A UK company renowned internationally for the development of cutting-edge audio technology desperately needed to overhaul their existing web site infrastructure and create a cohesive online identity.
Their current website was no longer fit for purpose, creaking under the strain of growth. Adding new brand inititaives, maintaining existing ones, extracting sales data and integrating external APIs took inordinate amount of time and effort.
One of the key factors of this client's success is the level of craftsmanship and effortless style that goes into their sound system construction.
They have developed many strong brands creating multiple revenue streams from several different countries.
At a high level, the requirements for the new web platform were:
- A multisite platform.
- Easy to create new sites for future brands.
- Content shared across the brands, but with brand specific fields.
- Separate user registration for each brand.
- Different currencies for each brand.
- Different language for each brand.
One codebase, One database, Multiple Websites.
To determine the best solution, I did a full review of all the available options, including creating a bespoke Content Management System.
Drupal's robust flexibility stands head and shoulders above rival platforms making it the ideal platform for this project. Allowing multiple sites to be driven from one database and codebase.
Content can be shared between domains, the code is easily maintainable and only a single database is required.
Ubercart was used to provide the ecommerce functionality. Although Ubercart provides a full ecommerce solution, a significant amount of custom code was required to provide the exact functionality. This included:
- Different prices per domain.
- Multiple cost currencies.
- Multiple price currencies.
- Different credit card options and prices per domain.
A host of other features were also developed through a combination of existing modules and custom code. These include an affiliate system, charting and reporting functionality and an enhanced backend.
The website design layer used the Zen base theme for its core. This came into its own in the multisite setup as it allowed me to develop one sub theme per domain and reuse a large amount of the code, reducing the websites footprint.
After several months of development, the platform was delivered to the client's chosen digital agency for content loading, UAT and final tweaking. The client now has a powerful and scalable platform for growth. New brands, currencies and languages can easily be added allowing the client execute their strategy of launching in new territories, building new brands and providing white labeled solutions to third parties.Contact Me To Learn More
