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Meantime IT has been appointed to provide the World of Beatrix Potter™ Attraction with a new e-commerce site to sell its licensed Beatrix Potter merchandise.

The World of Beatrix Potter, based in Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, is an internationally renowned tourist attraction which welcomes around 150,000 visitors per year and its e-commerce operation has been shipping to international customers since 2005.

With an increased focus on online sales for 2010, and an expanded range including the newly-licensed Peter Rabbit bed linen, general manager Richard Foster brought in Meantime to create a new e-commerce site.

“We’ve successfully used Meantime for our websites in the past and so they were the obvious choice to create our new e-commerce site,” says Richard Foster. “We wanted to improve the site to provide a better experience for our customers, but also for us as an organisation. Functionality is incredibly important, and we need to know that we can rely on our e-commerce software to operate smoothly and give our customers the sort of experience they would expect of a world-famous attraction.”

As well as providing an e-commerce platform aimed at a worldwide audience, the contract will see Meantime host the e-commerce operation on its in-house servers, meaning that the online shop will be automatically PCI compliant.

“Remaining PCI compliant can be a full-time job in itself, with the amount of updates and requirements that are issued on an almost daily basis,” says Fenner Pearson, Meantime’s managing director. “Because all Meantime’s servers are fully PCI complaint, any client that develops and hosts their site with us will automatically comply for e-commerce as well, completely freeing them from a whole minefield of regulations.”

As well as ensuring the highest level of compliance and safety, the enhanced e-commerce site Meantime is building for World of Beatrix Potter will enable the organisation to expand its global operations. “We’ve developed the platform with a global audience in mind, in that the functionality within it is incredibly complex. For example, it takes into account the variables associated with global shipping requirements relating to weight, destination, VAT and so on.

“Richard and his team are adding new licensed products all the time, and we’ve provided software that will grow with the range and cope with the increased sales that will result. We’re confident that the fantastic range on offer combined with the increased functionality of the e-commerce site will see sales of merchandise go through the roof.”

Richard Foster agrees. “As well as helping us to increase sales through the website, our new e-commerce site will provide a much more pleasant and efficient service for our customers. The quality of our website reflects the quality of our attraction, and with such a globally-recognised brand as Beatrix Potter we are confident that Meantime will deliver an e-commerce site that will live up to expectations.”