Informative portal for hardware store staff, DIYers and contractors

The Well Made Here brand is attracting significant attention and its logo is becoming more and more recognizable in stores. An important element of the program is the www.ici-here.ca portal, a site designed to provide information to consumers and contractors. At maturity, the site aims to become a practical product knowledge source for sales representatives in hardware stores and renovation centres.

The portal’s search capabilities allow for six filters to be applied in order to find objective information, of non promotional character, pertaining to building materials that meet public standards and to other items that are manufactured in Canada and intended for the residential market.

“There are 93 manufacturers now participating in the program. Most of them have already published product information sheets, containing the relevant data and images, on the site. The discoveries my personal contacts have made, some homeowners and others construction professionals, are fascinating,” exclaims Célie Cournoyer, Director of Operations of the Well Made Here not for profit organization. She adds, “The work continues. Because the number of participating manufacturers is continually increasing, so is the content of the online catalogue. New product lines are being added regularly.”

The configuration of the ici-here.ca site is set up so that product lines are grouped by category following the departments one finds in a renovation centre, specifically the following twelve categories: electrical, plumbing, building supplies, tools, flooring, paint and decoration, hardware, doors and windows, terrace and courtyard, siding and roofing, summer seasonal and winter seasonal.

Products are also grouped by House Rooms since consumers may want to start off their search by room in the home that they are looking to renovate.

With respect to quality, products that are subject to public standards or licensing and that hold Certifications such as Energy Star, FSC or CSA accreditations are searchable using the relevant filter.

Furthermore, one can narrow the results of the search and call up product lines by Province, where the manufacturing plant is located, or by Manufacturer, if a specific business is preferred, or, by Banner, for the retail networks which carry these products.

The Director of Communications and Marketing for the program, Isabelle Champagne, mentions that in the conceptual stages of the site, ease of use was a constant concern. The team sought inspiration from highly efficient sites aimed as mass public target audiences such as Airbnb and others.

Ms. Champagne adds, “The best is yet to come, as we are working on a visual recognition app that will someday allow us to call up the information sheet housed on the portal by scanning the label of a “Well Made Here” item using our smartphones.”

See how to navigate the site and apply search filters by clicking here. (insert link)

In this video, we’ve captured a combination of search sequences that demonstrate how filters can be applied to generate results. However, should anyone wish to view the whole of the content, simply click on view the complete catalogue.