Ulmart Marketplace

The old solution could not withstand the increasing load and was slowing down business.

We needed a quick start on new cities in Russia.

The financial goals were to increase conversions and sales.

The DZ Systems team was tasked with creating and developing the Ulmart cybermarket. DZ team developed the IT-architecture, web-interface of the store and launched about 10 services for individual product niches.

The collaboration started with building a web frontend solution in 4 months. The tight deadline was due to the fact that the old solution could not withstand the increasing load and was slowing down the company's business.

The first stage of the project was the development of basic functionality on AJAX technology. The dynamics and rapid development of the industry imposed certain requirements on the systems used: the solution had to be flexible and easily modifiable. During the first 4 months of working together, the customer's and Digital Zone's development teams carried out the following work:

• reverse-engineering of the existing database (about 400 tables without Foreign Keys). Based on it, analytics for building a catalog of goods, filters by characteristics, availability by warehouse were compiled;
• designing an application load balancing and clustering solution (based on JBoss Application Server), with support for 24/7 application updates;
• performance optimization: caching data structures in memory to minimize the number of "heavy" queries to the database;
• integration with two external systems (Ultima ERP and SAP) and their symmetrical inclusion in the project;
• support for failover interaction: service failure detection, switching to a backup node, administrator notification;
• User interface optimization: extensive use of AJAX technologies with modern elements (dynamic element loading, auto-complete);
• search with error correction and morphology. Implemented on a separate search and indexing server with failover support;
• Integration with Yandex API and FIAS for geocoding.

Further on, the functionality of the Ulmart cybermarket was constantly improved. For example, the Ulmart.Expert service was launched - an intelligent system aimed at increasing purchases by carrying out smart consultations in automatic mode. Later Digital Zone specialists performed a large-scale refactoring and optimization of Ulmart's site, developed and launched additional services and updates:

• a subsite of Ulmart.Business for corporate B2B clients;
• mobile version of the online store;
• a system for collecting customer feedback;
• universal designer to create promotional pages and promotions (with links to the catalog and products);
• integration with the digital content services Zvooq and Bookmate;
• auto goods selection service: configurator of luggage systems, deflector selection;
• field service;
• sim card sales solutions;
• a new service by Ulmart.Travel: ordering flights and booking hotels;
• development of Ulmart.Fashion for clothing and accessories retailers on a separate site, and more.

Total:

• The implementation of a complete package for the online store and all its services: Catalogs, Orders, Carts, Personal accounts, Delivery;
• search with error correction and morphology;
• integration with external systems Ultima ERP and SAP, API Yandex, FIAS for geocoding and others;
• development of a universal designer for creating promotional pages and promotions.
   

Technology stack, engine:
Java.

By 2016, the solution stood to buy 8,000 hits at 1.08 million visits per minute.

Connected 50+ branches in new cities.

Project timeline, labor costs:

• 1200 man-months (2012-2016);
• 100+ million rubles.