The challenge<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\n\u201cOne of our goals for 2020 was to improve the process of our product sample ordering. Before, our users had to reach out to us directly using a web form to get in touch with our sales rep who manually took care of their product sample order. We wanted to avoid any manual work and remove bottlenecks in the fulfillment process by automating it as much as possible.\u201d \u2013 said Jon Shurtliff, 3form VP of Information Technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"3form](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/3-form.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe solution<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
3form decided to hire Spark Solutions at the end of 2019 to bring their vision to life. Since 3form product catalog website was built using Ruby on Rails, it was only natural to use Spree Commerce as their ecommerce platform of choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delivery was conducted in agile 1-week sprints involving a team of designers, backend and frontend developers, quality assurance and project management pros from both organizations. Each sprint was concluded with a show and tell session for all key stakeholders. Feedback received during those sessions and iterative improvements introduced to the platform played a key role in delivering a service that met the client\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MVP phase took 12 weeks from kick-off to production launch. Two separate applications talk to each other using the latest Rails 6 features<\/a> as well as custom API endpoints (GraphQL and REST).<\/p>\n\n\n\nMVP delivery insights:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n- a team of 4 developers, 2 QAs and a Project Manager<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- twelve 1-week sprints with demo session and sprint planning each week<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- ongoing cross-company knowledge sharing and architectural decisions by technical leads from both organizations<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- JIRA and Confluence used to improve asynchronous communication and provide visual cues for both the stakeholders and development team members<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- GitHub to manage the development workflow<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- a shared Slack channel to enable communication<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- dockerized development environments to speed up the dev workflow<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- a custom integration with 3form ERP system <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 3form user database shared by both RoR applications<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
User Experience<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
With the revamped samples purchase flow, users can easily order free samples of any product available for purchase in less than three minutes. All they have to do is go to 3-form.com<\/a>, find a product they love \u2013 such as this beautiful Gild Gold<\/a> \u2013 and place an order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"3form](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/gild-gold.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"3form](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Zrzut-ekranu-2020-04-14-o-14.29.31.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"3form](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/3form.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSample shipping is currently available to the US and Canadian customers. Expedited shipping is available at an additional cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The custom ordering flow was quite easy to implement thanks to Spree Commerce flexibility and built-in product management system:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n- making all products FREE to all customers required\u00a0just\u00a0a simple\u00a0promotion setup\u00a0in the Spree admin panel<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- customizing layouts\u00a0was quick and easy\u00a0thanks to\u00a0the brand new mobile-first customizable\u00a0Spree 4.1\u00a0UX<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Stripe Payments\u00a0configured\u00a0in minutes. Literally. Thanks to direct\u00a0Stripe integration with Spree<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Google Analytics\u00a0Enhanced\u00a0Ecommerce\u00a0integration\u00a0with the\u00a0spree_analytics_trackers\u00a0extension<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/obraz_2024-07-31_132518821-1024x1024.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/obraz_2024-07-31_132527127-1024x1024.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nTech Stack<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\n- Spree Commerce 4.1 with Ruby on Rails 6.0 and the following gems:\n
\n- Spree Gateway<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Spree Analytics Trackers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- React JS<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Sidekiq<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- GraphQL<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Docker<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- AWS<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Systems health monitoring with self-hosted Papertrail, Scout, Sentry<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions:<\/h1>\n\n\n\nSPREE SUCCESS STORY<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Combining the latest Rails 6 features, such as Multiple Databases with Active Record, with a flexible Spree backend, customizable Spree frontend and React components resulted in delivering the desired UX and business process automation in just 12 weeks. Project agile delivery and cross-team collaboration was a fun experience for both teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cDuring the development phase, the Spark team was great to work with! Interacting with the Development and Project management teams on Spark\u2019s end was so easy \u2013 we collaborated by phone weekly, and daily on Slack. It was a perfect partnership and working relationship. Their statement of work was very detailed and followed closely, providing easy to understand timesheets and billing statements. We provided a very tight schedule and they delivered on time and a complete solution.\u201d \u2013 said Jon Shurtliff, 3form VP Information Technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
3form website was a B2B product catalog with a contact form. Then 3form decided to use Spree to embedded a cart and checkout experience to streamline product sample ordering. Spree Commerce was integrated with an ERP to sync the product catalog and allow all 3form customers to use their existing user accounts. The project was delivered within 12 weeks by team augmentation of the 3form in-house dev team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13677,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"cpt_success_str_category":[975],"class_list":["post-10903","cpt_success_str","type-cpt_success_str","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cpt_success_str_category-b2b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str\/10903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cpt_success_str"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cpt_success_str_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str_category?post=10903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cOne of our goals for 2020 was to improve the process of our product sample ordering. Before, our users had to reach out to us directly using a web form to get in touch with our sales rep who manually took care of their product sample order. We wanted to avoid any manual work and remove bottlenecks in the fulfillment process by automating it as much as possible.\u201d \u2013 said Jon Shurtliff, 3form VP of Information Technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n 3form decided to hire Spark Solutions at the end of 2019 to bring their vision to life. Since 3form product catalog website was built using Ruby on Rails, it was only natural to use Spree Commerce as their ecommerce platform of choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delivery was conducted in agile 1-week sprints involving a team of designers, backend and frontend developers, quality assurance and project management pros from both organizations. Each sprint was concluded with a show and tell session for all key stakeholders. Feedback received during those sessions and iterative improvements introduced to the platform played a key role in delivering a service that met the client\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The MVP phase took 12 weeks from kick-off to production launch. Two separate applications talk to each other using the latest Rails 6 features<\/a> as well as custom API endpoints (GraphQL and REST).<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the revamped samples purchase flow, users can easily order free samples of any product available for purchase in less than three minutes. All they have to do is go to 3-form.com<\/a>, find a product they love \u2013 such as this beautiful Gild Gold<\/a> \u2013 and place an order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sample shipping is currently available to the US and Canadian customers. Expedited shipping is available at an additional cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Combining the latest Rails 6 features, such as Multiple Databases with Active Record, with a flexible Spree backend, customizable Spree frontend and React components resulted in delivering the desired UX and business process automation in just 12 weeks. Project agile delivery and cross-team collaboration was a fun experience for both teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDuring the development phase, the Spark team was great to work with! Interacting with the Development and Project management teams on Spark\u2019s end was so easy \u2013 we collaborated by phone weekly, and daily on Slack. It was a perfect partnership and working relationship. Their statement of work was very detailed and followed closely, providing easy to understand timesheets and billing statements. We provided a very tight schedule and they delivered on time and a complete solution.\u201d \u2013 said Jon Shurtliff, 3form VP Information Technology.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3form website was a B2B product catalog with a contact form. Then 3form decided to use Spree to embedded a cart and checkout experience to streamline product sample ordering. Spree Commerce was integrated with an ERP to sync the product catalog and allow all 3form customers to use their existing user accounts. The project was delivered within 12 weeks by team augmentation of the 3form in-house dev team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13677,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"cpt_success_str_category":[975],"class_list":["post-10903","cpt_success_str","type-cpt_success_str","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cpt_success_str_category-b2b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str\/10903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cpt_success_str"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cpt_success_str_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreecommerce.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cpt_success_str_category?post=10903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe solution<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
MVP delivery insights:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
User Experience<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe custom ordering flow was quite easy to implement thanks to Spree Commerce flexibility and built-in product management system:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nTech Stack<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
Conclusions:<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
SPREE SUCCESS STORY<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n