Case Study: Elysée Cosmetics Ltd − A customised eCommerce shopping solution
Background − Elysée Cosmetics
Elysée Cosmetics Ltd design and manufacture electrical personal health and
beauty products such as hair removers and home exercise machines.
Their business success is based on sales to major cosmetics retailers and department
stores as well as smaller cosmetics traders. As a result Elysée were very keen
not to upset their current customer relationships by selling online and for this
reason had been reluctant to venture into online selling direct to consumers. However
they have been successfully selling their products direct to customer using mail-order
for some-time.
A key aspect of the Elysée product range is their accessories. End users often
need replacement accessories after repeated use such as the massage gel which comes
with their Rollercell Massage product. These products are not major revenue earners
but form an important part of the product’s after-sales service.
The business challenge − trade and consumer
Elysée had no experience of web software and had not even a brochure web site.
Their U.S. partners had ventured into selling via the web and Elysée UK were
keen to demonstrate they could offer a better solution to the UK market.
To maintain the relationship with their existing trade customer base the objective
was to offer an online product catalogue. This would enable trade customers to search
the catalogue, get basic product information such as pallet weights and place online
enquires. This was the primary objective of the project in line with the marketing
strategy.
A secondary objective was to make it possible for end users to order replacement
accessories via the web as well as buy new products.
The challenge for the project team was to deliver a solution which met the dual
objectives of a trade product catalogue as well as a consumer online selling direct
the customer.
Our approach − the project
Initial meetings with the Elysée directors confirmed the business strategy
and the project scope and objectives. We were also able to discuss the options for
accepting credit card payments online and agree the use of a 3rd party credit processor.
From our experience of eCommerce Shopping projects we knew this to be a risk to
the project schedule. The legal and financial complications of accepting credit
card payments are often a big hurdle.
The requirement was now pretty well understood, nevertheless a formal analysis and
design process was followed to ensure the details were documented, confirmed and
well communicated across the project team. Indeed a number of key requirements were
identified during review of the functional specification and prototype site design.
Following the system build Elysée were invited to review a test version of
the solution and feedback. This again produced positive improvements before delivery
of the final product.
At the implementation stage we supported Elysée in loading all product data
as well as providing a hands-on training session at our offices in Surbiton for
all the order handling team.
The project was delivered in 3 months and successfully implemented on our web hosting
facility at Telehouse.
We were very fortunate on the project to have the Elysée Graphic Designer,
Lynne Morinan on board with the team. Lynne has many years experience working with
Elysée Cosmetics and was able to provide valuable understanding of the business
and its operations. Lynne also provided all the graphic design and product photographs
for the site.
The resulting system − a customised Parabola Solution
To meet the dual trade and consumer site objectives a single web site was provided
with two views of the product catalogue and distinct user interfaces. The trade
user view provides information for bulk ordering and relevant product attributes
such as shipping carton sizes. The consumer view provides retail pricing and allows
online purchasing. Both views utilise a shopping cart function to allow the user
to store products before purchase or ordering.
The system was based upon the Parabola eCommerce Shopping solution. The product
catalogue is managed via an admin interface which is secure and easy to use.
The credit card payments are handled via Worldpay with a seamless interface to the
payment pages. The order information is captured first on the Elysée server
before the payment details are captured and validated on the Worldpay server. The
payment transaction is immediate and the order handling team receives an email confirming
the transaction but have no access to the credit card details to ensure the security
of the transaction. A complete audit log is maintained by Worldpay so that each
transaction can be viewed by the order handling team online. In addition all order
details (shipping, products ordered etc) are maintained on Elysée’s database
where they can be viewed or analysed at any time.
Technology − a scalable robust solution
The Parabola eCommerce shopping solution was built from the ground up as an ASP.NET
solution. It was designed to make the most the .NET advances in reusability, security
and robustness.
The ASP.NET software design has a separate data access layer to enable any database
backend. In this case SQL Server 2000 was adopted as the most secure and scalable
solution with purpose built data providers from Microsoft .NET.
A high level of security for the credit card payment is ensured by the use of the
Worldpay processing.
The site is hosted on a dual Xeon processor server, at our Telehouse hosting facility.
The hosting includes access to DeepMetrix LiveStats which is currently the best
log analyser available on the market.
Conclusions − The business benefits
The primary objective of delivering a product catalogue for trade customers has
been achieved on schedule and within budget.
The system immediately attracted attention via the web and orders were placed for
replacement parts within 24 hours of the site being live. The potential is there
to sell the Elysée products direct to the consumer via the web. To date Elysée
have chosen not to pursue this option and continue concentrate their business on
the wholesale trade market.
Recently Denise Saunders, Financial Director at Elysée, commented:
"Our eCommerce web site has been a great success. We entered into eCommerce with
no experience and little knowledge of how our business could sell via the web. Parabola
gave us all the help and support we could have asked for and made it seem easy to
begin trading over the internet."
References / Links
Further Information
For further details and a quote based upon your particular requirements, please
contact:
Adam McCarthy on +44 (0) 208 399 5853 or
enquiries@parabolasoft.co.uk