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N-iX > Case Studies > Software Development Partnership with PrettyLittleThing: Enhancing E-commerce Capabilities
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Software Development Partnership with PrettyLittleThing: Enhancing E-commerce Capabilities

Technology Category
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases
Applicable Industries
  • Apparel
  • E-Commerce
Applicable Functions
  • Procurement
  • Product Research & Development
Use Cases
  • Experimentation Automation
  • Inventory Management
Services
  • System Integration
  • Testing & Certification
The Challenge

PrettyLittleThing, a rapidly growing UK-based fashion retailer, faced the challenge of expanding its software development capabilities to keep up with its business growth. The company needed a strategic tech partner who could assemble a team of dedicated software engineers with experience in developing e-commerce solutions and high load systems. The primary goals were to extend the in-house team with strong software engineers experienced in PHP, various JavaScript frameworks, AWS, and other technologies; automate the process of product creation on the client’s e-commerce website that has over 30,000 items; and speed up the software development process. The challenges included establishing effective communication and alignment among different distributed teams and developing functionality that helps manage thousands of products easily.

About The Customer

PrettyLittleThing is a UK-based fashion retailer that offers seasonal outfits designed exclusively for women. The company is part of the Boohoo Group and has been named one of the top three fastest-growing fashion companies by Hitwise. Founded in 2012, PrettyLittleThing has rapidly expanded into new markets, becoming one of the leading fashion retailers in the UK. The company has a vast e-commerce website with over 30,000 items and a growing customer base. To meet the needs of their customers and scale their business, PrettyLittleThing needed to expand its development capabilities and automate some processes.

The Solution

N-iX, a software development company, partnered with PrettyLittleThing to speed up the software development process and build a secure software product leveraging the latest technologies. The IT specialists at N-iX formed two different teams, including software engineers experienced with PHP and JavaScript, a team lead, a manual QA specialist, and a project manager. They worked on the back-end of the website, developing custom functionality for Akeneo, a product information management system, and working on shipment, order return, and re-order functionality implemented with the help of AWS Lambda. N-iX developers created functionality that allowed uploading Excel sheets to Akeneo, applying the ETL process for processing data, and automatically creating product models. They also developed custom functionality that ensured the transmission of this data further to Amazon SQS, where other services could access this information. Additionally, they built a new index in Elastic Search, a NoSQL database which facilitates the search of products, and worked on building lambda functions on AWS with Node.js.

Operational Impact

  • The partnership between N-iX and PrettyLittleThing resulted in a solution that automated the creation of products with different attributes on their e-commerce website. This was critical for a fast-growing fashion retailer with over 30,000 items on its platform, as it allowed them to add new products quickly and easily. N-iX helped PrettyLittleThing facilitate the management of products and better serve their customers. Additionally, N-iX contributed to the development of the AWS Lambda-based cloud solution, ensuring a stable and secure cloud environment. The effective communication established contributed to the success of the cooperation, with improved transparency into all transactions and readiness to provide more customers with better service.

Quantitative Benefit

  • Speeded up the software development process

  • Automated the process of product creation on the e-commerce website

  • Built a secure software product leveraging the latest technologies

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