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13 Dec 2013

e-Commerce inception can be traced back to the late 1970s. This industry is undergoing a dynamic phenomenon to meet the needs of growing consumers. With over 2 billion internet users estimated worldwide in 2011, forecasts estimate it to grow to 3 billion by 2015. As per yStats.com, this market is estimated to generate revenue ranging from $700 billion to $950 billion in 2015. These insights are driving business providers to ensure a strong brand presence online with their e-Commerce portals while catering to the needs of online customers.

 Looking Back

For a leading UK based independent information provider of proprietary research, analysis, ratings and forecasts, a significant online presence is imperative. They are spread across 175 countries and 22 industry sectors. The company caters multinational companies, financial institutions, multilaterals and government. With focus on integrating country risk and financial markets analysis with industry to inform high-level decision-making, the portal focuses on providing information advisory services. 

Within the former e-Commerce portal built on PERL, finding relevant information was a challenge to say the least, the site lacked a user experience that is expected today. It lacked search, had little to no navigation and was without a content management system. Catering to this sector of clientele, the company had a need for strong brand presence online. In addition to revamp for a corporate look and feel, the site needed richer buying and engaging experience for the visitors. Being an e-Commerce store, running marketing campaigns and promotions is quintessential to increase revenue.

 

Transformed Look

CIGNEX proposed a Magento based e-Commerce solution to help them migrate from their PERL based site. The revamped portal scores high on user intuitiveness & interaction. The architecture supports 30,000 total and 500 concurrent online users. The portal has been fine tuned to deliver 99% of pages in 2 seconds.

Behind the Scenes

With MySQL database in backend, the portal was built using Magento. Out-of-box functionalities like secure payment, alert management, promotions & campaigns, product catalog & order management were integrated to deliver a robust scalable platform. The portal is compatible to various mobile devices and browsers giving flexibility to users.

This e-Commerce portal offered huge flexibility in terms of store administration. With features like real-time promotion and reports, business owners can now gather intelligent insights on demand trends.

Advantages of Revamp

The new portal was a great success with the client and their users.

  • Brand Promotion: The portal offered persistent buyer experience with a strong branding using custom theme designs
  • Digital Marketing Platform: Built-in promotion tools for marketing campaigns gave flexibility to run real-time promotions without having huge dependency on IT team/vendor. The portal is now being leveraged for cross-sell and up-sell of products and services
  • Scalable and Robust Platform: The architecture allows the flexibility to address the needs of growing organization
  • Reduced Total Cost of Ownership: Open Source platform has considerable reduced the license, maintenance & support costs incurred. With online presence, printed reports have been replaced by electronic formats thereby reducing expenses incurred.

Magento has emerged as preferable choice for small to large organizations that prefer to build their online stores. The scalability and flexibility supports the need of growing business thereby reducing the vendor lock-up costs.