NDA

PIM development project for eCommerce sites

Tech stack: PHP, Symfony, React, Multiple server architecture, Autoscaling
Services: PIM development
Location: Netherlands
Industry: Ecommerce
Team composition: 1 project manager, 4 developers, 1 QA
Timelines: 7+ years, 8000 hours of active development

Project under an NDA

Client's background

Initially, the client’s agency, which provides services for online stores, approached us for support on one module. They liked the level of our services so much that they started giving us their first projects to develop. At that time, they were still a small agency, and over the past 7 years, our businesses have been growing and expanding in parallel.

At some point in our collaboration, the client came up with the idea to develop a PIM (Product Information Management) system. Its purpose was to speed up the process of filling data in the product cards of online stores. As a rule, this process takes a tremendous amount of time manually, especially if the store is large (or if there are several of them).

Challenge

The main challenge in this project was the huge amount of data that the system had to operate quickly, regardless of the number of stores potential clients had or the number of products. To do this, we had to think through a very complex architecture to be able to serve hundreds of thousands of users simultaneously. From the beginning, we had to lay out a multi-server architecture and auto-scaling ability so that as the load grows, we can quickly and easily expand the system’s capacity. And from the point of view of architecture, it is a very complex project with many functions and dependencies, each of which can affect hundreds of others. So it was necessary to build the system particularly carefully and delicately.

Solution

How did we work with the client to develop PIM?

  • Proof of concept
  • Building architecture
  • Collecting data
  • Expanding the system’s functionality

Results

The active development phase took 8,000 hours. We developed an incredibly complex system that made the work of many online stores tremendously easier. Initially, it was only possible to upload files. Now this PIM can collect data about products from various sources on the Internet and enter all the information and images directly into the product cards—all at once. It can combine or merge data from different sources into one database, make bulk data modifications, translations, and comparisons, and has many other features. We continue to work with this agency, adding new functionality at the request of its clients.

For example, we’ve added integration with Magento and external translation resources, so you can quickly translate product information into other languages. The system can even change one word in a thousand products’ descriptions or change prices by a specific number of percent at a command. We could write a novel if we had to describe all of its functionality. This is one of the most exciting projects we worked on, and we built a long-term and trusting relationship with the client.

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