Auronos

Custom marketplace platform for luxury watches and jewelry

Short summary

Client: The tech solution provider for the watch & jewelry industry

Need: To create an online marketplace to distribute products of watch shops, jewelers, and retailers

Challenge: The primary project goal was to develop a custom eCommerce platform. Though, it had to be integrated with the client’s existing solutions while opening new business perspectives.

Solution: As the result of careful consideration and effective collaboration with the client, we’ve decided to create a marketplace from scratch, including management tools like the admin panel.

Impact: Existek’s team built a full-fledged marketplace to connect customers with trusted watch and jewelry retailers. Covering the latest market tendencies and business requirements, they implemented a custom solution to capture industry specifications and support the exceptional user experience.

Location

Technologies

Angular

Node.js

Azure

.NET

MS SQL

Team size

7 specialists

Duration

10 months

Core features

Discovery & UI/UX design

Development and testing

Project summary

What’s the marketplace for?

The eCommerce platform is ideal for starting, running, or growing the business. AURONOS web store aims to extend the service area of our client. Considering the specifications of the watch and jewelry industry, we needed to develop a sophisticated solution to give users the best niche choice from the best market retailers.

Core features

Webstore catalog

The first functionality to address when implementing the eCommerce solution is to create a product catalog. We focused on bringing a clear and simple direction while combining product images and descriptions. We leveraged a well-organized categorization structure to cover all the categories and subcategories for watches and jewelry, including brands, item types, sizes, materials, etc. Besides, we embraced the visual presentation to attract customers and share the brand values.

Customizable and expanded filters

Enhanced filtering allowed the team to present additional functionality to streamline the user experience. Customizable filters make it easier for users to search through lots of items, help narrow or broaden a set of available products and find the desired item.

ERP integration

It has become one of the core functionalities, as the client already has an advanced ERP system used by luxury watches and jewelry wholesalers and retailers. The main project objective was to implement the full-fledged web store that goes in a bundle with this ERP and expand some of its functionality. For example, it provides one-click publishing of the items from storage in ERP into the platform catalog.

Multilingual platform accessibility

Everything is duplicated into three languages - English, German, and French, so the users can switch on the fly. The introduced web store is optimized for multi-languages as it enables content access in the preferred language, new market reach, and business expansion opportunities.

SEO-friendly solution

SEO-optimized functionality is essential for eCommerce platforms to improve the visibility of products, stay ahead of the competition, and attract more customers. It’s a reasonable decision to leverage SEO tools for the admin panel to change meta tags, product descriptions, headers, etc. Besides, we’ve implemented the full-text search so the users can find anything with the keywords.

Payment integration

The must-have feature of web stores to accept payments and provide customers with a seamless and secure payment experience. Payrexx became a reasonable solution as it provides 200+ payment methods, including Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay, Google Pay, American Express, etc. By offering a variety of payment options, the business can cater to a broader range of customers, supporting higher conversion rates and increased sales.

Admin panel

Besides building a custom eCommerce platform, the development team worked on creating a full-fledged admin solution. The admin panel includes the set of necessary features to manage the watch and jewelry marketplace. It helps to manage available products, process orders, manage customers and sellers, gather analytics and insight, etc.

Discovery & UI/UX design

Collected requirements

Robust performance
Unique design
Extended user experiencer
Advanced integrations
Efficient management

Target market

The solution targets customers that look for luxury watches and jewelry and prefer the convenience of shopping online.

Challenges

Fully-customizable platform
Smooth integration with existed solutions
UX challenge
Additional management tools

Simplicity and elegance at the core of the design concept

The natural elegance of the minimalist design is highly desired by numerous luxury brands. Therefore, the team focused on bringing a unique and elegant look through simplicity. Tailored specifically to the watch & jewelry industry, it helped create a luxurious online presence and support new business approaches.

#A1947C

Primary color

#1B3347

Secondary color

#151C22

Text color

#FFFFFF

Background

Along with following the web design standards, the team had to create a custom solution with an exceptional user experience. The product design helps communicate the brand values and spread the message. In order to support the overall visual aesthetics, we brought our color palette, typography, and other UI elements throughout the entire platform, including the logo design.

Designing the web platform's navigation and layout is essential in creating a market presence. Regarding luxury watches and jewelry, it was crucial to categorize products logically to enable customers to explore them easily. Additionally, marketplace aesthetics involves various visual aspects such as colors, fonts, text size, and images. The primary objective was to present content in a way that wouldn't shift the user's focus without any single element being a distraction.

Highlights15
meetings
to conduct the discovery stage
9
core features
to implement the outlined functionality
35
designed pages
to create the great user experience
to conduct the discovery stage
to implement the outlined functionality
to create the great user experience

Development and testing

Technology choice

Finding the right tech stack for web development requires careful consideration and detailed analysis of project requirements and business goals. Our task was to embrace the latest technological opportunities and support the client’s existing solutions integration.

Backend

.NET

Microsoft SQL

340k+

.NET members on Meetup

one of the most used databases due to Stack Overflow

Frontend

Angular

86.8k

GitHub stars

300k+

projects implemented with Angular

Admin panel

Node.js

93.8k

GitHub stars

23M

Node.js developers

Technologies also used by

Team composition

We’ve assigned a cross-functional team of 7 specialists from different areas of expertise to share first-hand experience and work towards a common goal of delivering a reasonable tech solution.

Front-end developer

Michael

Front-end developer

Michael

UI/UX Designer

Alexander

Senior business analyst

Darya

Back-end developer

Stepan

QA Engineer

Inna

Senior project manager

Artem

How does Existek ensure effective collaboration?

One way to achieve successful collaboration is by prioritizing transparency and visibility throughout the development process. At Existek, we promote active involvement with our clients, which embraces consistent communication, monitoring the team's advancements, organizing frequent check-ins, and conducting demos at various development phases.

Agile methodologies

In-house control level

Open and direct communication

Highlights175+
meetings
to discuss progress and share perspectives
5600
hours
of coding and testing
35
weeks
the duration of the development stage
to discuss progress and share perspectives
of coding and testing
the duration of the development stage

Project summary

Existek’s team of specialists provided our client with a fully functional web store that allows customers to browse, select, and purchase luxury products from the comfort of their own homes. We leveraged our first-hand experience to complement the platform functionality with best market practices like smooth integrations, sophisticated design, search functionality, advanced analytics, security, and compliance.

Discovery & design Development Launch

4 weeks 35 weeks 2 weeks

Discovery & design

4 weeks

Development

35 weeks

Launch

2 weeks

Highlights10
months
total project duration
7
specialists
to build a cross-functional team
2
web solutions
including the online marketplace and the admin panel
1k+
items
listed in the catalogue
total project duration
to build a cross-functional team
including the online marketplace and the admin panel
listed in the catalogue