New Look and Enhanced Features Provide Users with Streamlined Shopping Experience
SAN FRANCISCO — August 29, 2012 — The American Academy of Ophthalmology, the world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons, today announced the debut of its new online store. The new Academy Store offers a sleek new interface, enhanced e-commerce features, intelligent navigation tools and a streamlined, user-friendly shopping experience. The new retail site will allow ophthalmologists and practice management executives to conveniently and easily order the products and services they need to satisfy continuing medical education requirements, inform patients regarding medical conditions and procedures, and stay abreast of the latest trends in running a successful ophthalmic practice.
The Academy Store features more than 350 products and hosts in excess of 200,000 visits from users around the world on an annual basis. The Academy's new e-commerce platform responds to the needs of a growing customer base of busy medical professionals who want to quickly and efficiently access product information, make decisions regarding which solutions best meet their needs, and complete their transactions with a minimal number of clicks.
"The new Academy Store is the premiere online retail destination for ophthalmology-related products and services," said Renaldo Juanso, vice president of communications and marketing for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. "We are providing a more efficient and user-friendly experience for our customers who rely on the Academy for the most up-to-date products to assist them in delivering the best in patient care and managing the business aspects of running an ophthalmic medical practice. This new platform is an excellent expression of the Academy's brand in terms of the quality and level of customer service our member physicians and other customers expect."
Visitors to the new Academy Store will discover a new look and feel throughout the site. Among the advancements featured are:
- Smarter search results — Visitors can search by product name, number or keyword.
- Intuitive browsing — Filtering by audience, product line, media type, topic, and even by products offering continuing medical education credits makes it easy to find the right product.
- Product reviews — The ability to write and read product reviews allows shoppers to share opinions and help colleagues with their decision-making.
- Related product suggestions — Similar and/or complementary products will display within each product page.
- Product previews — Previews of video, and print samples of products are now available.
- Save it for later — Shoppers can add items to their purchasing list and buy at a later date. Administrators can also email purchasing lists to doctors for approval.
- Order history — Users will be able to view all previous orders and even reorder directly from the order history page.
- Easy check out — Check-out is simple, efficient and secure. Billing and shipping addresses will be automatically saved to an address book and available for future orders.
The Academy collaborated with best-in-class technology partners to bring this new and more dynamic online retail experience to its customers. The store is powered by Magento, a leading provider of e-commerce platforms. It was designed and customized by Digital Evolution Group in conjunction with the Academy's information technology division.
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About the American Academy of Ophthalmology
The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons — Eye M.D.s — with 32,000 members worldwide. Eye health care is provided by the three "O's" – ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians. It is the ophthalmologist, or Eye M.D., who can treat it all: eye diseases, infections and injuries, and perform eye surgery. For more information, visit www.aao.org. The Academy's EyeSmart® program educates the public about the importance of eye health and empowers them to preserve their healthy vision. EyeSmart provides the most trustworthy and medically accurate information about eye diseases, conditions and injuries. OjosSanos™ is the Spanish-language version of the program. Visit www.geteyesmart.org or www.ojossanos.org to learn more.
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