Faison-shop —
ONLINE STORE OF MOBILE ACCESSORIES
From an Instagram account to a wholesale online store in just 1.5 months.
Faison brand is a manufacturer of mobile accessories: protective glasses, flash drives, car holders and much more. All products are produced abroad, the product testing is carried out in Russia.
The main buyers of Faison products are other multi-brand stores of mobile devices and accessories. Therefore, when developing an online store it was necessary to take into account the features of the b2b market and the wholesale orientation of sales.
Field: manufacturer of mobile accessories
Country: Russia
Website Faison-shop
Main goals
Prior to contacting Cart-Power, the client had only an Instagram account through which orders were accepted. Managers processed each of them manually, and most of the orders were wholesale. It took a lot of time to just inform the buyer about prices. It was impossible to increase sales, as managers could hardly cope with the current influx of orders. The question arose of launching their own online store as soon as possible.
The client chose Cart-Power, as he already had experience of successful cooperation with our company: earlier we launched the Sotovik-M multi-brand mobile accessories store for this client, and then we also developed a branded packaging design for the Faison brand.
So, the main task of the project is to launch the online store of mobile accessories Faison-shop as soon as possible.
- Platform choice. In our case, this is the CS-Cart platform, one of the best solutions for e-commerce.
- Design. We needed a simple and familiar to customers design of an online store, but made in the style of the brand. It was important that users immediately understand how to use it when entering the site.
- Product catalog and content. The client already had a successful multi-brand online store Sotovik-M, there was a well-functioning product base in 1C. To speed up the launch of a new project, the selection of the catalog from 1C had to be kept, but the online store functionality had to be finalized to correctly receive all the data.
- Refinement of wholesale functionality. Wholesale sales differ from retail sales, they involve a large number of products in an order as well as flexible pricing depending on the volume of purchases. The client used the user groups functionality for this purpose, each user group corresponds to a certain purchase volume. Based on this, we needed to redesign the inner workings of CS-Cart.
Our work process
1. We determined the project’s logic
It is always necessary to start a new project with the definition of the work logic of the future online store. Only by defining all main business processes it is possible to correctly determine the workflow and the functionality requirements.
For the Faison-shop online store, we have defined the following business processes:
This scheme shows only those online store processes that required our refinement. In fact, there are many more scenarios of user interaction with the site. For example, customer registration, site navigation, order processing, etc. For those cases, the regular features of CS-Cart were enough.
2. We determined the workflow
- Decide what people will see when they visit the site, to draw the design. And do it in the shortest possible time and with the least investment, leaving the possibility of further refinement. It was necessary to preserve the identity of the client, to comply with the branding rules and the corporate color scheme.
- Develop site structure based on the client's catalog.
- Сreate design layouts and integrate them into CS-Cart.
- Carry out basic setup of the online store: add test products, set up filters, payment and delivery methods.
- Add a page with the price lists for wholesale customers.
- Refine the product entities so that the site can accept wholesale prices from 1C.
- Establish integration with 1C so that the site can transfer wholesale prices back into Database.
3. We developed and integrated the design
The fastest option for design development is to use a ready-to-use theme template. We offered our client a UniTheme2 – a universal template that suits most of the websites. It takes into account all the requirements for usability and SEO and is adapted for the mobile devices from the box.
Many people think that if you use a ready-to-use theme template, then the store will look like one of the competitor’s. A template is actually a way to save time instead of designing from scratch and speed up the launch of an online store. The issue of uniqueness was solved quite easily: we slightly changed the template for the client’s brand and filled it with content.
We took Faison brand colors as a basis:
We moved the price lists section to the main menu and customized the pages as much as possible. All improvements were coordinated with the client on design layouts.
As a result, the structure remained similar to default UniTheme2, but at the same time the online store looks unique and takes into account the wholesale orientation of the client’s business. Let us compare the main pages in UniTheme2 and Faison-shop.
This is the main page of the default UniTheme2 template
This is the main page of Faison-shop
Another benefit of using a theme template is that with minimal investment you receive all the functionality you need to get started and when free funds appear or the need arises, the design can be finalized.
