Year of creation: 2021
Task: Online Store for Germanika-T Company.
Website addres: www.germanika-t.ru
With time, new approaches and abilities are introduced in the world of Internet technologies, while the current ones become outdated and resist the development and support of the websites. A website becomes gradually less and less able to meet competition and falls considerably behind the new websites: the design becomes outdated, the website works slower when it comes to the search results, improvement requires more expenses and the support of the configuration used by the website becomes outdated.
And that was the request of our old customer, Germanika-T Company. Not only did the company want to upgrade the outdated website, but to create a new and state-of-the-art online store instead of the classic corporate website. The main focus was to use new technologies available in the state-of-the-art CMS to work with the website and the ability to keep the platform up-to-date for a long time.
The decision was made to create the website on the 1C Bitrix platform. This platform develops rapidly and proved to be a scalable and reliable CMS for the creation of any online store regardless of its complexity. The decision was made to create the online store using Aspro: Next solution that enables to install an Internet store with broad options for optimization and modification of the functionality to fit a specific project and customer’s requirements.
The principal works performed in the creation of the online store:
- Installation and configuration of Bitrix;
- Installation and configuration of Aspro: Next solution;
- Creation of the mechanism for regular updating of the store’s currencies;
- Improvement of the website display;
- Improvement of the ordering.
Installation and configuration of the website
During the configuration of the solution, the design of the website and its pages were configured, the information on the company was added, the excess functionality and options of the solution were disabled, the catalogue and its display were configured.
Installation and configuration of the solution
During the configuration of the solution, the design of the website and its pages were configured, the information on the company was added, the excess functionality and options of the solution were disabled, the catalogue and its display were configured.
Creation of the structure
One of the ready-made solution’s upsides is that it already has a structure of the sections. However, it is challenging enough to modify it without a programmer’s help. The structure of the website is the first thing the further improvement of the website should be started with because it gives the understanding of how everything will be organized hereinafter. In the course of the works, the ready-made solution’s website structure was redesigned, some sections were moved to the others. Besides, new pages were added, the menu display was reconfigured.
Deletion of the demo data and information units
The ready-made solution gives many examples of how the contents should be added and which checks should be enabled when the information is edited, so that badges, images, etc., be displayed on the website. Even a programmer needs all that at the first stages of the creation of a website to understand how the information is added and displayed in the templates. At this stage of works, we deleted all the excessive data structures of the online store: information units, elements of the information units, switchable slogan texts on the pages. The excessive information units of the website were also deleted and disabled. In other words, the website was swept and garnished.
The information contents transfer from the old website
At this stage, the information was transferred from the old website: news, products and other information. The sections were filled with the real-world data and, at the same time, the first requirements to improve the templates of the website pages showed up.
Creation of the mechanism for regular updating of the store’s currencies
One of the important requirements of the new website is the ability to add products with prices in various currencies. By default, Bitrix works with various currencies and can display them, already converted, on the website. However, to keep the exchange rates up-to-date, their constant updating will be required. Since it is a problem to update the exchange rates manually, an agent was developed for the customer that updates the exchange rates daily in the online store using the information from the website of the Central Bank of Russia. Thanks to this, the prices on the website are converted automatically at the new exchange rate at a set time and on a daily basis.
Improvement of the website display
Although the ready-made solution has many and diverse abilities, there are sometimes difficulties in terms of display, because the design is usually generic, and there are conflicting requirements. In the course of the works, some information units were done anew, the display of fields containing the certificates information and news was added, the excessive elements of the layout were deleted, the display of the menu was improved, the display of the catalogue and many other small but very important things were configured.
Improvement of the ordering process
The traditional ordering mechanism is as follows: select the products, select the payment and delivery mode, fill in the data, and the order generates the amount automatically, adding the price of the delivery. In various online stores, the ordering stage can be delivered in many ways, depending on the store manager’s operating regulations and business requirements. However, the more does it differ from the traditional one in terms of the technical task, the more difficult it is to deliver. In this case, the ordering was improved to not recount the cost of delivery automatically, and the payment system implies sending of the payment slip by the store manager. Besides, there are two purchaser roles in the store: legal entities and individuals. Each type has its own set of fields for ordering from the online store.
In many ways, it is better to start from a blank slate than suffer from expenses due to the current things. A ready-made solution will enable us to quickly create the website we have dreamed of without losing time and many resources. The main downside of the website development using a ready-made solution is the generic design which you can find on the competition’s websites. In such a case, the redesigning of the layout will result in much work. However, in some cases, it may end up being cheaper than creating a website from scratch.