Enders Island

Challenge

Enders Island had a website dating from 2000. The technology was outdated and the hosting and management fees were astronomical. The user registration and commerce systems on the site were cumbersome, out of date and insecure. They needed to find an alternative tool for easily managing their website themselves, with the help of their dedicated volunteers. In addition, they were postal-mailing their newsletter every month, which was also costing more and more with each issue. The final obstacle presented involved an online event registration system that was unreliable and costly.

Our Solution

We started off redesigning the website completely, with the assistance of Enders volunteers. The new look needed to portray the amazing beauty of the Island, and the peace of mind and spirituality that visiting the location brings. Hence the use of large and engaging photography on the home page to help draw visitors deeper. The content management for all the site pages, blog postings, and even the commerce store are courtesy of Drupal. We used the Drupal commerce module Ubercart, integrated it with the PayPal API payment gateway and customized it to Enders' needs. For the first time EndersIsland.com now sells retreats and physical products to customers all over the world.

Results

The results really showed with this redesign. There was a 17% increase in traffic from search engines and a 10% increase in online bookings for retreats. In 2011 Enders is planning to totally eliminate their paper newsletter and have it replaced with email - saving costs and increasing opportunities for constituent interaction and commerce.