prove to consumers that the online shopping experience could be similar to that of a clothes store showroom. Many consumers had the misconception that in order to purchase a dress they needed to visit a clothes store to see the dress in person and visualize how the dress would fit their body.

Figura needed to create an online experience that was exactly like a virtual clothes store show room in order to create a similar buying experience for consumers. The e-commerce site needed to be user-friendly and intuitive for the user in order to increase the visit time of site users and encourage product purchase directly from the site.

The Goals

1. Develop a user-friendly e-commerce site
2. Create an interactive experience for the user
3. Create an online virtual clothes store
4. Encourage increased visit time by site users
5. Assist in kick-starting the online sales cycle activity

The Solutions

HashPro designed the site to be visually compelling and an online interactive experience for the user. The site architecture was created to be user-friendly, intuitive, and able to be easily navigated by computer novices. The goal of the site was to create an online experience that facilitated in increasing the site visit time of each individual user.

HashPro developed a straightforward step-by-step ordering process that made purchasing clothes online a no-hassle experience. Included in this process were various options that ensured the user was purchasing a dress that was suitable for their purchasing needs. These purchasing options included size, shape, color, price range, material, favorites, and more. HashPro also included a picture of every dress offered by Figura, placed on a white background, so that the user was able to completely experience the colors and visualize the design of the dress.

Result

1. Creation of a user-friendly Website
2. Development of an intuitive step-by-step purchasing process
3. Increase in Figura’s cloth sales by 34%

Project Components

• E-commerce
• Information Design and Usability
• Scope, Approach and Methodology
• Web Design and Development

Scanview Electronics Ltd, established in 1983 is a UK based electronics supplier company with a good reputation and great level of service. The London based company primarily offers a broad range of product categories, including desktop computer systems, mobility products, electronic gadgets and peripherals and services to individual customers as well large organizations. The company provides the industry’s most comprehensive selection of name-brand consumer electronics with an emphasis on limited-distribution and mid-to-upscale brands.

The Challenge

The backbone of Scanview’ business plan is a superlative in-store customer experience. Because this first-hand experience is vital to Scanview’ retail model, the company use their website to showcase products as well for online sales. The old e-commerce website was not fulfilling this function. The website’s search engine was awkward, and search requests would often erroneous results. The company wanted to create a more dynamic and useful search engine and a more efficient content management structure. HashPro Technologies was brought in to design and implement these improvements.

The Solutions

For HashPro Technologies, one of the prime elements of this project was helping Mr. Amit Parmar, CEO of Scanview Electronics Ltd, reconceptualize the information architecture of the site. Online product information had been divided into numerous sub-categories that made search functionality too rigid for effective navigation. After consultation, product information was streamlined to produce more relevant, helpful search results.

With the new information architecture in place, HashPro Technologies went to work implementing osCommerce – an open source e-commerce platform. Users can now easily refine their searches by combining factors such as price, brand and product size. Every search produces descriptions and photos of just the products satisfying the current criteria. It’s easy for viewers to refine or switch their criteria, for example changing model size while retaining the same price range of their previous search. Users never get an empty search result, and always see relevant information to entice them to visit a superstore.

HashPro reinvented their website as an effective place for shopping retail electronic products. A key objective for the site is to motivate visitors to come to a Scanview superstore. The renovated website promises to bring Scanview’s online positioning up to the level of its storefront success. Rather than a simple redesign of site aesthetics, the update puts power in the hand of the user, with high-level functionality and a true incorporation of personal choice.