The UniTheme2 theme has already been adapted for mobile devices, but it did not reflect the specifics of the client’s business. We have made several improvements:
- we brought contacts to the header so that it would be convenient for wholesale buyers to contact managers directly;
- added a link to Instagram, where the client publishes reviews of their products;
- remove the excess elements.
4. We added wholesale functionality
After integrating design layouts and basic settings, it was necessary to adapt everything to convenient wholesale sales: price lists, wholesale prices in the CS-Cart logic, integration with 1C.
There was no problem with price lists: we added a page where a wholesale buyer can download them in a convenient format. You can get to it from the main menu: it is convenient and intuitive.
5. We integrated 1C
The client has several projects, for which it is more convenient for him to keep records in one system. In this case, this is 1C, not the administrative part of CS-Cart. Therefore, integration with 1C has become the most important step for the correct operation of the Faison-shop online store.
Major improvements were required to debug export and import in 1C. And this is why:
By default, in CS-Cart, the wholesale price is linked only to the quantity of the ordered product: the more times a particular product is bought, the lower the price per unit is. It didn’t suit our client. Faison-shop is just conquering the market, and the goal of their business is to motivate wholesale customers to buy not just in large quantities, but to order different products from the whole catalog.
Therefore, the client has a complex system of applying wholesale prices. Depending on the number of commodity items, the product quantity and the frequency of purchases, the buyer falls into one of the wholesale user groups. Each group has its own prices. The more diverse and larger the orders are, the more profitable user group the buyer qualifies for.
The client decided to transfer buyers from one user group to another manually for each specific order so he could better control wholesale prices. For example, a manager contacts a wholesale buyer and can tell him how much and what exactly he needs to be ordering in order to be moved to another group and get better prices. But the interaction of the online store with 1C had to be automated.
All user groups and prices for each of them were stored in the client’s 1C database, so it was necessary to solve the problem with the synchronization of wholesale prices.
The first step was to change the default upload from 1C so that information about prices and stocks is transmitted to the online store. In ordero do this, we changed the format of the uploaded files so that the information is recorded in the required fields.
The second stage was to refine the product entity in CS-Cart and add wholesale prices to it by user groups so that orders can be uploaded back to 1C without errors.
As a result, the file uploaded in .xml format contains the following fields (other than the default):
Such a file is accepted by both 1C and CS-Cart without errors. Whatever prices and user groups are set, the export and import of orders and product stocks happen automatically.
Our work results
In just 1.5 months, we launched an online store with complex wholesale functionality. Faison-shop managers were freed from the time-consuming processing of orders via Instagram. Now the wholesale buyer himself enters the catalog or downloads the price list, it is convenient for him to choose products, navigate the prices and place an order. Also, the buyer can convert the downloaded file to .csv format and import it to any other store. This is very convenient, as you can easily upload your products to any marketplace.
At the same time, managers still have control over which user group the buyer will fall into and what prices he should see. You can flexibly manage sales and stimulate purchases of exact products you need.
Why was it possible to quickly launch an online store
- Ready-to-go boxed version of CS-Cart and a reliable theme template. These solutions allowed us to save time and not develop everything from scratch.
- Ready catalog from 1C. This saved time on the formation of a new product catalog and its filling. It remained only to configure the appropriate filters.
- The client had well-established business processes for working with wholesale customers offline. We only needed to transfer them to the online store. With a good team, it takes less time than building an online business from scratch.
Due to the fact that we did not develop a design from scratch, but used a template, the client managed to save a lot of money and time. 1.5 months after the start of work, we have already launched a ready-made online store. And a month later, it justified itself: the company’s gross sales increased 5 times compared to sales through Instagram.
Faison-shop continues to increase sales and actively develop: over the past six months, the gross sales have grown another 10 times.
- The client no longer needs to process orders manually through Instagram.
- There is great potential for business development.
- A seamless process from user login to the site to the order placement.
- Easy to place wholesale orders.
- Correct export / import of wholesale prices in 1C by user groups.
- The first sales after only 1.5 months after the start of work.
- In the first month after the launch, the company's gross sales grew 5 times compared to sales through Instagram, over the next six months it grew another 10 times.
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