Highlights
- Globally-Recognized White-Label eCommerce Platform: developed a cutting-edge product that became a success across the world, offering outstanding services for clients in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Greece, the United Kingdom, as well as some other countries in Europe.
- AI/ML Expertise at Scale: leveraged our extensive expertise in Artificial Intelligence to deliver a cutting-edge Reporting and Analytics module, that became one of the flagship features of the product.
- Integrating 27 Payment Systems: performed fast and seamless integration of payment solutions from third-party vendors, relying on our nearly two decades of experience in handling payment processing projects.
Client
The client was a promising eCommerce startup from Silicon Valley when we started our partnership in 2010. The company was founded by Prashant Nedungadi and was focusing on helping merchants and brands manage their own pre-paid offer and gift card programs, or resell through a network of retailer and publisher-branded sites. The mission of the company was to help audience owners around the globe create digital revenue streams around eCommerce. In 2016, NimbleCommerce was acquired by another giant company in the digital pre-paid products industry.
During the project’s initial phase, NimbleCommerce was on the lookout for a custom software development partner to replace the agency they initially engaged. They wanted to find a provider that was capable of delivering the end-to-end solution they needed. As a consequence, we became the client’s only tech vendor for the entirety of the project, delivering the full scope of functionality from idea to market success.
Product
The product is a high-scale and extremely feature-rich B2C and B2B solution. It allows vendors and merchants to create a full-blown and narrowly tailored Web presence that has the look and feel of their own branded website. A vendor or merchant can create this website on their own in the application’s Administration module, or request the solution’s development team to create the customization they need.
The newly created website automatically becomes a part of the NimbleCommerce platform. The site allows the vendor or merchant to sell virtually any products or services, track shipments, and use the related data for marketing purposes.
The key components we delivered include:
- eCommerce Functionality
- Promotional Functionality
- AI/ML Reporting Functionality
- System Integration.
Goals and objectives
- Deliver an End-to-End Software Solution from Scratch: build a complex product that perfectly matches all business requirements and surpasses the competitors from available features and overall functionality perspectives.
- Develop a Robust Promotion Creation Module: enable vendors to create sophisticated, branded promotional offers by developing a flexible Administration module. This module should allow configuration of various parameters such as Title, Detailed Description, Images, Price-to-Coupon Codes, Shipping Options, Target Audience, and more.
- Implement Targeted Customer Segmentation: build functionality that allows vendors and merchants to segment their customer base using multiple criteria to launch highly targeted promotional campaigns. The system should support applying discounts for specific periods and notifying selected audience segments via email or User Interface messages.
- Incorporate Advanced eCommerce Features: ensure that the platform supports a wide range of eCommerce functionalities, including email campaign creation, various offer types, and features like refer-a-friend and virtual money.
- Develop Powerful B2B Functionality: create a B2B module within the platform that allows vendors to craft detailed product or service offers and make these available to resellers through a B2B network.
- Integrate ML-Powered Reporting and Analytics: implement advanced reporting features that leverage analytics and forecasting capabilities driven by Artificial Intelligence, enabling data-driven decision-making for vendors.
Project challenge
- Ensuring Platform Flexibility and Customizability: deliver the platform’s white-label functionality, offering unparalleled flexibility and limitless customization options.
- Designing Clean and Intuitive Offer Pages: ensure that the UIs remain uncluttered and user-friendly despite the complexity and volume of information. This demanded a thoughtful approach to UI/UX design and development to maintain a seamless user experience.
- Developing a Functionality-Intensive B2B Network: develop the Nimble B2B Network, a functionality-intensive component of the platform. This feature required intricate planning and execution to meet the sophisticated needs of B2B interactions.
Solution
We started implementing the project with a small team of just 2 developers. The initial team was growing at a fast pace, and more developers were engaged as it became clear what kinds of experts were required. During the project, the size of our project team varied quite significantly and peaked at a total of 30+ software developers, QA engineers, and other experts. Our Lead Developers and Project Managers served doubly as software architects. They took part in shaping the vast bulk of NimbleCommerce’s products jointly with the product managers, designers, and engineers on the client’s site.
SPD Technology’s dedicated development team was split into several self-managed project teams. These project teams worked in close contact with the client’s CEO, Head of Business, Product Managers, Software Engineers, and Account Managers, responsible for the client’s interactions with vendors and merchants. For several reasons, the part of our project team should be consistently present on the client’s side. These included the complexity of the client’s product, the need for thorough requirements gathering, and the need to provide technical and other support during the onboarding of major B2B clients.
Our experts interacted with NimbleCommerce’s B2B clients not only during the discovery phase but also during the project’s later stages. This was needed to help the client negotiate with, and onboard major merchants. For instance, we took part in the client’s business negotiations and the technical onboarding of a major U.S. restaurant network.
We successfully developed the core functionality and launched the product, and there were no major blockers from the technical side, as our skilled tech experts masterfully delivered the planned bulk of functionality, including sophisticated AI/ML features.
As the solution quickly became popular across a diverse array of geographies, and we continued to improve it with new features, our engineers had to integrate it with a total of 27 payment systems. For this purpose, our team devised a special workflow that enabled us to perform the payment system integrations in record time.
Our results
During 6 years of fruitful partnership with NimbleCommerce, SPD Technology has completed all key objectives and played a vital role in bringing clients’ business vision to life.
- Groundbreaking eCommerce Solution from Scratch: developed a custom B2C and B2B software platform that surpassed the client’s expectations, exceeding the standards set by the client’s competitors, and establishing a new benchmark for white-label features in the industry.
- Chosen by Millions of B2C Customers and Thousands of B2B Clients: designed and delivered a solution that helped our client win over other prominent market players and attract a massive customer base.
- Acquired by Global Leader in Branded Payment Technology Solutions: the product reached its peak and was acquired by BlackHawk Network Inc. (BHN) in 2016. Our team continued to work on the product, significantly expanded, and achieved more impressive results under new ownership.
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