About the Customer

The client is a Canadian food distribution company that distributes high-quality frozen meat and seafood products to restaurants, grocery stores, and other food service establishments. It operates a state-of-the-art facility in Toronto and prides itself on providing its customers with the freshest and highest quality products. The company provides high-quality mouthwatering meat products to its customers, giving them a choice to choose from around 700 items at an affordable price.

About the project

Client want us to implement an omni channel strategy and develop an application for Android & iOS platform and web which will be using Shopify as their ecommerce engine. Client also wishes to have an offline to online transition that will help them to boost the storefront sales.

Problem

A Canadian food distributor, known for its high-quality frozen meat and seafood, wanted to improve customer experience and sales through an omnichannel strategy. Their existing Shopify website worked well, but they desired native iOS & Android apps while maintaining Shopify as their backend. Here were the key challenges:

• Shopify API Throttling: Shopify’s API limits caused performance issues and app freezing. Multiple API Calls: Fetching data from various APIs slowed down the app.
• Offline to Online Transition: The client wanted to encourage in-store purchases through the app.
• Marketing Campaign Efficiency: The marketing team needed a way to drive users directly to specific product pages through email campaigns.

Our Approach

• Native Mobile Apps: Built native iOS & Android apps that communicated directly with Shopify through a custom middleware.
• Performance Optimization: Implemented a middleware layer to cache product data using Redis, significantly reducing API calls and improving app performance.
• GraphQL Integration: Leveraged GraphQL to ensure only necessary data was fetched, further reducing API calls and avoiding throttling issues.
• Offline to Online Integration: Developed a QR code scanner functionality to connect in-store customers with promotions and new product launches.
• Deep Linking: Implemented deep linking (using Branch.io) to allow marketing campaigns to direct users to specific product pages within the app.
• Hybrid Checkout: Maintained a smooth user experience with a hybrid checkout approach, seamlessly redirecting users to a web checkout page.

Benefits

• Faster App Launch: Apps deployed on Play Store and App Store within 2 months.
• Enhanced Performance: Middleware and server-side caching significantly improved app performance and user experience.
• Increased Sales: Offline-to-online transition resulted in a 2x increase in store-front sales.
• Improved User Engagement: The app allowed for better product promotion, leading to increased user engagement and brand loyalty.
• Streamlined Marketing: The marketing team gained the ability to run targeted email campaigns with deep links for efficient product promotion.