The Client
Aluminium Gates UK is the newest brand in an established group that includes Gates Scotland and Gates Automation Direct – a business with over 500 combined five-star reviews across Google, Trustpilot, and Facebook. The brief was to launch a new e-commerce site worthy of that reputation.
The Challenge
Aluminium gates sound simple until you’re buying one. The product range is relatively contained but each item carries a huge number of configurable options – dimensions, colours, styles, hardware, automation. Central design problem was getting that into a WooCommerce product page without overwhelming the customer while also satisfying the technical buyer who wants every spec available.
The client also had a clear positioning goal: land somewhere between the more clinical, technical competitors and the premium lifestyle-focused ones. Approachable and usable, but credible and detailed.
What We Did
We joined an existing team – working alongside the client’s own developer who handled business logic, while we focused on front-end design, UX, and custom functionality. The client opted to self-host, ultimately upgrading to SiteGround to meet the project’s technical requirements.
Structure & scope. Early in the project we ran several in-depth sessions with the owner and their developer to map out the product complexity and establish a component architecture that could handle it cleanly. Given Flatsome’s reusable block system, this groundwork paid off throughout the build.
Custom plugin development. We built a bespoke WordPress plugin – Aluminium Gates UK by Web Design Mattrs – that extends WooCommerce and Flatsome’s UX Builder with custom fields, admin screens, and reusable components tailored to the site’s specific needs. The plugin is modular, well-documented, uses clearly defined namespaces and classes, and is version-managed with a changelog – built to be handed off, expanded, or picked up by another developer without friction.
PDP redesign. The product detail page was the most complex piece. Drawing on experience from large-scale e-commerce projects we redesigned the layout and flow to handle multiple configurable option groups clearly, guiding the customer through choices without losing them. Technical specification data is present and accessible without dominating the experience.
Category & listing pages. We enhanced the CLPs and PLPs with additional content modules to improve both usability and on-page SEO giving the pages more substance beyond a product grid.
Landing pages. We designed and built key pages including the homepage, About, Trade, and Showroom Visit as well as a targeted landing page for the Gates Scotland brand built to support paid social and search campaigns.
Reviews integration. With 500+ five-star reviews across the group’s brands being their strongest sales asset, we recommended and implemented a reviews plugin to surface that credibility directly on the new site.
Screenshots captured during active development – some content and imagery is placeholder.
This post will be updated as the site is finalised.
The Result
The site launched with a clean, structured front-end and a solid technical foundation the client and their team can maintain and expand. The owner expressed strong satisfaction with both the process and the outcome throughout the project, currently in early stages on brand collateral for the AGUK identity.
