Crown Co — Website Design & Development

# Crown Co — Website Design & Development Brief **Business:** The Crown Co — whole-house design customization, Australia --- ## 1. Business overview Crown Co provides fully custom, whole-house design customisation for the Australian market, sourcing manufacture from China (via manufacturing partners including Sofeyia) and delivering a complete local service: on-site measurement, design, 3D rendering, manufacture, international transport/logistics, local assembly, and final testing/commissioning. **Product categories:** - Kitchen cabinetry - Doors and windows - Lighting - Furnishings — curtains, window coverings - Bath fittings, vanities, shower screens, bathtubs - Flooring materials - Home and office furniture - Wall panelling **Service model:** Onsite measurement → Design → Rendering → Manufacture → Transport/Logistics → Assembly → Testing/Commissioning. All items custom designed to the project. **Target customers:** - Owner-builders (residential) - Commercial builders - Hotels / motels - Offices / commercial fit-outs **Additional requirement:** A full e-commerce store, running alongside the custom quote-based whole-house service. This is effectively **two businesses on one site** — a high-touch, quote-based custom design/build service, and a transactional online store — so the site needs to serve both without confusing the two. --- ## 2. Website objectives 1. Generate qualified enquiries for large custom projects (B2B and high-value residential) 2. Sell ready-made / catalogue items directly online 3. Build trust through manufacturing credentials, project galleries, and process transparency 4. Support different quoting workflows for different customer types (owner-builder vs. commercial builder vs. hotel group vs. office fit-out) 5. Rank in Australian search results for custom cabinetry / whole-house design terms --- ## 3. Recommended site structure - **Home** - **Services** — whole-house design customisation, explained as a process - **Products** (by category — feeds into both portfolio and shop) - Kitchen Cabinetry / Doors & Windows / Lighting / Furnishings / Bathroom / Flooring / Furniture / Wall Panelling - **Shop** (e-commerce store — ready-made/stock items) - **Projects / Portfolio** — filterable by sector: Residential, Commercial, Hospitality, Office - **Our Process** — Measure → Design → Render → Manufacture → Transport → Assemble → Commission - **Manufacturing Partners** — Sofeyia and any others, with credentials - **Trade / Commercial Accounts** — for builders, hotel groups, office fit-out companies (potential wholesale/trade pricing portal) - **About** - **Resources / Blog** (SEO content) - **Get a Quote / Contact** --- ## 4. Key functionality - **Segmented enquiry/quote forms** with conditional logic — a residential owner-builder, a commercial builder, and a hotel group should each see relevant fields (e.g. number of rooms/keys for a hotel, m² for a commercial fit-out), not one generic form - **Product catalogue** with filtering by category, room, material, price - **E-commerce cart and checkout**, separate from the custom quote flow but sharing the same product taxonomy where relevant - **Trade/wholesale account tier** — gated pricing or a login-only trade portal for builders and repeat commercial clients - **Project gallery / case studies** with before-and-after and, ideally, embedded renders - **3D rendering showcase** — a place to demonstrate the design/rendering step of the process, since this is a differentiator - **Consultation booking** (calendar-based scheduling for on-site measurement visits) - **Live chat / WhatsApp click-to-chat** — given the international sourcing angle, timely responses matter - **Testimonials/reviews**, ideally segmented by customer type (builder vs. homeowner vs. hotel) - **Blog/CMS** for SEO - **Lead-time / logistics indicator** on shop products (since goods are sourced from China, set expectations on shipping timelines upfront) --- ## 5. Platform & technical recommendation Given the mix of **custom B2B quoting + product catalogue + e-commerce + trade accounts**, here are two viable paths: ### Option A — WordPress + WooCommerce (recommended for this scope) Best where one team needs to manage quote forms, trade pricing, product catalogue and shop from a single back end. - **Core:** WordPress + WooCommerce - **Page builder:** Bricks Builder or Elementor Pro (design flexibility without generic templated look) - **Forms:** Gravity Forms or WPForms (conditional logic for segmented quote forms — essential, not optional) - **B2B/Wholesale:** WooCommerce B2B/Wholesale plugin (e.g. Wholesale Suite) for trade pricing tiers - **SEO:** RankMath or Yoast - **Performance:** WP Rocket (caching) + Cloudflare CDN - **Images:** ShortPixel or Smush (critical — this site will be image/render-heavy) - **Security:** Wordfence or Sucuri - **Booking:** Amelia or Bookly for measurement-visit scheduling ### Option B — Webflow (site) + Shopify (store), connected Better raw design control and page speed out of the box; more moving parts to maintain long-term, and B2B/trade pricing logic is harder without extra apps. - Webflow CMS for portfolio, process, blog - Shopify (or Shopify B2B) for the store, embedded/linked - Zapier or Make to sync leads between the quote forms and CRM **My recommendation: Option A.