Upshot Commerce Develops Custom Tools to Expand Retail, Wholesale Opportunities for Creative Gifts Direct

Salem, MA, December 23, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Upshot Commerce, a leading provider of customizable on-demand omni-channel ecommerce solutions, announced today that it has launched a new dual-navigation site for Creative Gifts Direct, a recognized leader in the gift industry with roots going back to the mid-1950s as a manufacturer, importer, and distributor. The responsive sites - one to serve new retail customers and one to serve the company’s existing wholesale partners - will allow Creative Gifts Direct, to tap into the growing market for unique, personalized gifts.

The Upshot Commerce team worked closely with Creative Gifts Direct to design the ideal shopping experience for their retail and wholesale customers. “Upshot Commerce came highly recommended to us and they lived up to and surpassed all of our expectations,” said Lou McNeil, President of Creative Gifts International, Inc. and Creative Gifts Direct. “This was not an easy project but they patiently and methodically developed an action plan with us and met every challenge successfully,” he added.

Upshot Commerce came highly recommended to us and they lived up to and surpassed all of our expectations. This was not an easy project but they patiently and methodically developed an action plan with us and met every challenge successfully.

Lou McNeil, President of Creative Gifts International, Inc. and Creative Gifts Direct

The new Creative Gifts Direct site was built on a responsive template, meaning that all customers can easily browse and buy from the device of their choosing, and even track across devices as they shop. As Upshot Commerce CEO Neal Kaiser explains, “With a total of 27.6% of Cyber Monday sales coming from mobile devices this year, it is crucial that ecommerce retailers provide customers with a great shopping experience on any device.”

With a focus on providing high-quality, personalized items, it was also important to Creative Gifts Direct that retail customers be able to preview customized text they added to a gift before purchasing. Upshot worked with their team to find a way to bring their existing engraving processes into the digital realm. As a result, retail customers can select one of several monogram or text personalization options, choose an available font, and preview the text prior to adding the item to their shopping cart. Custom tools in the back office allow Creative Gifts Direct to easily add and manage personalization profiles on products. “It was crucial for users of the site to be able to choose their personalization message and then be able to view what it would look like in the font they selected,” McNeil said.

To maintain established workflows, Upshot also integrated with Creative Gifts Direct’s existing iSeries system. The integration allows the Creative Gifts Direct team to effectively manage B2B and DTC orders through the Upshot back office while fulfilling customer orders using iSeries. The custom integration transfers data about custom personalization, wholesale pricing, discounts, and more. “Clients come to us with all kinds of integrations that are crucial to their business operations,” Kaiser says. “We were happy to work with Creative Gifts Direct to develop a solution that allows them to take advantage of the powerful tools in the Upshot back office without disrupting their current processes.”