The Black Art of eCommerce, Bath Digital Festival 2014 - Philip Pantelides, blubolt

THE BLACK ART OF ECOMMERCE

(Why we built our own platform)

Philip Pantelides Operations & Process Lead

@blubolt

THE BLACK blu ART OF ECOMMERCE

(Why we built our own platform)

Philip Pantelides Operations & Process Lead

@blubolt

Born In a Barn

Max LambCo-founder & Technical Director

@blubolt

Chris MattinglyCo-founder & Creative Director

• Max and Chris meet at school

• Coincidentally both attend Durham University

• Chris opens a successful eCommerce store selling health products

• Max leaves corporate London to move to Bath to help out

• blubolt is born in a tiny barn office in 2006

Born In a Barn

@blubolt

bluCommerce Users

@blubolt

Bootstrapping

@blubolt

• Years 1-2 making eCommerce sites and web apps (First web 2.0 fitness web app - Traineo)

• Stand alone sites, separate codebases, eCommerce templates

A Growing Concern

@blubolt

• 2 years - dozens of sites (2006-8)

• Stand alone sites, separate codebase, eCommerce templates

• 3rd party platforms hacked together and heavily modded

@blubolt

• Divergence

• Patching issues

• Technical debt

• Unhappy company

• Unhappy clients

• Falling behind

Maintenance Nightmare!

What is the solution?

@blubolt

• Single codebase = easy maintenance

• Extensible

• Flexible

• Scalable

• Fast

@blubolt

• Didn’t Exist • Hard to maintain • OMGWTFISHBBQ pricing!

• Expensive • Little flexibility

• Basic, not built for large retailers

“Someone must have done this already”

Can’t Find It? Build It!

@blubolt

• bluCommerce is born!

• MVP Shipped as extensive modification of ECT platform

Growing Up

@blubolt

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

v1Load Speed

(memcached)

Vaguely maintainable

v2Faceting

(in memory)

New Admin

v3Faster Search

(Solr)

More speed! (more

mechached)

Scalable Web Workers / Hosting

v4New admin -

Flex/AIR

No more ECT

Completely new internals

v5Move to AWS

Build out of admin features

Time to innovate…

v6Code Refactor

More Functionality

Data-driven Marketing (More2)

The Future is Bright

@blubolt

• Personalisation - Site Modifiers - VIP Program - Personal Shopping Experience

• Open up the platform - SAAS

Deceptively Complicated

@blubolt

• eCommerce is not as simple as adding a ‘Buy It Now’ button

• Some of the most complex websites and apps

• So what is the secret?

The Full House

Infrastructure The Back Office

Secret Sauce

IntegrationsFront End

Logistics

@blubolt

Infrastructure

@blubolt

Big Data

@blubolt

• 1000s of products

• Multiple variants (diff. sites diff. types of products)

• Multiple Assets

• Search

• Association

• Database Schema

• Faceted

Speed

@blubolt

• Memcaching

• View caching

• Code Optimisation

• CDN Content Delivery network

Traffic!

@blubolt

• Mailshots, Flash Sales, Cyber Monday

• Spikes (Record =1.56K requests per second across v6, 0.84K for one client)

“We carry on sitting in a pub, and maybe order another drink” - blubolt Head of Systems

How do we handle this?

Stability

@blubolt

• bluCommerce processes £250/min, last month avg. £1700/min

• If the site goes down lots of money can be lost!

Front End

@blubolt

eCommerce Funnel

@blubolt

Discovery

Consideration

Advocacy

Conversion

Loyalty

Word of Mouth

Discovery

@blubolt

• SEO

• Shopping Feeds

• Affiliate Feeds

• Mobile & Tablet

• Powerful Search

• Cross Sale / Upsale

Consideration

@blubolt

• Lifestyle imagery

• Product adverts

• Video

• Measurements

• Product details

• “Get the look”

• Abandon Basket (high conversions)

Consideration

@blubolt

High Res Imagery

Product Stickers

Structured Data

Consideration

@blubolt

Lifestyle Imagery

Size Guide“Get The Look” (Cross Sale)

Consideration

@blubolt

Product Details

Imagery For Fit

Real Time Stock

Messaging

Consideration

@blubolt

Video

Reviews

Consideration

@blubolt

Conversion

@blubolt

• Promotions and Discounts

• Mobile & Tablet

• Visual Merchandising

• Social Media Login

• Multiple Payment Methods

• “Buy It Now” Prompts

Loyalty

@blubolt

• Subscriptions

• Loyalty Points

• VIP Promotions

• Wishlists

Advocacy

@blubolt

• Gift Vouchers

• Gift Wrap

• Reviews

• Social Sharing

The Back Office

@blubolt

The Back Office

@blubolt

Pick, Pack and Dispatch

Call centre ordering / support

Returns / Refunds

Content Management

Data Export, Import & Analysis

Logistics

@blubolt

Logistics

@blubolt

• Packing slips

• Shipping Methods (Different requirement - Location, Product Size, Weight & Cost, Courier Vol. Requirements)

• Click & Collect

• Collect +

Integrations

@blubolt

Integrations

@blubolt

• Warehouse integrations

• Third Party Mailing Providers / Segmentation

• Third Party Data

• Multiple payment methods

• Accounting

“I never thought of that!”

@blubolt

The Secret Sauce

Discounts Decoded

@blubolt

• Choose a free product when you spend over £50 (on a Tuesday and your email begins with Q)

• Buy a gym bag and fill it with free products

• Buy 500g of any coffee (any combination) and get your choice of 125g free

Globalisation

@blubolt

• Reach a global market

• Multiple Currencies

• Multiple Languages (What about the Warehouse!?)

The other side - B2B

@blubolt

• B2B

• Back Orders

• Order templates

• Purchase orders

• Seasonal Drops

• High Volume / Large Orders - UX? Speed?

Shameless Plug

@blubolt

• php Developers

• Front End Developers

• Project Managers

• Account Managers

blubolt.com/jobs

THANKS!Q&A