The Gerber Labs team knew what they wanted: a new e-commerce website to boost sales for their custom-made PCB boards. We gave them a drag-and-drop system with a clean, easy-to-use interface that no customer could get lost in. The PCB manufacturing industry is niche, but powerful. Students, hobbyists, professionals: the demand for custom PCB boards crosses multiple industries, and Gerber Labs wanted to meet the demand with style, ease, and a great design. Gerber Labs had other sales channels already, but the owner wanted to specifically target hobbyists and students with an easy-to-use website. They wanted to compete against a Chinese website called PCB Gogo, another PCB manufacturer, but they needed help understanding how to do that, and the best way to communicate with their audience.
Gerber Labs had sales channels already, but they didn’t have a strong e-commerce website. Two main components had to be included: a custom gerber board planning system and a slick and bright design. And it had to be budget-friendly. This was our first gerber manufacturing company, and we went into it not knowing anything about gerber boards, so our first step was to learn everything we could about how they worked. Our second step was to understand which parts of the website we could automate. Automation is great when budget is a concern since it allows parts of the website to run on their own, leaving the parts that only humans can do – like double-checking an order – for the very end. Our initial design programme included all sorts of little automation tools to really free up time for the client, and basically ensure that the website was as customer-friendly as possible. Our third and final step was making sure that the website looked good. For students and hobbyists, a good-looking and easy to use website is a combination that always wins, and we wanted to bring a little bit of fun to the PCB manufacturing process. Our little bit of fun is named Isley, a 3D robot that helps you through the website if you’re struggling to put your order together. The client relationship was critical to making this work; they really trusted us to go ahead and do something out of the ordinary, which allowed us a lot of freedom in the way we worked. We still work with them on this project, and have staff and update meetings regularly to see where else we can go.
The most successful projects are not going to be perfect and done at the end of a normal development cycle; they’re the ones that will keep going in incremental updates as more, and better, technologies become available. Although we had to start over a lot – it happens; development is like that sometimes – our client was thrilled with the work we did and keeps in touch regularly to add to and update the site as needed.