Client

Based in Canada, the client is a technology startup that operates in the online retail industry. The company has a flagship product—a customizable artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot—that can be integrated into e-commerce websites and applications.

Background

The organization had an AI-powered chatbot enabling retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers to automate inquiry processing and boost customer engagement.
Delivering this software solution to businesses worldwide, the company decided to build a multi-vendor e-commerce marketplace platform that would connect sellers of various goods (clothes, electronics, sports equipment, etc.) with consumers from Canada, the USA, and Europe. To gain a competitive advantage, the startup wanted to integrate an e-commerce marketplace website with an AI bot for providing buyers with 24/7 support.
However, the client did not have in-house expertise in marketplace creation. Partnering with Arateg, the company needed to make a minimum viable product (MVP) to attract investors and raise funds for further development.

Project goal

The primary objective was to launch an e-commerce marketplace platform that would offer customer support 24/7 using an AI chatbot. As the startup strove to showcase the website to investors, it was crucial to deliver it under tight deadlines.

Project duration

4.5 months

Team

3 frontend developers, 3 backend developers, 2 UI/UX designers, 2 quality assurance engineers, project manager, business analyst.

Technologies

TypeScript, HTML, CSS, React, Redux, Redux-Saga, Storybook, SVG, Python, Django, Node.js, AWS, Elasticsearch, Elastic Load Balancing, AWS Shield, RabbitMQ, Redis, Memcached, CircleCI, PostgreSQL, Braintree API.

Solution

Our specialists started out by analyzing project requirements and choosing a technology stack that would address the existing business needs. For example, to build the front-end, we used React, a JavaScript library employing a virtual Document Object Model, which contributes to rapid development. Throughout this stage, we also estimated the scope of work and outlined an implementation roadmap.
In 3 weeks, our team created a clickable prototype demonstrating the visual appeal and structure of an e-commerce marketplace platform.
Using CircleCI, our engineers enabled a continuous integration (CI) / continuous delivery (CD) pipeline. With CI/CD, we automated software development and testing. Furthermore, we managed to provide the regularity and stability of the release cycle.
Finally, our software experts integrated a web system with the company’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to ensure 24/7 customer support.

During the project, our team solved the following challenges:

  1. Targeted at global markets, an e-commerce marketplace platform had to maintain a growing number of users and handle heavy loads.
    By building a microservices architecture, we achieved scalability and high availability, as well as reduced infrastructure maintenance costs. Utilizing Elastic Load Balancing, our software engineers enabled autoscaling of computing resources.
    With RabbitMQ, our team set up data parsing, this way improving data processing speed by 10 times. In addition, we employed this message broker software to enable data caching which favored server load optimization.
  2. As long as vendors needed to keep track of sales and control the availability of goods, dynamic data analytics had to be enabled.
    Our software experts worked out a sophisticated algorithm that aggregates and analyzes data collected from thousands of merchants’ APIs. Then, our online marketplace developers created a comprehensive dashboard to allow vendors to visualize sales data using charts, graphs, sheets, and diagrams.
  3. It was crucial to offer authorization via multiple social networks and ensure user data consistency when signing in or signing up on an e-commerce marketplace website.
    By integrating APIs of third-party services, our software engineers made it possible to authorize via Gmail, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Additionally, we prevented data duplication—when a database mistakes a user for two website visitors—that might take place when a customer used different ways to log in to the same account.

Features of an e-commerce marketplace platform

Our team built a multi-vendor e-commerce marketplace platform that consists of two modules to address the needs of merchants and buyers.

Marketplace features for sellers:

  1. Registration and authorization
  2. Store profile
  3. Listing management
  4. Payment acceptance and tracking
  5. Order management
  6. Shipping management
  7. User dashboard
  8. Data analytics
  9. Data visualization
  10. Reporting
  11. Email notifications
  12. Two-factor authentication

Features for customers:

  1. Registration and authorization
  2. User profile
  3. Catalog of goods
  4. Search by numerous filters and categories
  5. Shopping cart
  6. Wishlist
  7. Chat-based support 24/7
  8. Reviews and ratings
  9. Online payments via Braintree, PayPal, credit and debit cards (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), e-wallets (Samsung Pay, Amazon Pay, etc.), QIWI, WebMoney
  10. Email, browser, and smartphone notifications
  11. Two-factor authentication

Result

Cooperating with Arateg, the company developed an e-commerce marketplace website connecting sellers of various goods (i.e., clothes, electronics, sports equipment) with consumers in Canada, the USA, and Europe. By delivering the platform under tight deadlines, the startup managed to demonstrate it to investors and raise funds.
With chatbot-based support 24/7, the client was able to automate request processing, engage the audience, and increase revenue.

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