CYSM

Colombia-based cloth manufacturer

Business need

Being a huge wholesale and retail website of quality shapewear in Mexico, CYSM wanted to develop a couple of apps to grant smooth and simple product browsing and fast purchases to their target audience.

CYSM project’s primary focal point was to design and implement a reliable vending platform based on Shopify backend and mobile SDK with vast customization of separate modules.

1Initial Information

The client had no experience with mobile development before, therefore we worked with them a lot clarifying and gathering the requirements. Initially, we had a small description of the future product with a very basic overview of the functionality and design mockups.

2Data analysis and clarification

As initial information was very rough, we have worked with the client to create a more reliable technical specification document, where all features are clearly described and estimated.

One more important task was to verify existing UI designs making sure end-users will be happy to work with such UI.

3Analysis outcomes

The result of the analysis was a well thought and structured document with the product functionality described. On several calls, we have confirmed all unclear points and provided a detailed estimation and a quote for the development.

Besides this, we have located few issues with the current design concept and discussed with the client possible ways to improve the UI of the future application.

Key Features

Shopify integration

Applications had to be connected to the existing Shopify we site.

QR Code scanner

Applications should be able to scan QA codes from the catalogue in order to speed up product search.

Flexible ordering

Users can make purchases as in any regular eCommerce or make a Quick Order, when user can set a date when he will collect items from the bricks-and-mortar store.

Development Process

Our history with CYSM

Start of development

With the review of designs and final requirements, we started the actual development of the product. Soon after the work was started, the client also asked us to work on their Shopify web site to add few new features and do overall support of the product. Doing backend work also was converted to a huge benefit for the client, as we were not only to modify web site according to the application needs but also added few features on the site to control and update the content of the applications, which is usually not updatable by default integration with Shopify.

Mobile commerce

Over the past  8 years, mobile commerce witnessed unprecedented growth. sales are predicted to jump up to $432.2 billion by 2022. More than 51% of users prefer mobile web apps to other shopping channels. Customers claimed web apps are convenient and have consistent UI.

Taking into account such tremendous growth, businesses gain big benefits from investment in either PWA websites or mobile applications.

One of the main factors that should be taken into account is a performance of the solution. With a lot of alternatives available, users will not tolerate slow or buggy app, especially when its the first time they open it. With this in mind, software testing is even more important now that it was ever before.

Another very important point to take into account with mCommerce is clear and understandable UI. If the application is not easy to use, if it does not have well thought filters and categories, users most likely will prefer a different solution.

Size Guidelines

One of the features we created is a size guide, to help users buy correct clothes. The functionality is not complicated however the idea is very good and this simple feature was very appreciated by end-users.

At first, user need to pick a wear type he wants to purchase, then specify a set of body parameters.
Based on user selections in the previous step, we form a list of sizes based on materials. Clicking on any of the sizes brings the user to a shop page with respective filters applied.

Shopify integration

Though initially, the project started as a mobile application only, we had to work a lot with shopify platform to integrate apps in the existing infrastructure. When applications were created, shopify had a very limited API to work with, so we had to create a separate backend to process things like advanced filtering, size guide and similar.

Our backend was working as a bridge between shopify and the applications, taking data from shopify, processing it and then sending to mobile applications.

Besides the integration, we had a wide range of tasks in improvement of the Shopify system itself, adding new features and fixing existing bugs.

Main Functionality

The core of the application is of course the list of products, with easy filtering and a good checkout page. While we were working on the application, a lot of attention was given to exactly these two steps, as if searching and buying products is not intuitive to the user, he will not use the application again, which makes all other features meaningless.
The main page was designed to have a good representation of the product without the need to actually click on it. We display fewer items on pages but the images themselves are bigger. All products are split into categories. With a size guide, users can filter out to only the category he is interested in and only products that suit the user.
The shopping cart contains all the items with the ability to edit each item. Users can change the size and quantity of the items and monitor the resulting total. On the checkout, users can select a shipping method and specify their delivery address. The cart retains the selections of the user, allowing them to return and make a purchase later, or continue shopping and add more items to the cart.

Our Work Results

Started as mobile development, we ended up with a long-term partnership supporting both the mobile app and a Shopify side. After the application was finished, it was highly appreciated by the end-users, posting the CYSM sales.

During our post support, we had several iterations with updates for both application and website introducing new features and making cosmetic changes to the look and feel of the product.

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