A Brand Paving its Way for a Smarter Customer Experience

Cycle by SOS is a clothing store that provides a diverse selection of used garments from different brands. They cater to individuals who value comfort in their attire and aim to offer a superior shopping experience both in-store and online. The focus of the brand is to bring sustainability to the clothing world.

What makes Cycle by SOS unique is its successful implementation of headless eCommerce. This shift allowed for seamless integration between the website and backend systems.

The outcome of executing headless eCommerce is a dynamic and responsive online store! You’ll discover in this blog, how the eCommerce store led the way in personalized shopping through its innovative headless technology.

The Goal is to Onboard 1000 Online Sellers

“The reliable technical team has expertise in transforming website problems into the ideal solution”

Cycle by SOS, a well-established offline store, was looking to make the shift to online. Like others, they too felt the importance of having an online store. They approached Novvum and expressed their goals and expectations for their online platform.

Their primary focus was creating a marketplace-style platform that could onboard over 1000 sellers while maintaining a strong focus on their brick-and-mortar store. The website should cater to two types of users – customers who purchase their products and sellers who can list their products on our site.

With that brand sought a seamless integration across all platforms. Customers were particular about the payment method as it was local, named PromptPay. Bank Transfer, as well as traditional options like credit card payments.

Furthermore, the brand owner required highly customized analytics, with reporting options for overall sales by date ranges and sales by the seller. They would like to provide users with the ability to email and download PDF/CSV reports.

The platform must include inventory management functionalities such as SKU, and order number customization to be easily identifiable by staff, and each product has a unique SKU number since each product is only available in a single quantity.

Now, the technical team demonstrated their expertise in research and problem analysis when they were tasked with addressing the website expectations.

How Novvum Team Provided the Ideal Solution

Although there are eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Wix, that offer a range of tools for creating robust headless eCommerce solutions. In this particular case, their features were insufficient to meet the local requirements or specific demands of clients.

Cases like this bring out the necessity to have a technical team that is proficient in using more flexible and customizable tools to meet the customer's needs. Initially, Shopify was one of the options to get into the brand platform. But, they opted out of it.

As the platform lacks native marketplace abilities that are crucial. This would have made it challenging to meet the product owner's requirements. It would lack a comprehensive solution that supports both online and brick-and-mortar sales channels.

Second, Shopify's tax calculation and pricing options were limited. It was difficult to offer a wide range of local payment options that the product owner wanted. Additionally, the platform's reporting features were inadequate, which would have made it hard to provide highly customized analytics.

Furthermore, Shopify did not meet the requirement to enlist, buyers and sellers in the marketplace. As a result, the technical team concluded that it would be best to explore other more flexible options to meet the project's unique requirements.

They gradually developed headless eCommerce utilizing the capabilities of Hasura, a robust database access tool, Next.js, a speedy headless frontend framework, and Retool, a low-code platform for creating internal tools.

A Brief Overview of the Tools Utilized in the Background

Hasura

Hasura is a powerful tool for building custom solutions, including headless eCommerce marketplaces. It provides a range of benefits to help businesses efficiently access their data and improve the customer experience. From real-time data updates to advanced security features, Hasura streamlines the process of building and maintaining a fully custom, dynamic, and secure online store.

The platform's auto-generated GraphQL API gives developers the ability to easily access and manipulate data. This offers greater customization and flexibility in website design and functionality.

Next.js

Next.js is a popular JavaScript framework that is increasingly being used to build headless eCommerce platforms. One of the main features of Next.js that makes it suitable for building such platforms is its server-side rendering (SSR) capabilities. SSR enables the website to be rendered on the server and delivered as HTML to the client's browser, which can improve website speed and performance.

Next.js also supports incremental static site generation (ISG), which allows pre-rendering of pages at build time and incrementally updates them at runtime. This can significantly reduce page loading times and improve the user experience. Additionally, Next.js has excellent support for data fetching, with the ability to fetch data on the server side or client side, depending on the use case.

Retool

Retool is a powerful UI builder that can be used to create custom applications such as inventory management, point of sale (POS) systems for brick-and-mortar stores, and financial reports. Its features make it an excellent tool for building a headless eCommerce platform.

One of Retool's most significant advantages is its ability to integrate with various databases, APIs, and other tools. This makes it easy to bring data from different sources and build custom UIs that cater to specific eCommerce requirements. Additionally, Retool comes with pre-built components, such as tables, forms, and charts, that make it easier to create custom UIs quickly.

Retool's ability to support real-time data updates and collaboration is also a notable advantage. Teams can work together in real-time on the same project, making it easier to build and maintain complex eCommerce applications.

Boosting Cycle by SOS's Success and Growth

In conclusion, the adoption of headless eCommerce has been a game-changer for Cycle. These innovative technologies have brought about a host of benefits that have significantly impacted the company's growth and success. The website's loading time is just 1 second.

Additionally, now the brand can access customized reports and insights on products. In today’s date, it has proven to be an invaluable resource for sales and business needs. These are the prime reasons that headless eCommerce has become the preferred solution for many companies in the eCommerce industry.

Novvum with its 7 years of technical prowess has provided tailored solutions to clients. The team of experienced lead engineers leveraged any eCommerce website with the most advanced technologies. This ensured solutions that align with the client's business needs. If you are an eCommerce store that is aspiring to provide customized solutions for your customers. Take a step forward.