Project highlights
Digital resellers serving as B2C product providers need solutions that work for physical and digital goods.
Modern retail businesses often combine a mix of physical and digital goods that they need to provide to their customers efficiently and effectively. Offering both physical and digital goods requires solutions that make it possible to manage:
- Software licenses and download support.
- Automatic integration with manufacturers’ product catalogues and updated information.
- Refined customer journeys that encourage online sales conversion.
AudioDeluxe required particular functionality built into the newest version of their website. Functionality that had perplexed and stymied other developers.
Through Acro Commerce’s development process and an agile project plan, we were able to provide the solutions AudioDeluxe needed to provide best-in-class online sales for physical products as well as digital licenses.
Background
The world’s largest selection of plugins for music production, mixing, recording, mastering and more.
Serving the North American and European markets, AudioDeluxe specializes in reselling high-quality audio software and plugins for music enthusiasts, composers and producers.
AudioDeluxe recognized the market demand for instant delivery of audio software and needed a state-of-the-art customer journey to fill the gap. In order to evolve and meet the customer demands, AudioDeluxe required a digital transformation of its own.
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Objective
Focus on progressive customer experiences and automating a complex manual workflow so that a digital license is genuinely digital.
Improving customer experience and streamlining the selling and order fulfillment processes were the top objectives for AudioDeluxe in a build that had already seen some significant roadblocks.
They knew what their customers wanted in an online experience:
- Instant delivery of software licensing upon completion of their transaction.
- Seamless content and commerce experience on all devices.
And they understood their business objectives:
- Launch an adaptive, responsive website that automates workflows to remove unnecessary business operations and order fulfillment.
- Partnership with a transparent development agency that provided a solution to meet their business needs.
The challenge was to finish the build and architect a solution for automated license distribution. The main problem involved the sale of software licenses. This manual process involved getting a physical copy of the license (by cutting it from a box) and mailing it to customers individually. This was extraordinarily cumbersome and wasted a lot of time.
AudioDeluxe needed to automate this process so that as soon as a customer completed their transaction, the licence was automatically sent to them electronically, not physically. This requirement had stumped the previous developers who worked on the site.
AudioDeluxe approached us to architect a solution, finish the project, and launch the new site.
AudioDeluxe wanted:
- Seamless UX that carries through all touchpoints.
- Detailed production schedules and presentations.
- Development phases with mandatory testing and approval.
- A clear, cohesive plan to migrate their extensive product catalogue, user information and orders.
- A responsive website supported on the newest versions of all browsers.
- Seamless site launch.
Solution
Migrating from a previous version of the ecommerce platform and adding functionality for streamlining business processes. Acro Commerce picks up where others left off.
AudioDeluxe had already decided on Drupal to power their web experience. Their original site was built on it, and they wanted to stick with it. They needed to upgrade to a new version and wanted to add functionality that would streamline operations. But that proved difficult for other agencies.
Ultimately, full buy-in from the AudioDeluxe team would require a strong working relationship that promised effective results, no matter who designed the solution.
Our teams worked together to build a project that promised transparency, continually showcasing our work and developing a roadmap to a live, fully functioning site. Acro Commerce's agile development model with an open-source architecture provided just that.
This unique business model of physical and digital goods for online sale requires custom-built features.
- Bulk Updater — This tool is the solution to the license distribution automation that had perplexed previous agencies and allowed Drupal to automatically pull product numbers from a manufacturer's catalogue, transferring information such as images, URLs, and product descriptions to Drupal. It also meant that downloadable software was available as soon as a customer completed a transaction.
- Offer feature — During the site build, we also included a feature that allowed users to place price offers on products. As offers come in, the administrator could review each offer, accept it, decline it, or make a counteroffer to the customer. Administrators can flag to enable or disable this functionality per product.
- XChange API — We created an API called XChange that connects to a module called Audiodeluxe_license. This module is used to manage and create all of AudioDeluxe's digital license keys (the unique codes used to identify and verify a customer's copy of the software).
- SKUPort and Waves — Additional APIs Acro Commerce built to allow different vendors to connect to the licence pool system.
Lastly, we upgraded the site to PHP 7, which made it twice as fast. And we increased fraud protection by adding a custom module that we built to allow administrators to detect fraudulent orders through a system of rules.
Outcome
The site launched with seamless automation for purchase fulfillment, instantly delivering their software once customers completed their checkout: this improved business operations and the customer experience.
The new open architecture allowed AudioDeluxe to
- Automatically pull software information from the manufacturers’ catalogue, including product numbers, images, URLs, and product descriptions, directly to the site (no manual data entry!).
- Entirely removed the manual process involved in software order fulfillment and made licenses instantly downloadable when customers complete their transactions.
- Successful migration of all products, customers and orders from the old site to the new site.
- Seamless design and improved user experience.
- Digital on-site user price offering on products. Administrators can add this functionality per product, review customer offers, accept, decline or make counter-offers to the customers.
Project features
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