Yilmaz Feinkost: An ERP Integrated eCommerce Website and Mobile App Development Journey

A brief background on Yilmaz Feinkost

Established in 1994, Yilmaz Feinkost has been a prominent wholesale company in Germany that supplies products such as pickled vegetables, dairy products, spices, dried products, and legumes to its customers. Yilmaz Feinkost approached nopStation with a requirement for a new eCommerce website and mobile app solution to increase the reach of its services across digital platforms.

Challenges

Yilmaz Feinkost wanted a mobile app and a website that would have seamless integration with their existing proprietary ERP system. This presented a major development challenge for the nopStation team as they had to do significant R&D on the existing ERP solution used by Yilmaz Feinkost while trying to come up with a fully compatible ERP integration solution for their nopCommerce website and mobile App.

In addition to data sync with their ERP, Yilmaz Feinkost asked for a list of additional features to be implemented using their ERP system. One of their top-priority requirements is to integrate product price, product category, product pictures, and tier price for each product from their ERP instead of uploading from the nopCommerce admin panel. They wanted the system to fetch order invoices from their ERP rather than using nopCommerce-generated order invoices, which added another level of development challenge for the ERP integration.

Aside from pickup-in-store, Yilmaz Feinkost asked to send the order information to the ERP System using one of their 3 physical stores’ endpoints based on the customer’s location. All of these requirements presented a major development hurdle for team nopStation.

Besides ERP integration support, Yilmaz Feinkost requested customizations to be added to their website including a custom category page, which displays the products under that category. They wanted each product to be sold as a collection that will contain a bulk amount of the product. This presented a significant development challenge for team nopStation as the team had to find an effective and efficient way to handle product management. Yilmaz Feinkost wanted the shopping experience on their app and website to be akin to making bulk purchases at a real supermarket.

Yilmaz Feinkost also requested multi-language support to provide added accessibility for customers. The nopStation team had to add multi-language support for German, English, and Turkish on both the website and mobile App.

Yilmaz Feinkost also requested customizations to be made on the category page so that when customers add products to the cart, they will be able to see the price for individual pieces in the container, the number of items each container holds, and the total cost for the order of any container. This presented the team with a functional and UI/UX design challenge.

Our Solution

After thorough R&D and analysis of Yilmaz Feinkost’s business requirements and existing resources, the nopStation team decided to formulate a development strategy utilizing a plugin-driven development approach with some API development on top of standard nopCommerce for the development process.

Taking Yilmaz Feinkost’s business requirements along with the development and customization work required for the project, nopStation decided to use its class-leading Cookies Bakery theme for nopCommerce which is optimized for food and grocery shops. For the mobile App, nopStation decided to use its Android and iOS Native Mobile App for the nopCommerce public store, as the apps feature lightning-fast performance and class-leading design using native components. The team at nopStation made visual customizations according to Yilmaz Feinkost’s needs as required. The application is hosted on a custom Linux server with a MySQL database.

Image 1.2 Previous category page

Image 1.3 Customized category page with ‘Per pieces price” feature

To enable integration between the mobile app and website with Yilmaz Feinkost’s extensive product catalog and sync various functionalities of the website with their ERP system, team nopStation developed custom API endpoints on top of nopCommerce for them that allowed Yilmaz Feinkost to maintain its regular backend operations like uploading products, prices, categories, and product images from its existing ERP System while updating and displaying the same info on the nopCommerce storefront. This made the product management seamless without having to put in too much admin effort.

To make Admin side operations even more efficient, nopStation developed an ERP sync plugin that made product price, pictures, quantity, order process, and order invoice upload and sync possible from the ERP system to the nopCommerce database.

To ensure efficient inventory management, the team at nopStation decided to develop a system where customers are divided into three groups: DORTMUND, KOELN, and NEUSS based on their location. By sending the order information to one of their 3 physical stores’ end-points in the ERP based on the customer’s locations, each order will be sent to its corresponding store endpoint to the ERP system for processing to ensure more efficient order management.

To develop the custom UI requested for the product details page, team nopStation built a system that fetches the required information like product categories, and prices from the ERP and display them in front of the customers. The team made customizations in product details which allowed us to show the “Per Pieces Price” feature for each product in a more accessible UX for the customer. Customers on the mobile App can add products from the menu expansion, as well, for added convenience. These features combine to create a streamlined and fast shopping experience that’s optimized for quick bulk purchases, much like a real supermarket.

Image 1.4 Native Mobile App customized for Yilmaz Feinkost

Here is a short summary of some of the plugins and customizations that are done by team nopStation for developing the website and mobile app solution for Yilmaz Feinkost:

List of Plugins and Apps used for the Yilmaz Feinkost project:

1. ERP Sync Plugin
2. Admin API Plugin
3. Mobile Web API Plugin
4. Cookies Bakery theme
5. Android and iOS Native Mobile App
6. Picture Zoom Plugin
7. Anywhere Slider Plugin
8. Quick View Plugin
9. Mega Menu Plugin
10. Category Banner Plugin
11. Product Ribbon Plugin
12. OCarousel Plugin
13. Blogs and News Plugin

Results

• Ensured a seamless checkout journey for the customers
• Seamless sync with ERP for more efficient data sync and business management
• Created brand value and digital identity
• Created a fresh & dedicated sales channel on web and mobile platforms

nopStation is a Gold Solution Partner of nopCommerce and an eCommerce wing of Brain Station 23 Ltd., a top-ranking software development company, headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. At nopStation, we design, build and enhance eCommerce solutions on top of the nopCommerce platform for clients of all business sizes. The company has technology partnerships with 12+ leading ISVs including, Microsoft, Google, and AWS. We help our customers build their business online by developing the right eCommerce solution using nopCommerce at a competitive price and reasonable timeline.