The total ecommerce sales in 2020 summed up around $4 billion. With the pandemic, there was multiplication in online shopping. Convenience, accessibility, and price differences are the major reasons behind it. Today, e-commerce is an inevitable part of an average consumer’s lifestyle. 

Building an eCommerce business is competitive. There are hundreds of shops already serving the target audience. How do you differentiate yourself? User Experience plays a significant role in the success of every online shopping website. Any marketplace is as useful as its friendliness towards the users.

There are multiple platforms to build an ecommerce website. However, Spree Commerce development services are highly popular for developing marketplace websites. Written in Ruby on Rails, Spree provides enhancing features and effective support to ecommerce businesses. 

Spree Commerce Development pros and cons

Spree has over 1 million users today. There are over 20,000 successful Spree Commerce websites. More and more companies opt for this open-source platform to build their marketplace. It offers flexibility and diverse customization capabilities – making it much better than the drag-and-drop websites builder with pre-designed templates. It can build any kind of app – from cannabis marketplace platform to apparel stores.

This article will majorly focus on why Ruby on Rails development services for Spree Commerce are perfect for building ecommerce marketplace websites. We will highlight the features and why most companies prefer to use the platform. We will also provide a case study in Spree Commerce for a marketplace app built by BoTree Technologies.

Checkout Why Spree Commerce is perfect for your online eCommerce Store

Features of Spree Commerce

Spree is a heavily customizable platform. The primary aim of Spree Commerce is to achieve a successful customer experience. The ecommerce platform offers rich functionalities, enabling you to build a store with features of stores like Amazon and Walmart.

Here’s what Spree is known for – 

  • Experience Personalization
    Spree allows businesses to personalize their customer experience. You can offer product recommendations, showcase products based on relevance, and create wishlists.
  • Product personalization
    Ecommerce businesses can enable gift packing options, name or initials, and photos on products if they have customized products for their target audience.
  • Payment methods
    There is multiple payment method support in Spree Commerce. You can integrate country-specific payment methods and have the option for installments as well.
  • Social marketing
    Customers can leave reviews on websites, rate the products, and you can provide referral discounts as well. There’s also live chat feature support.
  • Site management
    You get a dashboard for shipping & inventory management, product management, and customer support for centralizing all your ecommerce activities in a single place.

Why do companies prefer Spree Commerce?

Spree Commerce uses Ruby on Rails. It reduces the website development time by 25% to 40%. On top of that, Rails is affordable and easy to use. With third-party integrations, a software development company can combine Rails and Spree to make the perfect solution for ecommerce websites. Here is why most companies prefer Spree development – 

  1. Highly customizable
    Spree is probably one of the most customizable ecommerce marketplace platforms. The large Ruby on Rails community continuously creates third-party extensions that multiply the customization capabilities of Spree.
  2. Scalability
    Ruby on Rails and Spree enable the development of scalable eCommerce web application. Spree stores can hold up to 30,000 products. The servers can also handle massive amounts of traffic without any delay or lag. The response time for each user query remains low.
  3. Swift processing
    Order processing becomes simple with Spree Commerce development. You get a system for quick order management and monitoring your payments. The dashboard provides functionality to better manage your ecommerce website.
  4. Affordable
    Building ecommerce sites is budget-friendly with Spree Commerce. The platform is open-source and doesn’t require any regular licensing fee. You can hire Ruby on Rails developers who can rapidly develop your ecommerce store.
  5. Mobile-friendly
    One of the biggest advantages of Spree development is mobile-friendliness. You can customize and optimize your store for different mobile devices and operating systems. The design elements stay consistent without leading to any delay in the response time.

Spree Commerce: Proven Case Study

BoTree Technologies has been using Spree Commerce in its technology stack for years. We have built some of the leading stores through the platform. eCommerce marketplace is one prime example of our capabilities in Spree Commerce Development. 

Today, we are going to talk about a Cannabis marketplace app that requires features and customization for a unique business model. SayHi quickly became a popular marketplace through the integrations of Spree Commerce.

Introduction to the Case Study: Cannabis Marketplace App

Checkout Cannabis Marketplace App Case Study

Cannabis marketplace website, modernizing the way that people consume and appreciate cannabis. It is a marketplace for discovering cannabis-based products. The products focus on adding design and functionality for customers who care about style. Cannabis marketplace application that aims to change the perception of cannabis and make it more approachable with engaging products.

We built an online marketplace using the following technologies – 

  • Spree Commerce
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Jquery
  • PostgreSQL
  • Amazon AWS

Let’s have a look at the challenges and solutions in detail.

Challenges

We came across multiple challenges while creating the platform. Cannabis didn’t have a good reputation, but that was gradually changing. Connecting buyers and suppliers of the products was a challenge. The business problem was unique and required a lot of careful attention. 

  • Complex image processing was a challenge. Each product had several images that we had to upload. Images should also not hinder the page response time.
  • The client also required customized tracking of all user interactions. The focus was to use analytics and understand customer behavior.
  • Interactive dashboards were necessary for managing the customers. The type of industry SayHi was in would require expertise to manage different products, suppliers, and customers.
  • The web pages couldn’t be slow. Customer trust was of prime concern for such an industry. Any lag or poor user experience would quickly deteriorate the trust.

Apart from this, there were also the requirements of infinite scrolling, wishlist creation, on-demand image processing, and multiple other aspects. The entire web development process would offer challenges unknown to the Ruby on Rails developers. 

Solution

We developed a fully-functional and customized ecommerce marketplace for cannabis-based products using the Spree e-commerce platform. Suppliers could easily manage and sell their products on the website. The solution was not easy to build. There was a lot of planning involved in the initial stages to bring the cannabis marketplace web application to fruition. 

Our solution involved the following – 

  • Multifaceted & full-text search
  • Wishlist creation 
  • Product management
  • Infinite scrolling
  • Mobile-friendly
  • Responsive web pages
  • Custom tracking solution
  • Reporting & analytics
  • Image processing
  • Device-specific loading
  • Payment gateway integration

We combine Rails and Jquery to deliver a world-class user experience for the Cannabis marketplace website. Every product was curated and showcased in a structured format. The client could easily manage the store without much hassle through the centralized dashboard.

Read more: Spree Commerce vs. Shopify Comparison: Which eCommerce Platforms to Choose in 2021

Conclusion

SayHi was just one of the examples that we built. The cannabis marketplace application uses a massive amount of customizations from Spree Commerce. It delivers a great user experience, making cannabis-based products a reality for design and functionality enthusiasts.

BoTree Technologies is a trusted Spree Commerce development company with expertise of 10+ years in building ecommerce stores. Connect with our Spree Commerce developers today to get a free consultation for your online shopping website.