- Firearms & Accessories
- E-commerce
- Magento
- USA
Executive Summary:
Our client is a well-renowned brand that deals in firearms & ammunition in the USA. The brand runs a successful webstore that deals in a range of guns. Every weapon sold on the webstore has corresponding vibrant images, accurate specs, & detailed descriptions - to give a better understanding of the product.
The brand relied on vendor drop shipping & held very little inventory. As such, the client offered fantastic discounts to their eager customers. The client was facing a host of issues on their marketplace; as such, they wanted the astute experts in Virtina to investigate & resolve them ASAP.
Challenge
The client was relying on Dropshipping & never held any stock of the products sold on their eCommerce store.
As such, they wanted to find a way to import the products from multiple databases that are available with six different vendors via API/FTP feeds. The said process will help with syncing product data of various sellers. Custom integration with six varied wholesaler inventory feeds.
Another challenge on this project was about accommodating 70k+ products on Magento & updating those inventories from six suppliers/vendors each hour via an automated process. Then categorize the imported products; in such a way that all the similar ones are to get clubbed together.
Besides this, the client requested a Federal Firearms License (FFL) certificate validation on the site. They needed the license for the integration of FFL dealers on the website for the sake of gun delivery. As such, this was done to verify the FFL dealers.
The client also requested Virtina with the integration of Easy post-shipment – which serves as a flexible, modern API that combines all the shipping APIs into one. The shipping option allowed them to connect with all the major carriers in one simple integration.
Beyond this, “FFL finder” using Zip code was another feature added on the site to allow visitors to search for local dealers of quality firearms. The client also requested an extra compulsory level of verification from the buyer while making a sale, in the form of a digital signature.
Give the admin the option to manage drop shipment on his side. Due to which he acquires the ability to control the orders from distributors. The client also wished to use the Amazon cloud – Server for their Content needs.
Solution
The certified Magento experts in Virtina were able to embed many of the requested functionalities.
The experts here found a way to display every in-stock item from the vendors on their page. As a result, the buyers were always aware of the availability of stock on any product. Besides helping the client bring all the products, they wanted to sell in the store at any time.
To accommodate the 70k+ products & for updating the inventories Virtina developed a microservice to process the data outside Magento.
For naming the product, we relied on the seller; that gave the most accurate naming for a particular SKU. (Firearm or accessory). Also, integrate a Shipping Price Calculator on the marketplace to provide an estimate of the costs in delivering the product.
No API existed to bring supplies from only genuine Firearm dealers. Virtina developed the same from scratch, after downloading the data from a Government website.
FFL's can upload their licenses. Customers then select a local FFL holder when placing their online order. If their local FFL is not on file, then send a link to the local FFL to upload theirs to further order processing. We integrated the FFL API for instant lookup of active dealers.
Virtina accommodated the need to place the content on Amazon's Virtual Server. Having the cloud server for their content needs; enabled the client to handle spikes in content requirements with ease.
Thereby, reducing their need to forecast traffic. Used a Static file – S3 cloud front for increasing performance by serving all the static files from it.
The professionals at Virtina delivered all the changes on the latest most updated Magento version.
Result
Allowing a custom integration with the wholesaler inventory feeds helped the client. As, it cut the need to enter products into their retail system manually. Could reorder inventory based on the pre-set min/max levels.
Could display the available stock in real-time with the help of a dropshipping functionality.
FFL functionality API saves firearm vendors time & effort. In the absence of this, FFL dealers would have to scan & send copies of their FFL's to online firearm vendors. As such, customers would have ended up searching for FFL dealers on their own.
Incorporating Amazon CloudFront meant the client could store & deliver content with Speed & Scale.
Files like images, videos, scripts like .css or .js act as static files. In the pre-cloud era, they would've had to put these files on a standard server, & then present it to all the viewers, across the globe, from one specific geolocation. But with cloud services, our client got to provide faster delivery & better scalability.
The result of configuring EasyPost on the online store was that it allowed the business to integrate tracking statuses, address verification, label purchasing, rating, and more from DHL, FedEx, UPS, and other regional carriers. Besides giving the client the option to set highly customized shipping options.
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