A new online store and the commerce behind it, from strategy to launch readiness

The situation

A distributor set out to open a new online store for the businesses that buy from it. A business store has rules a general store does not: what each buyer sees, what each buyer may order, and what staff check before an order goes out. Each rule is a decision someone has to make, and behind the pages sits the machinery that keeps every order right.

What Sandbucket does

• Strategy. Who the store serves first, why they would buy there, how it fits the distributor's other channels, and the business questions to settle before launch, written up for the client's leadership with options rather than one answer.
• Design. The buyer's and the staff's journeys, and the rules for what each buyer sees and may order. Each rule is researched against comparable stores, written up with options, drawn as simple screens, and decided with the client's team. The store's look comes as themes built from one set of components.
• A working store. The buyer's and the staff's paths are built and walked end to end, and tested automatically before every release, with release notes the team can read.
• The commerce infrastructure behind it. Products and prices, buyer accounts and what each may see and order, checks on an order before it is released, payments and tax set up in test mode, staff roles and reporting. Each business rule is a setting rather than custom code, and every change is tested before it is applied.
• One list. Open questions, rulings and next steps sit in a single tracker that the client's team and Sandbucket share.

Against the four tests

• Ready to compete. The strategy says who the store is for and why they would choose it, before any page is drawn.
• Ready to sell. A buyer finds a product, sees their own price and what they may order, and orders without calling.
• Ready to run. Staff check and release orders in the same system the buyer ordered in, so no order is retyped.
• Ready to scale. New products, buyers and rules are added as settings, not rebuilt, and automatic tests keep each change from breaking the last.

Not shown until the store is released: its name, screens and features, its launch timing, the businesses involved and the technology behind it. No results.

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