Our business revolves around our website, purplewave.com. It’s there that thousands of sellers come together with tens of thousands of buyers to make auction transactions on a regular basis. Today, we’re beginning to roll out the next version of purplewave.com, a version aimed squarely at improving the experience of our community.
Old website had large logo in upper left
New website puts auction content top left
Auction calendar
We know that the vast majority of the visitors to Purple Wave are potential bidders who are looking for items in auctions. With this understanding in mind, we’ve deemphasized the logo by moving it to the right in order to make more space for what our visitors want – auctions.
Auctions are still ordered chronologically and grouped by date, so it’s easy to tell at a glance which auctions are ending today, this week, next week and beyond.
We’ve also changed the way we display auctions in the auction calendar. Gone are the large purple boxes with the item count, leaving more room for thumbnail pictures. The first line now contains the auction title, while the second line displays the date, a list of states where items are located in this auction, and a direct link to the auction listing in the form of the item count.
The new calendar listing features easier-to-read auction titles, more room for thumbnail pictures and a list of states where items are located. The item count is a direct link to the auction listing pages.
Header and search
We’ve got a more functional header now, with permanent links to the auction calendar, our past auctions – called auction results – and a few other primary site functions that will always be available from every page.
Our old site had several different types of auctions – upcoming, past and archive – that required different search forms for each. Now the search box below our logo will search for items in all auctions, regardless of when they happened or will happen. The advanced search allows you to filter results by location or by price. We’ve got some exciting improvements planned for our item search system over the next few months.
Account block provides quick links to invoices and settlements
Sidebar
The new version of Purple Wave has a brand new sidebar. This sidebar includes much-improved account functionality. Logging in with your customer number and password will now provide direct access to the customer portal functions from the front page. You can quickly view invoices and settlements, as well as the current status of upcoming items on which you’ve bid or items your selling.
Logging in also affects the auction calendar. When you’ve logged in, the calendar will show the number of new items added to each auction so you can easily see which auctions have been updated since the last time you’ve logged in.
Below the account block is a subscription block, a mini-calendar feed for Purple Wave Sierra, links to testimonials, and a listing of our social networks. For the next few days, there will also be a feedback request block at the bottom of the sidebar that links to our feedback form and provides the option to revert to the old version.
Footer
The new footer provides a quick way to get to any page on our site from any other page. If you ever feel stuck or can’t find a specific page, or aren’t quite clear how the site is organized, you can always scroll to the footer to find your way wherever you want to go.
Content
Launching along with the new layout will be many new content changes and additions. New bidder resources will make it easy to understand the bidding process, while new seller information geared for specific sellers and asset types will provide relevant information for decision makers looking for asset management advice.
The new Purple Wave
We’re confident that you’ll find the new purplewave.com easier to use. We’ve been building it for quite some time now, and are excited to finally get to release it. Please tell us what you think about the new layout and features, or tell us what you’d like to see as our website evolves in the future. You can leave feedback for us at purplewave.com/feedback or contact me directly at aaron.traffas@purplewave.com.
![Purple Wave, Inc. [logo]](https://pw.purplewave.com/i/v2/logo190.gif){kind=logo}
