The Challenge
Our client is a progressive chocolate-making business that values its place in the community, and for more than eight decades, it has been a part of it. It is an award-winning business running a chain of 23 stores in Ohio. It is one of Cleveland’s largest family-owned companies, with a modern, 60,000 square-foot chocolate factory and retail store in southwest Cleveland. The client believes in mixing new chocolate ideas with long-time customer favorites.
The client was a new entrant in the domain of eCommerce and wanted to integrate sales and manufacturing seamlessly. They needed to develop a custom web portal for listing and selling the products and custom middleware that could interact with Sage ERP. The platform has to be built on a content management system (CMS) so that the client could manage the listing of products easily. The client was using Sage 300 as its enterprise resource planning and business process management software.
Taazaa proposed an eCommerce portal and custom APIs to integrate the eCommerce stores through the Sage ERP middleware.
Design
Wrote custom APIs to integrate the eCommerce store with Sage ERP.
The client had specific design requests to meet the needs of their audience base. They also wanted the portal to deliver a good user experience and easy-to-locate listings. The default WordPress CMS and Woo Commerce plugin had to be customized to achieve many of the requested features. The needed utilities and modules development required the use of the latest frontend technologies to automate the process workflow.
We implemented a responsive design to provide device-independent access. Woo Commerce plugin was customized and integrated with WordPress CMS.
We wrote custom API and web hooks’ for integration with Sage ERP. We also spent time with the client’s manufacturing head to understand the manufacturing process and software solution dependencies.
The Solution
We were able to design and develop a fully responsive eCommerce portal for our client with WordPress, WooCommerce, and custom development. Additionally, order automation was achieved with the integration of Sage ERP via custom written APIs. Order automation module included catalog management, shipping integration, customer accounts, gift cards, loyalty program, in-store pickup, corporate orders, fundraising sales, and product label customization.
The portal is feature-rich with great usability and enticing aesthetics, which are in sync with the client’s offering — chocolates! The website also started attracting traffic within a short period of its launch.
