CASE STUDY

Shedfat

Marketplace for open to sale health care goods in the United States.

Solution

Healthcare and sport supplements marketplace

Industry

Healthcare equipment & supples

Outcome

Well-coordinated teamwork ensured a high-quality result of work on the project. Correspondingly, all goals were achieved, and the tasks were completed. Throughout the project, the expert knowledge of Computools’s employees was applied to implement the necessary functions and options of the marketplace. A clear understanding of the client's goals and needs allowed to fulfill the project following all the requirements.

A key achievement was to build a robust marketplace solution for the aggressive cover of the US marketplace.

Several key options we solved:

  • Provided a stable work of marketplace in terms of high-load capabilities.
  • Developed and implemented a thoughtful user experience strategy.
  • Implemented a state-of-the-art design for higher user involvement.

+118%
Throughput, Users
+69%
Average Order
-58%
Checkout Time
+84%
Increasing Revenue
-56%
Reducing Costs
82%
Business Process Automation

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The company sought to create a reliable marketplace for occupying a niche in the US market. Experts from Computools were involved to perform a number of tasks. After preliminary negotiations, the first agreements were reached and an action plan, terms and an interaction scheme were determined.

ShedFat became a result of collaboration. It is an online platform, a newly formed marketplace made for selling healthcare products, food supplements, and other goods for the US market.

Need of SEO optimising

Need of filling a lot of articles for a quick achieving of a good search engine position

Well-known marketplace and experience in products promotions

Readiness for making strong marketing campaign

Deep knowledge of the end target audience tastes and needs

Working well on other clients projects logistics scheme

Communication Framework

Computools
Business Analyst
Project Manager
Team Lead
PHP Engineer
Full-Stack Web Developer
Shedfat
Business Product Owner
Communication

Open and efficient two-way communication is crucial to the success of a digital transformation project. Following consultation with the client, we agreed upon a clear and unambiguous communication framework with scheduled regular face-to-face and online meetings and regular reports by email.

Our communication ecosystem also incorporated a structured documents environment and client access to Computools' internal task managing platform. This made both the general project roadmap as well as specific processes transparent and clear for all parties.

Business Process Mapping

01
CONSULTING

We held a strategic session with the client, where we determined the main goals of the project, identified the multi-level expectations of the client. For fruitful cooperation, a communication system was built and a list of roles was compiled. An analysis of ready-made and existing solutions was carried out, risks were identified. Possible obstacles and solutions were also identified.

02
DESIGN

The design phase consists of two parallel processes. At this stage, the project specification is developed, the basic processes and the algorithm for the implementation of tasks are determined. An interactive prototype of the future platform is also being created. This is a clickable prototype that allows to study in detail the functions and get feedback. During the discussion, the need for adjustments, additions or removal of unnecessary functions is revealed.

03
ENGINEERING

Development begins with the formation of a team of professionals with the necessary skills. After the distribution of roles and responsibilities between the performers, the team starts working on tasks according to the chosen methodology. All development and tests are carried out according to the schedule. The design is developed in parallel with the main code and is being introduced gradually.

Interactive Prototype

An interactive prototype is created in order to better understand the goals and needs of the client. Having the opportunity to study the functionality and visualization of the project, the client can add or remove functions, discuss important details. Also at this stage, the foundations of user experience, which are further will be refined and improved, are designed.

Computools
Project Manager
Business Analyst
Team Lead
Shedfat
Business Product Owner
Communication

Digital Platform & Technology

To build a proper marketplace with a reasonable budget and achieving client goal of the fastest content filling and easiest SEO optimisation, choose a set of proper frameworks, ready solutions and integrations.

Computools
Business Analyst
Project Manager
Team Lead
Shedfat
Business Product Owner
Communication
PHP

Hypertext Preprocessor (or simply PHP) is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. Any PHP code in a requested file is executed by the PHP runtime, usually to create dynamic web page content or dynamic images used on websites or elsewhere.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. It is an easy toolkit that lets to sell anything online. The great thing about WooCommerce and its POS is that it is regularly updated, so it is very secure. Since it is updated on a regular basis, it will always be compatible with newer versions of WordPress and will not experience a lot of bugs.

MySQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). MySQL includes solid data security layers that protect sensitive data from intruders. Rights can be set to allow some or all privileges to individuals. Passwords are encrypted. MySQL can handle almost any amount of data, up to as much as 50 million rows or more.

WordPress

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL that is usually used with the MySQL or MariaDB database servers but can also use the SQLite database engine. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to inside WordPress as Themes.

Specification

We created detailed specifications for tasks and processes with User Stories using the Behavior-Driven Development approach. It was based on the previously determined ShedFat’s goals. At this stage we also produced a detailed and precise estimation of costs.

Upload zipped publication
Create queue row in database Preprocessing service check database queue rows
Check publication MD5
Unzip publication into temp folder
Check is toc.xml file exist
Change toc.xml from Bombardier format to OBDS format
Index publication files
Move unzipped publication from temp folder Notification service check database queue for a DONE status and not notificated
Generate previous publications manifest
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Compare two manifests
Send notification data to Amazon SNS

COMPUTOOLS TEAM

We pay great attention to the selection of team members, as well-coordinated work of employees allows us to carry out tasks of any complexity while constantly maintaining a high level of quality. To make the project a success, we have chosen 11 specific, named engineers with most appropriate expertise and experience from Computools’ talent pool.

Project Manager
Artem Karpuchin
Teamlead
Vitaliy Kononenko
Business Analyst
Nikita Abelmasov
Full-Stack Web
Developer
Daria Holovan
PHP Engineer
Igor Tsurikov
Quality Assurance Engineer
Mariia Bobrova
UI Designer
Sergei Shmatov
UX Designer
Valeriy Panchenko
Business
Development Manager
Kirill Gorokhov

BACKSTAGE

There is more to quality than meets the eye so there is even more backstage activity at Computools that benefits the client. Each kind of meeting serves its own purpose, but all of them work towards a common goal - successful Digital Transformation of the client’s business.

Whiteboard meeting
Whiteboard meetings are a great way to continuously align everyone's efforts on the quest towards perfection and a very effective tool for visualizing progress and obstacles.
Team brainstorming
Collective brainstorming is a very effective technique designed to let the best ideas come to the fore. At this stage we strictly follow the "no-laptop” rule.
Dev Meeting
A special kind of meeting, it allows to take the collaborative process all the way to de-facto editing the code in parallel. This works especially well when our engineers engage with their client counterparts.

Internal Communication Flow

To support an efficient internal communication within the project team we have chosen Email for sharing reports and tasks; Skype, Zoom and Slack were perfect for addressing urgent issues, as well as for scheduling and conducting audio/video conferences. Redmine and Jira Project Management Platforms were used for role assignment and progress control.

Project Management Methodology

We followed Waterfall methodology to ensure delivery in time and on budget whilst maintaining flexibility to address any emerging challenges. Our project management approach was based on Scrum with 2-week sprints.

Using Scrum enables to generate the required methodology for developing complex products in a simple way. The software team receives real time input and feedback from the customers and using this, they are able to constantly update the system as and when required. Scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.

Design

The product architecture plays a key role in developing it from scratch and when working on an upgrade. Computools's integrated approach includes the development of the architecture for the project, which allows taking into account not only functional features but also their interaction.

Computools
Architect
Team Lead
UI Designer
UX Designer
Shedfat
CTO
Operations Manager
Communication

Engineering

We implemented the Continuous Integration and Delivery System and established a Version Control System Flow in the development stage. Automated Integration Testing was conducted with the help of Use Cases based on User Stories from Specification. During this process the Team Lead constantly reviewed and refactored the Code until the team achieved the point of Stable Release. This approach allowed the team to achieve stable and predictable outcome on time and on spec.

CODE SAMPLE

Scan QR code to find code sample

Or use link below

https://github.com/computools/Shadfat

Implementation On Client’s Side

01 Launch

The launch of the finished page took into account the agreed terms and was completed according to the project schedule. Preliminary tests, automatic and manual, showed complete readiness and only after approval by the client, the page was launched.

02 Transfer

The transfer to the client’s servers was carried out after the successfully completed testing stage and in compliance with all the rules and norms. After completion, an additional series of tests was launched to confirm the page was working.

03 Education

The convenient and intuitive interface of the finished page eliminated the need for training of client personnel. Also, it did not require the creation of tutorials or guides for future customers.

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