A large luxury lighting client wanted to grow their e-commerce footprint by adding their 2,000 product catalog to numerous online retailers. Their goal was to onboard as many retailers as possible within only a 4-month span. The major retailers included Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wayfair. Each of these retailers had custom “portals” to enter and upload product data to be displayed on their respective websites. In addition, each retailer had numerous restrictions and guidelines for what time of media, such as photos, videos, and 3D models, that their particular platform supported.

Automation was the key to the quick onboarding of the large number of products required. Due to existing product data and media being inconsistent and unorganized, the first step was to automate the standardization of all product-related information for the full catalog. This was accomplished with a series of data scripts that ingested existing data and modified it to better suit e-commerce needs.

One of the biggest challenges was the inconsistent media provided for the product catalog. Image issues included varying-sized images, poor image quality, inconsistent filenames, and missing images. Automated scripts helped resize and generate new images from existing files to help meet the standard required images for each e-commerce platform. In addition, we leveraged AI to help increase older images of lesser quality to ensure all images uploaded were of the best quality possible.

In addition to product data and images, we also automated the batch translation of all product specification PDFs to ensure platform compliance for various languages were met. We accomplished this by using Google’s batch document translation services to bulk upload, translate, and modify over 4,000 PDFs. Our automation helped keep the cost of the total translation of files to only $75.

Over a three-month period, all of the client’s assets, data, and specification files were standardized and tweaked to best practice e-commerce standards. All 3 major e-commerce partners were fully updated with content and products in the projected 4-month period, allowing the client to hit their quarterly goals.

After uploading the catalog to all e-commerce platforms, the client saw on average a 25% increase in e-commerce sales. The increase in sales for Home Depot saw the largest increase, growing to 75% by the end of the year.

A retail chain with over 10 stores spread across the West Coast needed a full POS and inventory system replacement after their existing POS/Inventory software was discontinued. The biggest issue they were facing was the transition needed to be completed as seamlessly as possible due to their stores operating 24/7 at nearly all locations. In addition, this change would require a new credit card processor and terminal provider as the old POS system’s payment terminals would not be compatible with any other POS software currently on the market due to the original hardware’s age.

Our first steps in the project were laying out the current POS/Inventory software being used by the client so we understood the needs and potential wants for the new system. We started to research and set up discovery calls with all the major POS systems currently on the market, coordinating with the client’s operations team to ensure everyone understood the pros and cons of each new system.

While we were researching new solutions, we also began a mass data cleanup and preparation to migrate the current data to a new system. This data included: 5 years of receipts for all 10 stores, all existing product information (pricing, specs, notes, etc.), inventory status, and all employee and operation users’ credentials. We used a mixture of data automation and manual data cleanup via scripts to prepare for the migration.

After researching all available new systems, we advised the client on the top 2 solutions currently available, and after a short discussion period, they selected a new system. The new system bundled a POS with both warehouse management software and inventory control software into a single package. Once the new system was selected, we began talking to credit card processors and banks on the clients’ behalf to ensure new payment hardware would be compatible with the new system.

After two months of planning and discussions with the various team leaders, we aligned all the data, systems, and new hardware for the migration. Over the course of two days, we prepared all the brick-and-mortar stores to be ready to switch to the new system on launch day. This included installing the new payment terminals, provisioning them with proper software, and updating any Windows desktops to the maximum supported resources. Once the stores were prepared, we started to migrate the data to the new system in yearly batches. We saved the final inventory imports to the new system for the day of launch to ensure the latest inventory data would be available in the new system.

After spending two days on the ground with the client at their various stores, we finished the migration. Due to our extensive pre-launch planning, multiple training sessions offered to the staff, and hands-on customization of the final solution through custom-built software, the client was able to complete the migration with minimal issues. Each store continued to operate and take payments without any hiccup, and inventory stayed accurate throughout the system transition.

After launch, the client continues to use the new system on a daily basis, with minor improvements being made thanks to the new software’s ability to be expanded and customized. In addition, the reduction in older payment terminals helped reduce slow transaction times, reducing errors and double chargers to customers almost 75%.