Download PDF
Client Requirement
The idea for this website is to grab opportunities and shop at the right places at the right time. The project is a Multi-location Coupon Management System which will be an online information service that lists the latest sales and offers in the city or town. You can search for the brands or products that you are interested in and instantly know about the latest festive offers, seasonal sales, one – day discount coupons and many more exciting offers!
With more than a 1000 popular brands listed and many more sales and offers for customers, Multi-location Coupon Management system is one of the largest ecommerce websites in India. It’s just the right place for today’s shoppers who are always on the look out for the “best buy” that saves them a few bucks here and there. Getting awesome deals equals to a fulfilling shopping experience.
Multi-location Coupon Management system has a variety of products ranging from electronic products, health & beauty products, fashion, footwear, music, entertainment, kids, movies, games, home appliances and a lot more. Customers can get all the cool deals online without leaving the comfort of their homes.
Some striking features required were:
Search Page: A user should be able to type relevant keywords to search their desired brand or products on the website. Users should be able to refine search with a filter box. Results should be displayed in list format and an auto – suggest feature should be provided for local as well as global searches.
Offer Details Page: The offer details page will include Description, Offer Locations, Image(s), Reviews, Brands and Contact Us for a particular sale or offer. This page will also include a short description for the brand and an introduction to it’s products.
Partner Merchant Account: A merchant account with all controls with respect to partner information, sale and offers listing, advertising etc.
Site Administration: User friendly and powerful administration tools must be incorporated for the ease of website management.
General: General offers are those that are targeted for maximum reach. These include both the brand’s loyal customers as well as general website visitors.
Mcoupons: Coupons based offers can be downloaded via mobiles as SMS and can be shown to vendors for discounts.
Group Buying Deals: Coupons and group deals from various sites can be purchased and the same will be emailed or will be sent via mobile to customers.
Online ecommerce: Once coupons are purchased, the respective partners, vendors are intimated and will be immediately notified to start the shipping process. System is updated, and the money is transferred to the vendor.
Challenges
Team faced the following challenges
- Merchants, Partners, etc should have access to admin panel based on role to enable to manage their businesses and offers.
- Implementation of logistics was a major challenge.
- Another important consideration was the online payment gateway integration.
- Integration of Promotional SMS and Transactional SMS
- The system required Integration of third party systems like SAP, ERP, Loyalty Management Systems etc.
- There should be a report generation process for offers based on cites, merchants and partners.
- Site should handle millions of user connections at the same time without crashing.
- Enhancing user experience by incorporating usability principles at the time of designing new features.
- Simultaneous execution of various features should not crash the site.
- Customers should have the ability to redeem the coupons at any dealer or retailer. Data had to be updated runtime and there had to be perfect synchronization between with the database, account transaction ID’s, web server, administrative records etc
- Commencement of Location Finder, Traceability of Coupon, Locater/Dealer, Device Notification, Displaying of Map and Grid View for all users’ viewing and usability experience at the same server reproduces the application’s need for user and system.
Technologies Used
| Operating System & Server Management | Linux Cent OS, Multi-Server Architecture with Staging & Production environment throughVersion controllingreleasesLoad BalancerApache optimization,security and SSL implementation, scheduler forbackups, alert monitoringsystem integration,server performance tuning at regular intervals,software firewall configuration and maintenance,email server configuration etc. |
| Development Environments | PHP, Code Igniter, JQuery, Prototype.js, SVN, AJAX, CSS, HTML, Solar Search Engine, Third Payment Gateway Integration, SMS Gateway, Logistics Integration, Customer Orders etc. |
| Database | MYSQL, DB Clustering,DB Optimization,High Availability, Master – Slave Replication,Query Optimization,Slow QueryOptimization,Scheduler for Backups, Alert Monitoring System Integration,Percona ServerIntegration etc. |
Manpower
| Project Leader | 1 |
| Developers | 4 |
| Designers | 1 |
| Quality Assurance Testers | 1 |
Planning
- A three tier development approach was used for this project taking into account the enoromous nature of the project.
- Proper planning was required to enable synchronization and connectivity of the web server and database server where images were stored.
- To be able to get actual level of output from different verticles and business logic, research and analysis had to be scheduled.
- Data access layer: contained the libraries that are used to access the data from the database.
- Business logic layer: contained all the business logic procedures for modules used for profiles, registrations, groups info etc.
- User Interface Layer: this is the Graphical User Interface that forms the front end for users.
Architecture:
The project was carried out successfully with the use of technologies like PHP and MySQL. Access to the database was effectively implemented with the help of an interface translating the object logic to relational logic so that relational databases could communicate in an object-oriented manner. An intemediary abstraction layer was created to enable smooth database access. Stored procedures were used to retrieve complex data from multiple tables and conditional syntax was implemented to ensure the seamless performance of the website. The UI layer was isolated from the business logic by placing images and applications that could be called from their respective servers. Sub-domains were implemented for various areas of the site. This ensured scalability. Customizing the ecommerce integration with 3rd party was effectively implemented using CodeIgniter.
Development Highlights
Coupons and offers kind of websites require an achitecture that ensures quick marketing capabilities. Hence this project used all major complex queries and yet maintained an easy to use interface for the user. Search and browse options were optimized using complex query features. Strict adherence to the usability guidelines were followed and the interface was easily navigable through the judicious use of AJAX, CSS and HTML controls. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) activities on a regular basis ensured that the site gets visibility and traffic quickly. The application was complete and fully functional within a span of 3 months.
Loading...