Fashion marketplace that protects our planet
Mobile app development
https://esooko.com
Retail, E-Commerce, Fashion, Environment protection
Microservice architecture, Swift, Symfony, AWS, Stripe
July 2019
United Kingdom
November 2020 — January 2022
6
Executive summary
The Impressit team took responsibility for building an entirely new marketplace platform for a fast-growing fashion startup ESOOKO and migrating their existing databases to the new system.
With modern technologies, native solutions, microservice architecture, and a well-defined development roadmap, we managed to deliver all results when expected and according to the business requirements.
Client background
Angus Morton and Jacob Simons are two friends who love fashion but are also cautious of the damage that the industry is causing to our planet. They were excited about the idea of creating a unique digital product that promotes second-hand fashion among younger people, thus reducing the need for new clothing production. Yet, they had a bigger picture in their minds about not only limiting the damage to our planet but contributing to its recovery.
That's why in summer 2019, Angus and Jacob co-founded ESOOKO - an online marketplace where users can both buy and sell clothes whilst contributing to environmental initiatives like coral restoration, tree planting and kids education at the same time.
Objectives
After successful concept validation via a web-based marketplace and extremely positive market response, ESOOKO team decided to implement their out-of-the-box solution into IOS and Android applications. The market is competitive, deadlines were tight and the Impressit team accepted the opportunity to build the first iOS platform and provide ESOOKO users with another convenient way to help our environment.
Why Impressit?
Due to the lack of tech experience and rapid growth, ESOOKO were looking for a high-quality tech partner. Someone they can trust and who can take full responsibility for the whole development process. We were serious about working on this project, that's why even before the proposal we did a detailed market and users research and created a quick prototype to prove our expertise. During the presentation, we nailed all the questions and were capable of ticking all the checkboxes. As a result, the Impressit team was chosen as a future tech vendor.
Development process
The project kicked off with a planning phase during which our Software Architect created a detailed roadmap, set up the environment, services and architecture and our Product Manager defined the main requirements and user journey. After the first month, two of our senior iOS engineers and one UX/UI Designer joined the team. Proper planning allowed them to move efficiently on the roadmap with a dynamic pace of development. As a result, experienced QA and another Senior IOS developer joined the ESOOKO project down the road.
Our team builds mobile applications from scratch and achieves all the milestones and development goals. We consult stakeholders on future improvements, brainstorm innovative ideas and the ways to implement them, to bring even more value to the already valuable product. Backend development is finished and working on the front end of the application. Right now we are transferring data from the existing website to the brand new app and finishing transactions features.
Challenges
From the very beginning, ESOOKO wanted to create a system that will handle 50 000 users right away, so it was decided to work with microservices. We can increase the number of microservices depending on the user behaviour and thus regulate the load on the system as a whole. Moreover, the system should be scalable, that's why this architecture is a great solution.
Without any doubt, another challenge is Transactions features. It is quite important to implement them properly and answer key questions: where do the transactions come from, how is it processed and how does the seller get the income?
Firstly we considered going with PayPal, but since they changed the whole business model and don't accept any new companies, the final decision was to go with Stripe. PayPal and Stripe both have similar pricing (2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction) and support invoicing and recurring payments, but Stripe offers a deeper feature set because of great developer tools and a big reputation inside the software development community. The challenge was that Stripe supports only 35 countries and each country has its legal boundaries, which means not everyone can become a seller. Long story short, you have to go through a lot of live chatting with Stripe representatives and discuss every specification for each country, to make sure that it is possible for residents of that country to become a seller.
Value delivered
In 2021, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online. In the UK only, there are over 40 million e-commerce apparel users and internet sales accounted for over 35 per cent of all apparel sales.
The Impressit team is building mobile applications that are expected to provide 50 000 new ESOOKO users immediately with a fast and convenient platform to sell and buy clothes whilst protecting our planet.
We took full responsibility for product strategy and development, thus letting its co-founders focus on building their business. With the use of Agile workflow and proper planning, we move efficiently on the development roadmap. As a result, most of the required features are done and the client's requirements are met. Looking forward to the ongoing development of the Android version of the app.
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