How We Built an $800K per month E-commerce Application for Pet Food

E-commerce sales are expected to reach $414 billion by the end of 2018.

If you are into the B2C segment, then you will bleed bad without an e-commerce application. In an internet dominated world, an online shopping experience has high regard among the audience. As new forms of commerce are introduced in the market, an e-commerce application lays the foundation for sustainable existence.

In this blog, I will share the story behind SayOne building an e-commerce platform for the pet food industry, that generates $800K in revenue per month.

Protein for Pets: An e-commerce application idea

Based out of the United States, Protein for Pets or P4P is a leading online retailer for pet food and accessories. The founders, Marco, and Ber Giannini initiated Protein for Pets with a mission to ease the lives of pet parents.

To take it further, they came up with their own healthiest and highest quality pet food named ‘Naked’ at many reasonable rates. In addition to the food, there were toys, accessories and so on for the pets. Within a span of three years, they successfully set up 10 stores in southern California alone.

As the community started growing, the demands also began to rise. Most of the customers looked forward to a personalized experience. And they realized that a subscription box with the perfect supply of pet products, delivered to their doorstep could prove to be a major disruptor in the pet food world. As a result, an e-commerce application exclusively for the pet food industry was the ultimate choice.

P4P wanted to create a sweeping change in the pet food industry. The last-minute run for pet food was one thing which nobody wanted to experience on a busy day. With the subscription box, an adequate supply of pet food would reach the customer every month at their doorstep. Also, the hassle of identifying the appropriate diet plan for one’s pet would be taken care of by P4P experts. Based on the inputs provided by the parent, the diet plan would be customized to suit the pet’s needs.

Building an online subscription-based shopping platform for pets

When Protein for Pets approached us, they already had a multi-vendor online shopping platform. The customers could pick up the product from a store after purchasing or get it delivered to their home directly. But, a central inventory management system wasn’t present. When a user requested an order, the system had to analyze each store’s inventory to proceed the order. This was time-consuming and tedious for the entire P4P team.

It was a tricky and challenging situation. But when I consulted with our team, there was more excitement in the air than fear or concern. Adopting an Agile Scrum methodology, we kick-started the project with our finest team of technology and business experts.

Like it’s said, there is always a workaround to get things done. It was applicable in this case as well. In reality, the problem was not the absence of a centralized warehouse. Rather, the problem was with the lack of visibility to the customers. If customers could access the inventories directly to see product availability, it would save much time and effort for the P4P team. Ultimately, this became the solution.

It was a tricky and challenging situation. However, when I consulted with our team, there was more excitement in the air than fear or concern. Their excitement boosted my confidence and the plan was ON. We decided to build a platform that would manage product inventories and display this information on the website. When shopping online with P4P, the customers would have direct access to inventories of particular locations.

What features did we integrate into the system?

• An intuitive and revamped e-commerce platform built using Python/Django.
• A custom integrated and configured application with integrations for Lightspeed Cloud.
• An easy-go payment system deployed using Stripe.
• A scalable web portal including features such as ambassador program, search functionalities, and order processing.

The Results

The platform is currently being used for inventory management and sales. As we speak, additional features are being added to it by our team. In the end, there is no better feeling than being appreciated for the work done. This is what they said about us:

“SayOne Technologies is good at estimating when they can finish a certain item. They’re extremely flexible from a project management standpoint and that’s really important to our unique business environment. If for example, they’d been working on a five-day project and something else broke and needed fixing immediately, SayOne would stop the other work right away. We are on the front lines, dealing with customers, so I appreciate that their team is able to shift priorities as needed”.

Looking for e-commerce development services? Speak to our experts today!

Originally published at https://www.sayonetech.com/blog/how-we-built-dollar-800K-per-month-ecommerce-application-for-pet-food/.