International growth for Plantfocus.com
An online platform where you can order your plant labels. That’s Plantfocus.com. For more than 20 years it’s been the go-to specialist for designing and printing personalised plant labels. We recently gave the online platform a full makeover with a view to international growth. This is the result.
Platform upgrade
Growers, garden centres and florists know all about Plantfocus.com. The Kortrijk-based company has set the benchmark for the design and printing of plant hangtags, markers and other labels for more than 20 years. All orders are placed online, which is fairly unique. To continue to grow in Belgium and over the border in France and the Netherlands, Plantfocus.com joined the D’M&S communication group at the end of 2023. The ideal opportunity to upgrade the technological and communicative aspects of the platform.
Next generation online shop
Our web developers first got to work on the platform, creating a flexible, contemporary design that is even easier to use and faster to navigate on computer, tablet and smartphone. The new online shop provides a better, intuitive user experience, improved scalability and more powerful performance. We also developed a new landing page in four languages, which presents the plusses of Plantfocus. com to visitors with an invitation to register and a video to explain how the international ordering platform works.
Visual image
The new platform came online at the beginning of 2024. To ensure the launch got the attention it deserved, we had already overhauled the corporate branding (logo and house style) and communication. The original visual of a ‘green fingerprint’ makes it clear that everything you need to order personalised labels is at your fingertips.
Focus on print and online
The concept visual of the green fingerprint presses home the message on numerous print tools. As well as a new year’s card, we also created a folder and a brochure showcasing the whole range. And we built a stand in the new style, including a screen to show the promotional video, for use at various fairs in the spring – from IPM in Germany and Plantarium in the Netherlands to Florall in Belgium. An online marketing campaign is expected to boost name recognition and drive up sales. Focus on a strong growth going forward.
Technical feat
And one last thing: The Plantfocus.com platform was completely reimagined by our developers, who created a modern user-friendly web application – a nextgeneration online shop. It was a big challenge, but our people were able to cut through the complexity to deliver a very simple server environment. The details of hundreds of thousands of plants are now centralised and hosted in one place. It’s all done to create the smoothest, most automated ordering experience.
Plan for success
So how did we supercharge the speed and performance of the app? We drew up a plan, based on an indepth functional and technical analysis. It provided for integration with InDesign Server to create ready-to-print PDF files of plant labels on the fly. The client can now generate a real-time preview while the printer can quickly run off digital or offset prints. Link to various external tools for order management, invoicing, payment, shipping and more.
Technology in bloom: Webflow and .NET
Our aim was to optimise the ordering process. Programming was a technical triumph. For commercial purposes we created a landing page in Webflow for easier content management and SEO. The application on the other hand we developed in Blazor, a flexible, robust .NET web framework. A pleasant and fast user experience is guaranteed, whether the application is accessed on the website or installed on device. Mission accomplished.
