As usual, with the end of the year comes a really-close-to-our-heart article showcasing what kept our extraordinary team of developers busy in the past 12 months. 2023 has been a rollercoaster of amazing projects and we are proud to say that our journey through the year has been more than just creating ecommerce platforms. With the help of emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, we had the chance to work on innovative projects which delivered high quality and more personal shopping experiences that engage and inspire.

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This year we stayed close to our long-term clients – Cupio, Super Farm Land, Tini Mini Toys, Jolly and La Casa Pane – and at the same time, we have been contracted by big names in Romanian eCommerce retail like The Otter Distribution Group and Vitacom to take their online platforms to new capabilities. 

The OTTER Distribution Group

The group opened their first shop in Romania in 1997 and from then, the company witnessed continuous growth. Now, the OTTER DISTRIBUTION network means 65 stores under 4 brands – Tezyo, Salamander, Aldo and Gryxx – in the most important cities of the country. The company manages 3 online shops and our agency has the intricate task of bringing modern ecommerce capabilities into all of them.

The OTTER project is split into 6 sprints, and it is fair to say that it is one of the most complex undertakings contracted by our agency so far. Not only because the shops have an extensive list of functionalities, but also because there is a tight agreed schedule which implies strict project management.

All their online shops run on a Magento1 platform and the first sprint was centered around migrating it to a more modern, Magento2 platform. 

Beyond migrating all data to the latest Magento version, the first sprint focused on installing and configuring various modules to work seamlessly with it. Amasty Mega Menu Pro was used to create an attractive and dynamic navigation menu. At the same time, Mirasvit Elasticsearch was installed and configured to better the native search function by increasing speed and finding more relevant search results.

Our backend development team worked on building various functionalities like hiding the categories if products are out of stock, showing sub-categories under parent categories and enabling a slider featuring products from that sub-category. Product listing, brand listing and brand per category listing pages were also created.

There are also extensive frontend works, with new custom themes being developed to match the company’s brand and at the same time, run well on Magento2.

Cupio

As usual, throughout the last 12 months, our team dedicated their focus to Cupio.ro. Looking back, there wasn’t a day in our JIRA Calendar without us enhancing Cupio’s website. 

Selling to both B2B and B2C markets, and with various complex integrations like an external ERP system which handles both online and offline sales, the Cupio platform needed our constant attention. We used our expertise to enhance the shopping experience and our efforts were concentrated on creating an user friendly and intuitive menu and adding new filters under the ‘Load more’ option, to smoothen the navigation. At the same time, our team implemented smart solutions to suggest products, according to individual buyer behaviors and to encourage bundled product sales. And YES, we ticked many hours fixing bugs to eliminate functionality errors.

This years’ Black Friday was one of the busiest ever for Cupio.ro, and we are proud to say that our team delivered to the fullest. Most of our efforts have been focused on easily integrating a platform that uses artificial intelligence and works by observing customer behavior to offer personalized product suggestions to each customer.

To avoid website downtime when presented with a high surge in visitors’ traffic, our custom Magento extension which generates a static HTML page was implemented, but we adapted it to a new, more modern look. If you want to know more about our extension, please read our blog article…

This intense commitment really paid off, and with recorded unprecedented sales during Black Friday, Cupio is heading towards one of its best years so far. The store is now gearing up for what promises to be a busy Festive Season and our team is present to make sure the online store delivers the same great experience that their clients are used to.

Add to it the fact that there are intensive works carried out to launch cross-border sales in 2024 and you can easily see why Cupio.ro has a special place in our hearts and also in our JIRA board.

Cupio Mobile App

2023 brought another project which is deeply valued in our team: a mobile app for iOS and Android, for the existing Cupio online store.

The excitement is fueled by the fact that we have been involved in the project right from the start, with all phases from defining the requirements, to UX design and app development being managed by Clever++. So it’s no wonder that it feels like nurturing our own baby.

