Mission Hospital in Asheville NC can be  traced back 125 years to a small cabin, but it now boasts a service its founders could never imagine: an online gift shop. The service is an outgrowth of its multi-functional and interactive web presence, which Mission and other hospitals have long since utilized to serve functions from billing to physician order entry.
Mission’s gift shop serves inpatients whose stay may vary from 22 hours for minimally invasive surgery to months in the neonatal intensive care unit for fragile preemies. A wide range of  Flowers, gift baskets, balloons can be purchased from the beautifully photographed  online gift store. On line gift cards can be used to deliver a personal message.
Gracious hospital volunteers personally deliver the card and gift by the next day. The giver’s credit card  is not charged until there is documentation that the gift was delivered to its recipient. If for any reason a gift cannot be delivered, the giver will be immediately notified by email or phone.
Mission is the founding member of the Mission Health System, which also includes Mission Children’s Hospital, Asheville Specialty Hospital,¬† and two nearby regional community hospitals, Blue Ridge Regional Hospital and the McDowell Hospital. All have a growing web presence.
The electronic gift shop is especially helpful to loved ones and friends of Mission patients, because many patients left family behind when they moved to the region from other areas – and a good number are vacationers who have medical emergencies during their trip to the mountains of Western North Carolina. The quick turnaround also helps loved ones during today’s short hospital stays – they can get a gift or flower to their patient before he or she is discharged. Using this online solution makes the giving  all the more meaningful when the stress of shopping is replaced by the pleasure of knowing a hospital stay has been brightened.
This online store is fitted with all the regular standard features such as breadcrumb navigation,  text hyperlinked site map, and wrapped cart with customized messaging. Enhanced feature upgrades included installing a rotating image banner, SEO text footer, pagination, navigation area used for custom messages/badges, and recently viewed items.
Custom areas, such as the item pages with price-affected options displayed (aka-hybrid product page), and ‚ÄúSend a Message‚Äù personalization area in checkout, help contribute to this online store site’s uniqueness as a hospital gift shop. Even with all the specialized design services, Mission’s gift shop’s final look and feel fits in well under the main Mission Health System homepage; so well in fact, that it appears as if it has been there forever.
The true test, however, for an online store’s success is in how well it works on everyone’s behalf: Mission gift shop officials are now reporting positive traffic flows and purchases. Special delivery personnel are busy delivering cheer to patient rooms with bears, balloons, flowers, and other care-offerings. Patients are smiling to themselves, warmed by the thought of others thinking and praying over them. Now that’s the ring of success.
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