iQ Apple Store.

iQ were looking for a new website that would provide an ecommerce option for their customers. This would need to sync up with their current in-store stock system as well as adhere to Apple’s brand and design guidelines.

With a need to provide an e-commerce solution to its customer basis, iQ Apple Premium Reseller briefed SystemLabs to develop a site that would replace its manual mail order process.

Working across 3 markets of Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man, we had to deliver a solution that could be fully integrated with iQ’s existing in-store Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for managing their business and sales activities, while also adhering to the global design and build standards of Apple.

At the core of the new web build was the integration of the existing in-store sales system which would synchronise all transactions with those made online.

Stock and order synchronisation was achieved by developing a custom 2-way sync between the e-commerce platform and iQ’s bespoke FileMaker system. To achieve this synchronisation we had to identify all of the various scenarios which could occur during a purchase, including understanding the constraints of the existing system

With all scenarios considered and the solutions conceptualised and implemented, the final step was to ensure all background processes vital for a purchase happened in a way that didn’t impact the customer experience. To achieve this we created an application container in a private network that ran seamlessly in the background.

As this site was to be delivered across multiple markets we maximised efficiency in our delivery we utilised Kubernetes clusters, an application which allowed us to automatically scale our work across all three sites meaning efficient delivery along with shorter development time and lower costs.

Following the build, iQ were able to offer online orders in full on the site, allowing customers to choose their product, reserve and pay online, while in the background the stock online and in-store was automatically updated.

Customers who had existing profiles on the old iQ site had all of their information securely transferred to the new platform so they did not have to start the sign-up process from the beginning.