** The mix of custom quoting, trade accounts, and e-commerce sharing one product catalogue is easier to manage from a single WordPress/WooCommerce back end than stitching two platforms together — even though Webflow alone looks better out of the box. ### Hosting Fast managed WordPress hosting with an Australian/APAC edge presence: - **Kinsta** or **WP Engine** (premium, excellent speed and support), or - **Cloudways** (more budget-flexible, still fast, choose a Sydney data centre) - Cloudflare CDN in front, regardless of host - Target: Core Web Vitals "Good" across the board, sub-2.5s LCP on mobile --- ## 6. Mobile - Mobile-first responsive design — assume a meaningful share of traffic is from site visits, tradies, and builders browsing on-site - Prominent click-to-call and WhatsApp buttons on mobile - Compressed, lazy-loaded imagery so renders/photos don't kill load times on mobile data - Mobile-optimised quote forms (short first step, progressive disclosure rather than one long form) --- ## 7. Contact & forms - General enquiry form - **Segmented quote request forms**: Residential / Commercial Builder / Hospitality / Office — each with relevant conditional fields (project size, timeline, budget band, floorplan/photo upload) - Trade account application form - Newsletter signup - Booking form for on-site measurement --- ## 8. Integrations - **CRM** (HubSpot, Zoho, or Pipedrive) — route leads by segment automatically - **Email marketing** (Mailchimp or Klaviyo) - **WhatsApp Business** click-to-chat - **Payment gateways:** Stripe, PayPal, and Afterpay/Zip (common expectation for AU home goods e-commerce) - **Analytics:** GA4 + Google Tag Manager + Meta Pixel - **Google Business Profile** integration if there's a showroom --- ## 9. SEO & content - Location landing pages (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide) - Category pages targeting terms like "custom kitchen cabinetry Australia," "hotel fit-out furniture supplier," etc. - Blog for design trends, project case studies, and process explainers (measurement to commissioning) --- ## 10. Compliance & legal - Australian Consumer Law–compliant returns/warranty pages (essential for the e-commerce side) - Privacy Policy compliant with the Australian Privacy Act - Clear T&Cs distinguishing custom project terms from standard e-commerce terms - PCI compliance via payment gateway (handled by Stripe/PayPal, but confirm no card data touches your own servers) --- ## 11. Suggested phased rollout 1. **Phase 1:** Core marketing site — Services, Process, Portfolio, Manufacturing Partners, segmented quote forms (MVP, no store yet) 2. **Phase 2:** E-commerce store launch 3. **Phase 3:** Trade/wholesale portal for builders and commercial accounts 4. **Phase 4:** Ongoing SEO content, blog, case study expansion --- ## 12. Assets Crown Co needs to provide - Logo and brand guidelines (colours, type, if already fixed) - Product photography and/or 3D renders - Project case studies / before-and-after material - Copywriting (or confirm designer/copywriter will draft) - Manufacturing partner logos and written permission to display their credentials - Legal pages: T&Cs, privacy policy, warranty/returns policy --- ## 13. Scope decisions (confirmed) 1. **E-commerce scope:** Both — ready-made/stock items **and** configurable custom products (e.g. choose cabinet size/finish online). This requires a product configurator on top of standard e-commerce, and materially increases build scope and cost (see §14). 2. **Trade pricing:** No gated portal for now — trade/wholesale customers apply via an "apply for a trade account" form, with pricing sent manually by the Crown Co team. 3. **Sourcing transparency:** Shipping/lead-time from China is shown on-site (e.g. "8–12 week lead time") and/or confirmed in the enquiry response — not hidden. 4. **Physical presence:** Online / consultation-only model for now — no showroom or warehouse address needed on-site. 5. **Budget and timeline:** Flexible — no hard constraint driving platform choice. This means the recommendation can be made on **capability fit** rather than cost-cutting (see §14). 6. **Existing tools:** Xero is the accounting system — the store and any invoicing/quoting tools need to integrate with (or export cleanly to) Xero. 7. **Photography/renders:** Supplied by Crown Co / manufacturing partner — not to be commissioned as part of this project. 8. **Domain:** thecrownco.com.au to be confirmed/registered before build starts (flagged as taken by a live site in an earlier check on 20 July 2026 — re-verify current availability before committing, or shortlist a backup). --- ## 14. Revised platform recommendation The confirmed scope changes the earlier recommendation in one important way: **a product configurator is now in scope**, which WooCommerce's ecosystem handles well but adds real build time. **Recommended: Option A — WordPress + WooCommerce**, now with: - **Product configurator plugin:** e.g. **WooCommerce Product Add-Ons** (simpler options like finish/hardware) or a dedicated configurator plugin/app (e.g. **CIS Configurator**, **KLEEO**, or a custom-built module) if size/dimension-based custom pricing is needed — this is worth a dedicated conversation with the developer, since configurator complexity is the single biggest cost driver in this project - **Xero integration:** via WooCommerce's official Xero connector (or a sync app like **Xero Sync for WooCommerce**) to push orders/invoices through automatically - **Trade account flow:** a simple application form (Gravity Forms) routing to the sales team — no gated pricing portal needed at this stage, which keeps that part of the build simple - **Lead-time display:** a custom field on each product ("Estimated lead time: X–Y weeks") shown on the product page and carried into the cart/order confirmation Since budget/timeline are flexible, it's worth asking the developer for a quote on **both** Option A (WordPress/WooCommerce) and Option B (Webflow + Shopify with Shopify's native product options / configurator apps) — Shopify's app ecosystem for configurators (e.g. **Zakeke**, **Bold Product Options**) is mature and may end up simpler for this specific feature, even though it splits the back end across two platforms. Given flexible budget, this trade-off (unified back end vs. best-in-class configurator tooling) is worth letting the developer weigh in on directly. --- ## 15. Still open - **Domain confirmation** — verify thecrownco.com.au (or agree a backup) before the developer starts - **Configurator complexity** — once you're talking to developers, get a firm scope/quote specifically on the configurator, since it's the item most likely to swing both budget and timeline - Everything else in this brief (§1–§12) stands as scoped --- *This brief is ready to send to a web designer/developer for quoting. The two items in §15 are worth resolving in the first scoping call rather than before you send this.*