The Client
Our client, a top Electronic Stores in the Middle-East, is also the leading distributor and retailer of products from the technology, luggage, beauty, and home sectors. The wide variety of world-class products offered include Imaging & Information Technology, Consumer Electronics, Medical Systems, Perfumes, Cosmetics, Skincare, Luggage, Linen, Dinnerware and Gifts. The strong focus on quality has been the long-standing ethos behind the strategic progress of the organization in the region.
The Business Challenges
Traditionally the client has focused on selling their products to customers through their outlets across the Middle East and handling B2B distributions through their head office. Though they were one of the largest electronic stores in the country, they never explored the online market. The primary objective of creating this website is to showcase as the largest retailer in the middle for the best prices and deals along with an un-parallel and secure shopping experience for customers.
The Business Requirement
The client wanted a web store that can manage more than 10000 products efficiently without any performance compromises and should be customer friendly. They are highly recognized across the country and hence the e-store UI needs to be designed to carry their brand identity. The product base is so vast that it is impossible to manage stocks manually and the client wanted the e-commerce application to be in sync with their Point-of-Sale database. In order to make all relevant data like sales and customer accessible for accounts and other management departments from the same PoS interface, they wanted them to be synchronized to the PoS. The client also provides reward points for their customers, and these points should be universally manageable from PoS and the e-commerce store. The same is the case with gift vouchers, which can be purchased and realized across both platforms.
The Solution
The project required a user-centric, responsive customized storefront that highlights brand identity. After studying the requirements, our team decided to choose Magento2 due to its ability to extend the core functionality through third-party extensions and custom development. Our UI/UX team redesigned the Magento template to keep the store in line with the brand identity. Several modules were implemented to automate the payment gateway and shipment integration with their shipping company. Our team also created several CMS pages as the client wanted this website to act as their official website too. The client cares about the brands sold through them as much as they care for customers and hence, they wanted the products sold through them are highlighted and are easily accessible for customers. In order to achieve this, an option to shop by brand has been implemented with dedicated brand pages where the brand can showcase their advertisements/ custom design along with their product listings. Custom extensions were created for checking if SKU is valid with respect to PoS when a new product is added or imported in the e-commerce store so that stock can be synchronized with the PoS database. Custom developments are done to synchronize sales data, customer data, gift vouchers, reward points etc. Several modules were implemented for making store management efficient and easy.
It is difficult for customers to find a product from a huge product pool and to overcome this, elastic search has been implemented for faster and efficient product searches. This also helped overcome magento’s multi-word search issues.
Driving in customers and converting site visits to sales is the main focus of any online store and our team developed a module that helps third-party affiliate apps to link to the store which provides their customers with special dedicated offers. This benefits our client by realizing more sales through affiliates, customers benefit by availing special discounts and affiliates benefit as per the agreement with our client.
All modules were analyzed thoroughly to keep the store safe and as lightweight as possible for a smooth and secure shopping experience for customers. Live chat and support ticketing system has been implemented to help customers get their concerns cleared as soon as possible and provide them an in-store experience.
Benefits
The upsides of the application is definitely easier management of data.The main benefits offered are
E-commerce store UI as per brand identity
Seamless user experience across devices
A secure payment integration system
Shipping integration with the shipping provider, automating shipment requests and shipment tracking
Fast and accurate product search
Sale products, Featured products and New products listing sections
Several banners to boost featured products and offers
Easy navigation through the website
Several CMS pages
Live chat and issue ticketing system
Integration with Point-of-Sale system
Integration with third-party affiliate apps
Several customer groups for providing varied pricing, useful for enabling B2B
Varnish cache for improved caching thereby making page delivery faster.
Various reports like sales, abandonment, stock etc
Automated backups
Technical Overview
The store is built on Magento2 and custom extensions are developed following Magento2 extension architecture. HTML5, CSS, jQuery and JavaScript is used for frontend development whereas PHP, MySQL and XML are used for backend. Communication between PoS and e-commerce is made possible with REST APIs.
The Results
The final result was an e-commerce website that provides an unparalleled and secure shopping experience without compromising on the client’s brand identity. The website also offered custom features like integration with the Point-of-sale system and with third party affiliate applications as per the client requirement. The website is SEO friendly and has the potential to drive in customers from several search engines.
Technologies Used
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Ecommerce
- Magento2
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JavaScript frameworks
- RequireJS2.1.11
- Font scripts
- Font Awesome
- Google Font API
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Web servers
- Nginx
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Programming Languages
- PHP
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Databases
- MySQL
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Live Chat
- Tawk.to
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JavaScript libraries
- FancyBox
- Slick
- Underscore.js1.8.2
- jQuery1.12.4
- jQuery Migrate
- jQuery UI1.10.4
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UI Frameworks
- Bootstrap
