Case Study: JumpStart Auction Procurement
About the Client
(click to enlarge)
Arsetta, Inc. is an application service provider whose Web-based software, ReadySetAuction, is designed to help non-profit organizations plan and conduct online and/or live charity auctions. Since its release in 2004, ReadySetAuction has gotten rave reviews from its users.
Unfortunately no software can, by itself, solve a fundamental problem of fundraising auctions: finding high-value items to sell, without asking to have them donated from the very constituency who will be bidding on the auction.
Arsetta created JumpStart Auction Procurement—an adjunct service to ReadySetAuction—to resolve this paradox for their customers. Non-profit organizations can reserve vacation packages to sell at auction with no risk and no charge; the organization holding the auction only pays if the items they’ve reserved are successfully sold.
You can view the finished JumpStart website, created by Zenscope Studio, at jumpstart.readysetauction.com.
The Challenge
JumpStart is structured as a browsable, searchable catalog (click to enlarge)
The challenge for the JumpStart project revolved around the reservation system for the vacation packages. Because those packages are free unless successfully auctioned, the traditional shopping cart metaphor—which has a strong association with “checkout” and payment—was a poor choice for handling the reservations.
There was also a third party in the reservation process whose needs had to be considered. The auction packages themselves are provided by Arsetta’s partners at The Gavel Group, while the JumpStart service takes care of streamlining and integrating the procurement process for ReadySetAuction users.
The Solution
Risk-Free Reservation
The JumpStart reservation form (click to enlarge)
I designed a very simple reservation form for JumpStart, which avoids the hesitation that a more traditional shopping cart system might cause. To reinforce the risk-free nature of the service, no sensitive payment information is requested at all. The form only has four required fields, or three if you consider that the customer’s e-mail address is entered twice for confirmation.
Easily-understood error messages (click to enlarge)
The reservation form “remembers” the information that a user enters the first time, so that additional reservations require only one mouse click. If any required fields are accidentally left blank, user-friendly error messages and visual aids explain exactly how to fix the problem.
Right next to the form is a three-step description of the reservation process, outlining everything that the user needs to know about how JumpStart works. These instructions include a link to the Arsetta privacy policy and contact information for both Arsetta and The Gavel Group. Visitors are encouraged to call with any questions they might have.
Keeping Everyone Informed
As soon as a new reservation is made, all three parties get the information they need:
- Arsetta is notified so that they can provide any necessary customer support.
- The Gavel Group is also notified so that they can send additional information and forms to the customer.
- The customer gets a confirmation e-mail that includes a thank-you message from Arsetta and a link to instructions for adding the new auction package to the ReadySetAuction application.
Easy Ongoing Maintenance
JumpStart was developed to be easily maintained by Arsetta’s staff. The site was built with Textpattern, a free and open source content management system (CMS) that’s flexible enough to power almost any kind of website.
In JumpStart’s case, this translates to dramatically simplified site maintenance. Each vacation package on the site requires three different types of Web pages: a detailed description for Arsetta’s customers, a less detailed description for online auction bidders, and instructions for entering that package into ReadySetAuction:
An Arsetta customer’s detailed view of vacation package info (click to enlarge)
The bidders’ view of vacation descriptions (click to enlarge)
Follow-up instructions, given after reservation (click to enlarge)
The information for all three page types is stored and maintained together, using a single user-friendly page in Textpattern’s password-protected administration area. The different pages seen by JumpStart customers are simply different perspectives on this unified data.
The Results
About a week after JumpStart’s launch I checked in with Arsetta’s VP of Marketing, Lisa Weiss, to see how the site was working for them. “So far,” said Lisa, “customer feedback has been universally positive.”
The site also saw SEO benefits from being developed with lean, minimalistic XHTML code. “Within a week of the site’s launch,” Lisa reported, “we were ranked in the top five Google results for some of our target keywords. In some cases, we’d already reached number one.”
Lisa summed up her thoughts on the JumpStart project this way:
We are extremely pleased with the web site Adam built for us. He not only translated our ideas into a great site, he also offered insightful suggestions and well thought out improvements. Without hesitation, we will definitely engage Adam’s services again.
UPDATE: JumpStart’s success motivated Arsetta to quickly add new features to the site. In November — two months after the site’s launch — they again called on Zenscope Studio. The company needed the ability to offer auction items from multiple vendors, in addition to The Gavel Group.
The improvements were finished by mid-December, and the expanded site went live in January with a new range of offerings for Arsetta’s customers.
Project Summary
- Project Description
- This auction procurement service ties into the client’s charity auction management software, providing their customers with a unified solution to reserve and sell high-value auction items.
- Completion Date
- September 17, 2007
- Services
- Usability consulting & interaction design (reservation system)
- Website design
- Website development (Textpattern templates)
- Custom PHP scripting (Textpattern plugins)
- Custom JavaScript