"It was great to find someone to work with us as a collaborative partner. We had never done this before, so sometimes we didn’t know what we were asking for, and we were figuring things out as we went along. When you’re creating something totally new, it is absolutely necessary to have a partner offer suggestions, be proactive, and think 3 steps ahead instead of merely executing what we said. I can’t thank you enough! "
LightningBuy: A Mobile Browser-Based E-commerce Platform
ABOUT THE CLIENT:
SERVICES USED:
SERVICES USED:
The Challenge
When LightningBuy came to us, they had a mature idea and they wanted a reliable partner to help them turn their idea into reality.
The Solution
The aim of working with Softjourn iwas to make the consumer mobile buying process as quick and as painless as possible, resulting in happy customers because they get what they want easily and happy merchants who achieve lower abandonment rates.
The Result
The developed app is a mobile browser-based e-commerce platform that enables consumers to purchase products in just a few clicks from a mobile device without registering or creating an account.
The Challenge
Mobile purchases can be painful and time-consuming for consumers, with as many as 10 or more steps involved in purchasing one item.
Frustration reigns on both sides of the transaction: for the consumers who end up abandoning the purchase process without ever completing a transaction and for the merchants who end up with fewer sales.
When LightningBuy came to us, they had a mature idea, and they wanted a reliable partner to help them turn their idea into reality.
The Solution
The aim of one start-up working with Softjourn is to make the consumer mobile buying process as quick and as painless as possible, resulting in happy customers because they get what they want easily and happy merchants who achieve lower abandonment rates.
This US start-up is focused on developing a platform that would eliminate unnecessary steps in the purchase process and let customers buy quickly and easily.
One of the biggest challenges was to tie in the payment process and the actual sale but at the same time not have the customer jump around to different pages.
The solution was to develop a mobile browser app called LightningBuy that would kick off with a pop-up box when a consumer clicks on an ad (on a news page or other content page) or rolls over marked-up text for a particular product for sale. All the consumer needs to do then is to fill out a few fields and click through a limited number of pop-ups to make their purchase.
The initial app is interfaced with both PayPal and Amazon payments; additionally, consumers can use a credit card to make their purchase.
The biggest challenges included:
- Integrating into the payment systems
- limiting the movement away from the app to the payment systems and back.
Due to security reasons, payment systems make buyers complete transactions on their website, but that would totally change the initial goal of the application – to have a buyer stay on the same page where he initiated the purchase and make the purchase process as seamless as possible.
One of the supported payment systems – PayPal, already had its own pop up for entering payment information developed, but since Amazon didn’t support this functionality, Softjourn developed an iFrame (Frames enable a browser window to be split into segments) to create a seamless purchasing process.
After the buyer chooses their payment method (PayPal, Amazon Payments, credit card), JavaScript sends a request to the server to generate the payment system’s URL, which is displayed to the buyer as an iFrame.
After users fill out all required fields, the data is sent to the server of the payment system, which either approves or declines the transaction. The Yes/No answer is sent back to the app server, which generates a new pop-up telling the buyer whether his transaction was completed or not.
With this solution, merchants would also have more control over how they use the system as well. They can choose to generate their own JavaScript code for a particular product they wish to advertise.
The code can then be simply embedded into an advertisement, or a new page, or another content page. There is also an admin section of the application that lets merchants easily manage their product lines, product attributes (size, colors, quantities, etc.), payment methods accepted, etc.
The Benefits
The developed app is a mobile browser-based e-commerce platform that enables consumers to purchase products in just a few clicks from a mobile device without registering or creating an account.
Benefits that LightningBuy's users could see are:
- Easy and fast purchase
- No need to create accounts on different websites
Conclusion
"Softjourn provides excellent off-shoring service but with the discipline and accountability of a US-based business. They are very responsive and went above and beyond for the platform", said the CEO/Founder at LightningBuy.