Overview
Edlen is the US's leading utility contractor for the trade show, convention, and special event industry. They power over 5,000 events annually. If you’ve been to a conference, it’s likely that Edlen made the lights, presentation screens, and laptop charging possible.
Edlen engaged Codingscape for senior engineering resources to help modernize their ecommerce experience and capture more of their orders online.
Over the course of a year, Codingscape helped their team redesign the checkout experience, bolster their API, and rebuild their ecommerce app with modern architecture. Now Edlen customers can order online and manage their order details without talking to a rep.
Edlen ended up with an impressive list of business outcomes:
- Increased online orders from 23% to 91% on ecommerce app
- Customer feedback incorporated into shopping experience
- Decrease time spent by customer service per order by 50%
- Redesigned checkout experience
- Added self-serve function for customer orders
- API response times reduced by 50% and the capable load increase by nearly 20%
Here’s how it happened.
Problem
Edlen was ready to modernize their ecommerce app and prioritize online ordering, but they needed some additional software engineering resources to solve the problem.
Edlen Engagement Goals
- Capture 95% of orders online
- Eliminate legacy paper order forms
- Reduce customer service time spent per order
Their existing online ordering application had functional and technical limitations that prevented business scalability and prevented them from reaching their goal of bringing in 95% of their orders online. The API needed to be updated to handle higher order volumes and the user interface redesign to handle more complex inputs.
At the same time they were tasked with modernizing their ecommerce features, Edlen had to update their event management portal, databases, and API.
Their internal IT development team was already at capacity doing this crucial work for the business and they needed extra bandwidth to plan, design, and develop the new solution.
Edlen decided to engage Codingscape for our expertise, speed, quality of software development, and consistent communication.
Solution
Codingscape started working with Edlen stakeholders twice weekly to gather product and technical requirements. From this, our agile team created a high-level product roadmap that broke down into four major milestones.
We delivered each milestone on target – and an extra one at the end.
To maintain an agile process, low-level requirements were gathered weekly as the software build progressed in design and development. When faced with challenging design problems, we ran usability testing by sampling internal Edlen employees to gain immediate insight and adjust course.
Once we successfully launched the fourth milestone on time and to specifications, Codingscape continued to iterate and maintain the production application. We also incorporated Edlen’s existing customer feedback and helped redesign the checkout experience to improve usability and eliminate friction points.
Edlen Business Outcomes
- Increased online orders from 23% to 91% on ecommerce app
- Customer feedback incorporated into shopping experience
- Decrease time spent per order by 50%
- Redesigned checkout experience
- Added self-serve function for customer orders
- API response times reduced by 50% and the capable load increase by nearly 20%
We completed one more post-launch milestone by adding self-service capabilities so Edlen customers could cancel or revise their orders, and copy a previous order to expedite the shopping process.
Engagement Details
Team Composition
Management
- Account manager
- Agile product manager
Engineering
- Two backend software engineers
- Two frontend software engineers
- Full stack software engineer
- Product designer
Duration
Project Stats
- Increased online orders from 23% to 91% on ecommerce app
- Customer feedback incorporated into shopping experience
- Decreased Edlen customer service time spent per order by 50%
- Redesigned checkout experience
- Added self-serve function for customer orders
- API response times reduced by 50% and the capable load increase by nearly 20%
Technical Details
- Modernized application architecture
- Meets WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards
- Accepts international address formats
- White-label ownership branding across the app
- Single Sign On (SSO) for vendor partnerships
- SOAP-to-REST API adapter
- E-commerce experience
- Login & authentication
- Shopping catalog: Package bundles
- Product detail page: Recommendations
- Cart: Minimum item requirements & business rules
- Checkout: Taxes & fees + ACH & Wire Transfer options
- Invoice
- Account administration
- Mobile web view
- Google Analytics tagging
Client Feedback
“The project was a resounding success,
... and we could not have achieved this without the hard work and expertise of Codingscape's amazing team of professionals. Codingscape's responsiveness, knowledge, and unwavering commitment to ensuring that every aspect of the project was executed to the highest standard was truly commendable. Codingscape's team provided us with invaluable insights, guidance, and support throughout the entire project, from the initial planning stages to the final delivery.
Our partnership with Codingscape is highly valued, and we look forward to continuing to work together on future projects. Thank you for your exceptional work and for being such a reliable and invaluable partner to our business. Your efforts have contributed to our ability to provide our customers with the best possible service.”
Romena Hill, Senior Developer & Architect
Sources
Technologies
Online Ordering Backend
- .NET 6 API adapter
- EF Core Power Tools
- Swagger UI
- Moq Unit Testing
Online Ordering Frontend
- React
- Material UI
- Jest Unit Testing
SSO
- OAuth 2.0
DevOps
- Azure DevOps
- CI / CD Pipelines
Load Testing
- Apache JMeter