The complexity of the project is given, on one hand, by the fact that mobiles are becoming one of the main sales channels for Cupio and with orders reaching a few hundred a day, the app has to perform incredibly well. On the other hand, it will have to serve both B2B and B2C markets. The app will have many integrations, including an external ERP which handles orders from both online and physical stores.

Apart from the usual functionalities, the Cupio app will benefit from an advanced Search function, it will notify users with Fast Push Notifications about product details and order statuses. Being developed in line with Cupio’s strategies to start selling cross-border, the app will feature multi-language processing.

The project is set to be completed in 2024 and although it’s still in early stages, our app developers have managed to produce a Minimum Viable Product which lists products, has product pages and features a working checkout section, being able to place orders. Having a MVP is a critical step  in the development process, because we can now exchange feedback with our client, allowing us to refine the app and release fixes faster.

Jolly

Jolly Cluj is one of the oldest brands which appeared on the local retail scene in the early 1990’s. The company has gone from strength to strength and it is now one of the biggest distributors for well-known brands like Hatria, Villeroy & Boch and Geberit.

With modern warehouses in Cluj, serving several physical stores and an online shop, Jolly needed a reliable partner to provide support and maintenance for their eCommerce platform. 

The fact that it runs on a custom PHP framework, which needs to be integrated with elaborate ERP and warehouse management systems, gives the project an increased complexity. Different types of discounts have to be taken into consideration when calculating the final price displayed on the website.

Jolly ran a sales campaign for Black Friday and the Clever++ team implemented a complex solution to avoid website downtime during a high surge in visitors’ traffic. Additionally, our team made sure that all bugs and errors were removed constantly, guaranteeing that this custom developed platform, which lacks any sort of technical support and regular updates, runs seamlessly.

La Casa Pane

La Casa Pane hired us to supply constant technical support and maintenance for their deliveries online shop. Built on Magento 2, the platform includes many third-party integrations, such as an external ERP which links together the deliveries website, physical stores and the warehouse.

Our team has been working on solving errors in Magento log files and any bugs which appear due to daily operations. There are also plans to migrate the platform to the latest Magento version. 

Super Farm Land

Here we are ticking another year of collaboration with our esteemed client. This year marked the 5th, and we dare to say that it was probably the best for the company. Super Farm Land now sells more than 10,000 high quality products for animal husbandry and agriculture, addressed to the B2B and B2C market, in a modern online shop. 

Throughout the year, our team worked constantly to create an online store that offers an experience which is unique to each user. The platform was always kept updated to latest versions to ensure security and an improved speed and performance. 

The diversification in their portfolio, which now also encompasses items for individual clients, made them aware of the benefit of taking part in this year’s Black Friday sale. The Clever++ team implemented our Magento module which generates static, highly optimized and compressed HTML pages to manage increased traffic better. Our Frontend developers worked on styling the page’s design to match the Super Farm Land brand.

Improvements in performance were also achieved by streamlining Magento’s native Full Page Cache module, using the Varnish cache service for the frontend, and Redis cache for the sessions and admin parts. Rabbit MQ helped a lot for the correct administration of message queues in Magento.

Zestre Gallery 

The project is well under way. Featuring a multitude of details that make it a cross between a complex online selling tool fit for modern eCommerce and a personal intermediary between artists and buyers, it’s easy to see why it proved pretty complex. 

Our team has been involved in it right from the start, and with all backend work being completed, our designer collaborator Dan Ostafi is now working together with the Frontend development team to implement a special design which highlights the artworks and makes the buying experience as smooth as a breeze.

Tini Mini Toys

Tini Mini Toys has been growing steadily and with an all-time sales record during Easter, it required our regular daily support. Our team upgraded the platform and made sure that all the extensions ran as intended.

Vitacom

After a second part of 2022 when we optimized their Magento platform performance, integrated Fact Finder for seamless product search and configured the EuPlatesc, Sameday and FanCurier modules, this year our team made sure that their online store ran as intended.

Various functionalities were implemented, like showing the delivery status in the ERP order section for customer accounts and additionally, our team made sure that all bugs and errors were removed constantly. 

If you want to know more about our list of services at Clever++, please visit our website.

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