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Website Project Timeline

Your project will have its own unique course, depending on a number of variables such as custom features that are requested, how readily available your product data is, and your responsiveness to our emails. However, your project will follow this general outline.

Sign up / Contract

When considering signing up for a Punchmark website, very often the first question is “What would be my next step?”

The first step is generally to sign the contract that is provided via Docu Sign. If you have any questions about your contract, terms involved, or are having trouble with the functionality, please contact Punchmark’s Sales Representative, Thomas Cossuto, thomas@punchmark.com

Submit Store Information

At this point we gather all of your store’s contact information to ensure the smoothest communication possible for the project and future billing. You will need to specify who your primary contact is, what your billing information and email is, as well as who will be working with our Creative Team. These can all be the same email, or they can be set individually if your team specializes.

Gain Platform Access

Here you receive your unstyle link and access to SiteManager. This will give you access to education content as well.

Once we have all of your Store Information, we will provide you with an unstyled version of your website, which will allow you access to the backend of your website, which we call SiteManager. You will be able to access and view Education content as you wait for your Kickoff meeting, so that you will be as prepared as possible for when your site is ready!

Kickoff Meeting

To get the ball really rolling you will meet with your assigned Project Contact, who will be a member of the Customer Success team. These meetings are typically 20-40 minutes, depending on the specifics of your project.

During this meeting, they will explain a general overview for your project, what to expect as well as any dates that are upcoming.

Onboarding Checklist

When you have your onboarding meeting, you will be asked to provide the following information.

  1. Choose Your Product Data Source
    You will need to determine where your products will be pulled from. We are capable of pulling from The Edge POS, via CSV spreadsheet, or from Premium Vendor products.

  2. Selling Online
    You will need to decide if you wish to enable e-commerce checkout. If you DO, you will need to set up your Merchant Gateway, checkout options, and shipping options prior to launch.

  3. Select your brands
    When you select which brands you carry, if they happen to be a Premium Vendor you can import their products as well.

  4. Choose Additional Product Features
    Punchmark has some additional product features available, and you will need to choose if you want the Ring Designer or Diamond Search installed. This allows clients to build engagement rings from scratch and browse diamonds, respectably.

  5. Choose Ring Designer Brands
    We offer Stuller’s ring settings and/or Overnight Mountings to use for your Ring Designer. If you decide to use the Ring Designer, you will need to choose one for your website.

  6. Choose Diamond Vendors
    We offer 15 different diamond options, which you will be able to choose from. We require clients who wish to use the Ring Designer to have at least 1 diamond vendor available. You may also choose to have a stand alone Diamond search on your website as well. Learn More

Catalog Configuration

You will need to decide how you wish to add products to your website. You can choose any or all of the options available, however we strongly suggest a minimum of one product catalog configuration to see the most success from your Punchmark website.

  1. Install / Subscribe to Brands
    You will need to select which brand you carry and are approved for at your store. When you select which brands you carry, if they happen to be a Premium Vendor you can import their products as well. All brands you add will load under your Brands dropdown in your navigation (if you so choose) as well as generate a landing page for you.

  2. POS Integration Setup
    We integrate with The Edge Point of Sale system, and are capable of single direction or bi-directional integration. Installation of the Edge TPW incurs an additional cost from The Edge. Learn More

  3. Diamond Search Setup
    As mentioned above, if you wish to have Diamonds available for browsing/checkout on your website, you will need to select a diamond vendor or upload your own diamond csv. Learn More

  4. Build a Ring Setup
    We offer Stuller’s ring settings and/or Overnight Mountings to use for your Ring Designer. If you decide to use the Ring Designer, you will need to choose one for your website. This is as simple as subscribing to the bridal vendor, and loading in their products.

  5. E-Comm Setup
    You will need to decide if you wish to enable e-commerce checkout. If you DO, you will need to set up your Merchant Gateway, checkout options, and shipping options prior to launch.

  6. Management Walkthrough
    We encourage that you watch a few Education videos, as well as acquaint yourself with the SiteManager platform so that you will be as familiar with it as possible prior to launch.

Design Process

  1. Creative Kickoff (or CSA)
    If you purchased a Custom or a Premium website, we will ask that you complete a Creative Strategy Assessment (CSA) which will give our designers a better idea about how your site should look. Alternatively, you could choose to have a Creative Kickoff meeting with a Designer over a phone call to answer the same questions.

  2. Gather Assets
    At a minimum, we will need your up to date store logo, however any additional imagery you may have is appreciated, such as store photographs, staff photos, custom jewelry photos, campaign imagery, or blog posts.

  3. Design
    After we receive the Kickoff information and any assets you may have, our Design team will get to work designing your website’s homepage. We design this in Adobe XD so that you will be able to get an idea of what your site looks like while it is still in an easy-to-change state.
    We start with the homepage as it is the easiest way to determine your entire site’s styling.

  4. First Review
    After we finish your site’s homepage design, we will email it to you and ask for feedback either over email or via a meeting with a Designer. We are able to make edits to the homepage very easily at this stage, and encourage feedback to customize it for your unique brand. It will be much more difficult to make changes once it has been approved for coding.

  5. Revisions
    If you have revisions to your homepage design, the Design team will send you a revised design back within a week. We will send designs back and forth for revisions until you approve the homepage design.

  6. Approval
    If your project is a Custom, once you approve your homepage design we will proceed to coding the homepage design.
    If you project is a Premium, we will then restart steps 3-6 for your website’s Inner pages. Most Premium websites receive 5 inner pages, though additional inner pages can be purchased.

Development

After your website’s design has been approved, our Development team will move forward with coding your homepage and inner pages. Once this has been completed, the coded pages will be sent to your for revisions.

During this phase our developers will also work on any custom requirements needed and submit them for quality control / review.

Finalization Meeting

  1. Launch Checklist Items
    We will provide a final punch list of tasks that need to be completed before launch. Your site will always be a work in progress forever, however these will be the necessities.
    An important piece of information we will need is the login for your domain registrar. This is a company such as GoDaddy who you purchased your domain through originally. We (or you) will need to log in to that account to switch the A record to our server, so that the site can go live.

  2. Digital Marketing Conversation
    We like to ensure you have a Digital Marketing plan prior to your launch. We know from experience that nearly every site needs some type of digital marketing strategy to gain the traffic needed to have a successful website. Punchmark provides a Digital Marketing program tailored and refined for jewelers and the Punchmark platform. However your digital marketing strategy does not need to include Punchmark, we just ask that you have a strategy in place.

Quality Control

After everything has been approved, we do one last Quality Control sweep, or “QC”. This process entails clicking every button and link on mobile and desktop, and viewing every page to ensure it all looks and works the way we intend. Inevitably some changes will need to be made during QC or immediately after launch.

Schedule Launch

If there is a date that you absolutely need your site launched by, we prefer to launch a few days ahead of time to ensure a smooth launch. Please be sure to communicate this clearly to your Customer Success team point of contact.

Your website is composed of many thousands of lines of code, so a little polish is usually required upon launch.

Introduction to Account Manager

At this time, there will be a pass off to your Account Manager. This will be another member of the Customer Success team, and they will be your new point of contact at Punchmark. Please direct all newly created tickets and questions to them going forward.

Launch

The launch process generally takes about 3 hours, and during that time, your site will slowly populate as we transfer all of the necessary information. It can take up to 24 hours for the entire site to show the most updated information. We will be keeping an eye on your site, but please do not be alarmed if you notice anything missing or changed. Simply screen shot the information and provide it to your new Account Manager. They will ensure that they are dealt with quickly.

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