Today we launched a new look for the BHL website. We have refreshed the design and have made it easier to navigate and find the 75,000 plumbing products that we display. This is phase 1 of the launch, we have many new, exciting and interactive features to add to BHL which we plan to roll out within the coming weeks.

About the new design..

The website structure remains pretty much unchanged. We still have thousands of categories displaying everything from Boilers to Basins. The old site was in desperate need of a revamp. Feedback had suggested this and it was something that we had been thinking about for a while.

As I said the basics of the site remain the same (including our great range and low prices) but we have improved the shopping experience.

We have tidied up the website. The site has been growing and growing but has not had a tidy up session for a while. So we removed a lot of the clutter.

The website is wider. We decided that we no longer required three columns. So now the site only has two, meaning more room to see the products and a greater sense if space on the page.

Easier to find products. Because we offer so many products, finding what you are looking for can sometimes be a challenge. We have tried to address this by improving our Search facility. In addition to this we have tried to lessen the amount of clicks to your chosen destination by introducing a drop down menu and displaying deep categories. We have also put the most popular searches at the top of the page as well as a larger tag cloud at the page footer.

Resources. We have made it easier to access and find resources such as product data sheets and information videos as well as links to news and articles and relevant forum posts. It is also now easier for customers to leave product reviews and have their product questions displayed for other users.

Related Products. Many of our products wont work without another product, for example a radiator requires radiator valves. That is why we have improved access to related products and categories. This improvement coupled with our product reviews and ‘customers who bought, also bought’ will really help our customers product selection.

Points. Every product now displays the points that will be earned whenever a product is bought. Remember to login when next ordering to redeem your points and save money off future orders.

Social Media is an increasingly important part of our operation. It enables us to reach and connect with customers, industry proffesionals and students. Using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube allows us to discuss industry developments, new products, promotions and developments within BHL. Our new website design enables easier access and greater promotion of our social websites.

Please have a look around the site and let us know what you think. We hope that you like it. As I said at the beginning this is only the start. We hope to add new features in the coming weeks so keep your eyes peeled for future developments. You can see the revamped BHL website here.

Today, after months of development and planning we are pleased to announce the addition of some cool new features to our BHL website.

When we launched the new BHL website in the summer, we knew that the hard work had only just begun, afterall, our intention was always to build the most user friendly, informative and comprehensive plumbing and heating website out there.

New features on our website include;

BHL Next Day Express Delivery - Look out for the next day delivery icon (its a little red lorry) Products that display this icon will be delivered the next working day, provided that the order reaches us before 2pm. Our next day express service enables our customers to recieve prompt delivery on a wide range of plumbing and heating products that include Myson Kickspace Heaters, Trianco Aztec Electric Boilers, Wilo Pumps and Grundfos Pumps.

BHL Tag Cloud – Our Tag Cloud highlights the most popular searches that our visitors are making while on our website. The searches are graphically weighted in terms of relevance with the most popular searches having larger, more prominent font.

BHL Deals & Bundles – Plumbing and heating products usually need to be bought in conjunction with another product for it to be of any use. A good example of this is a central heating boiler which requires, in almost all instances a flue kit for it to function. So we devised our new deals and bundles feature which enables us to bundle frequently bought products together and offer a bulk buying deal to our customers.

Eco Products - All products within our Eco category will now display a green leaf logo to inform of it’s renewable and or sustainable feayures.

Latest Product Reviews – All products that are reviewed and rated by our customers will now appear automatically in the left hand column.

Recommend a Friend - Thousands of our customers tell their friends about us – and that’s the best recommendation we could possibly have. We’ll send you a £10 discount code when your mate or colleague signs up and places their first order with a value of £50 or more

Points – What do points make? in this case it is money. Customers accumulate points as they purchase items. £10 = 1 point. 1 point = 10p which can be redeemed off future purchases. Remember to log-in to your existing account everytime you shop with BHL.

Social Media – We have added links to the BHL Facebook Fan Site and Google Friend Connect to the website column enabling you to keep up to date with all that is happening at BHL as well as providing you with exclusive content such as discount codes and promotions. Please sign up and follow us. We really invest time in our social media content. You can also follow us on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. You can also follow us by the BHL RSS Feed.

Today we are proud to unveil our relaunched website.  With what seems like an eternity in development (but more like months) the new BHL.co.uk comes complete with all the whistles and bells that we could think of – more on these later.

OK, where to start. I supppose the first thing you’ll notice about the site is the new, fresh design complete with a new logo. The new site we feel is easier on the eye than its predecessor, each page has been considered and designed with great care and attention to detail.

• Check out our New Website

Our old site had become a victim of its own success. Increased traffic at times had brought the site to its knees. Recieving such an amount of visitors, we have engineered the new site to cope with such heavy demands using various methods. The new site has worked well under test conditions and seems a lot quicker and snappier.

One of the things we didnt want to do with a relauched website was the same as. Of course we wanted a big inventory and a faster site but we wanted to offer our customers a greater insight into both the products that they are interested in and the Plumbing industry as a whole.

As such the new site has some features that we are really excited about. One of the things we wanted to do with the new site was to integrate the great volume of information we possess with the products that we sell. So we have  integrated our News & Articles and Blog and Forum posts into the site therefore enabling our customers and readers the opportunity to make informed decisions about the products they plan to buy.

In addition to increasing our inventory (the new site is over 3 times larger than it’s predecessor) we have improved the way products are displayed including increased technical information and links (where available) to media such as Videos.

We wanted our customers and readers an opportunity to keep in touch with us through a whole host of media. Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube enables us to spread the word on promotions and offers, the latest plumbing news and reviews as well as product launches and news from within BHL. Subscribers to our feeds can benefit by being the first to receive product information or heads up on Special Offers.  We are also working on creating Discount Codes, some of which will be specifically for our followers.

But this is only Phase 1. Never one to rest on our laurels, we are already beavering away on Phase 2 – and Phase 2 will have some revolutionary new features that we are really excited about. Keep checking back to learn more.

A big thank you to all involved in helping make our new site a reality.

• Check out our New Website

After months of intense development, the new BHL website is now ready for testing – before we go live proper. After listening to our customers concerns we took the decision to build a brand new, bespoke site to improve the online experience for our growing customer base. For example, our customers were telling us that they wanted more  information and articles about products and systems, we listened and the new site is crammed full of data. We also wanted to address the problem of the site speed which was increasingly becoming an issue due to the growing volume of traffic. 

The new website has many new innovative features which we hope will improve the overall shopping experience. We have made the site more interactive - products are now linked to relevant videos and articles including blog posts and news feeds. And customers can now share their experiences with others by rating and reviewing products. Customers can also Follow Us using various social media including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube 

We have significantly increased our product range. Our site now has almost 100,000 products and now features a new Spares section as well as bigger and improved areas such as Drainage and Eco. Our brands section has also grown and we now feature an enviable range of leading manufacturers.

The new site has been designed to be fast, simple and secure and of course usability is really important to us. There is a lot of work for us to do and we are really excited for the future. We have some great features we want to launch for phase 2 - hopefully before Christmas. 

Inevitably we will experience a few teething issuses but overall we are confident and excited about the future. Please feel free to offer us your feedback or suggestions.