1
Magento installation
6
Independent websites
Complete
inventory synchronization
The Overview
Fonejoy is a UK company that specializes in selling mobile phone accessories and spare parts. They offer a wide range of the latest parts for smartphones and an extensive assortment of parts for VR-glasses, smart-watches, etc. The company stands strong among competitors by providing the widest range of products and excellent customer service.
Fonejoy serves both retail and wholesale customers worldwide. Therefore, the client needed a general Magento B2B and B2C ecommerce solution to serve as a one-stop site for these business objectives.
The Challenge
Fonejoy was looking for a solution to cover a few different aspects:
- Efficiently serve the company’s different business spheres and client types all over the world
- Connect their stores with Amazon and eBay
- Allow stock and database synchronization among different sales channels
- Be convenient for the internal team for management
The company initially had a vision about two separate websites - one for retail and another for wholesale clients. Fonejoy planned to handle different pricing policies for these clients. Moreover, they wanted wholesale clients to be approved by admin and only then to have access to product prices.
The Solution
Understanding the business requirements and taking into account that the client was already considering Magento as the solution for his e-commerce business, we decided to proceed with this platform. Magento provides powerful capabilities for handling custom Magento multi-channel selling needs.
MULTI-STORE SET UP
As Fonejoy needed to share a database, but manage product prices differently, we configured a full Magento multi-store setup where two different stores are represented by independent websites with different domain names. The first - Fonejoy serves retail customers. The second - NutelSolutions was created as a Magento wholesale store for merchants and bulk purchase, specifically to simplify the company's B2B sales operations.
When non-authorized customers browse the NutelSolutions website, they can’t see product prices. To view them and place an order they need to log-in or create a business account and wait for its approval.
Each store accepts transactions in different currencies that are implemented using Magento’s standard currency converter with defined currency rates.
AMAZON AND EBAY INTEGRATION
As the company planned to operate multiple sales channels, it was decided to use M2E Pro extension to provide a smooth integration of the Magento platform with Amazon and eBay. It gives full support for Amazon and eBay listings, and keeps all selling history and rankings. It also provides comprehensive inventory, pricing and catalogue management rules and supports real-time inventory updates within the Magento platform.
The M2E Pro solution greatly simplified Magento multi-channel selling management for the company. For example, Amazon and eBay represent separate websites in the admin panel. They don’t have a so-called “front-end” part, but rather give full product management options inside the Magento admin panel.
ERP INTEGRATION
In order to synchronize inventory and stock levels, and also simplify internal product management processes, Magento was integrated with an ERP system. This Magento ERP integration enabled full bi-directional synchronization with each website.
Product grids in the admin panel show actual inventory levels and product status - whether it is in the warehouse or waiting for delivery. When a product is purchased on Amazon, for example, stock levels are automatically updated within other stores too.
NEW PRODUCT TYPE FIELD
The Fonejoy and NutelSolutions websites are specifically structured the way they are because of the products they sell. Each overarching category is a mobile phone brand. The categories are then broken down by model and the variety of accessories and details for each are used as subcategories. There are about 20 different subcategories like phone covers, headphones, chargers, LCD screens, camera modules and more. With this organization method in mind, when managers added a new product, it was necessary to do a lot of extra work to properly assign everything in the admin panel.
To simplify this process we created a new Product Type field in the product information management section.
At the same time we developed a logic that generates previews of products for each subcategory to show on the main category page. With this implemented, now managers only need to select the type of the product to make it automatically show in the proper subcategory. When customers select a device, they are directed to the category page where all the available accessories and spare parts are output divided by subcategories. By clicking on the Show More button, they can browse the specific type of products for this device.
EXPANSION OF THE WEBSITES NETWORK
The company’s business continued to grow and in order to bolster different sales strategies, it was decided that the best course of action would be to expand the websites’ structure by adding two additional websites - FoneParts and FoneShop. In total, the Magento installation now includes 6 separate stores.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE OPTIMIZATION
Due to the complex website structure and substantial amount of products, we installed the Lesti FPC extension to speed up website loading and improve customer experience. Like with all other full-page cache extensions, Lesti FPC also required proper set up - excluding specific variable blocks like the customer name, mini cart information, Recently Viewed Products block and a few others.
Despite using full-page cache extension, the cache is periodically cleared. The result was that it took more time for customers to see the fully loaded page. In order to improve here, we used a method called warming, where a special script accesses the website sitemap and starts to load all pages, simulating the page loading by the browser. With this technique we created page snapshots in the server cache that speeds up page loading for customers.
The Result
By helping Fonejoy create a scalable Magento multi-store environment and supporting their projects for a long time, we supported the company in reaching their initial business goals and enabled continuous growth of their business.
Now the company:
- Operates four separate websites that follow different sales strategies
- Uses a multi-channel approach and sells their products within independent websites and on Amazon and eBay marketplaces
- Serves B2B and B2C sales operations within a single ecommerce solution
- Concentrated all sales data and management in the Magento admin panel, simplifying back-office operations.
Ricardo Griffin
Nutel Solutions LTD
Web Manager
" Because of Whidegroup's dedicated assistance, the platform rarely presents bugs despite processing a large volume of orders. They have had a very positive impact on our system "
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