AMBIO-N: Multi-vendor marketplace for Circular Sourcing

AMBIO-N is a B2B marketplace for sourcing materials. For now, its fabric and Tableware but they are planning to extend their services. Their main aim is to accelerate the global circular economy by connecting businesses with resources that transform and improve sustainability across the supply chain. This platform is newly launched, and the client wanted to build a modern marketplace to connect the supplier and buyers of sustainably procured material. Buyers can also check which supplier has which certification. They align the buyers with sellers of used or certified sustainably sourced materials for a more responsible supply chain.

Challenges:

The client was already working with a third-party vendor to build their platform using nopCommerce 4.10 but somehow, they were not able to achieve the customization client was looking for. The client wanted to have some gated content based on the access (Guest User, Free User and Paid User), they wanted to tag the products and wanted to create a utility to connect specific certificates to specific suppliers.

So, they approached Tmotions with predefined and complex requirements which were not achieved by their previous vendor. When we verified the code, we realized that their previous vendor had not done any customization and it was only default nopCommerce.

Solution:

The client opted NopCommerce as a choice of platform for this project due to its rich built-in functionality, multi-vendor, promotions, featured list, and other sales and marketing tools & because of its completeness and extensibility.

• The client’s main requirement was to build a B2B marketplace for sustainable products with certifications. We started by creating a custom design from scratch as per client’s requirement for a smooth and intuitive user experience followed by implementing the complex features. We achieved the design request exactly as the client wanted.
• We worked on the end to end Product Taxonomy for the client and also uploaded 1000s of the products with the automated processes that nopCommerce provides.
• Using nopCommerce capabilities we developed a platform that offers gated content based on the access. The Guest user can only view the items and not purchase, while the free member can view and purchase but can’t access the supplier and certificate directory. Paid members on the other hand will have the full access.

Creating the utility to connect the Supplier & the certification directory was the main requirement.

• We have built the functionality for suppliers & certification directory by customizing nopCommerce capabilities. Each supplier can select the certificates from the certification listing, which is a vital & reliability factor. Both the directories are interconnected & users can check the details of suppliers like ESG indent, Circular indent which showcases its reusability & how the fabric which they are selling is impacting the environment.
• The other feature we built using nopCommerce is assigning badges to each product, which tells it’s reusable & environment friendly.

• To get access to the directory for both Suppliers & buyers who may wish to see the list of suppliers listed in the marketplace & their certifications has to buy an Annual plan.
• We have integrated mail chimp to send bulk emails & XERO plugin for accounting related needs. Any product purchased on this platform goes on directly to XERO tools mainly to take care for accounting purposes.
• They have a specific strategic program, wherein the user has to fill a form to become an AMBIO-N strategic partner and the logos of the strategic partners are shown on the home page.

Result

The site was launched successfully in Sep 2020. It provides suppliers with all the advantages of the marketplace along with the ability to showcase their products and services.

The products are reviewed and qualified via the Certification process before publishing to the AMBIO-N marketplace helping gain more credibility among buyers.

The Online purchased data gets synced with the XERO tool for accounting purposes & MailChimp plugins allow the vendors to send emails to their clients in bulk.

Tmotions delivers digital transformation and technology services from ideation to execution, enabling our global customers to challenge the competition. Tmotions takes an agile and collaborative approach to build customized solutions across the digital value chain.