An e-shop in 11 language localizations, connected to both the warehouse and ERP systems

Calibra, a Czech maker of dog and cat food, used to run an online catalog that only showcased products — you couldn't actually order from it. We were tasked with building a new e-shop, and it was a real challenge. For example, we had to figure out how to technically handle product sorting without classic product categories. On top of that, the e-shop needed to be built in 11 language localizations and connected to both the internal warehouse system and the ERP.

Calibra used to run online product catalogs in more than 20 language localizations. These were simple websites built on WordPress that only showcased products — you couldn't order from them.

But the growth of the e-commerce market pushed the brand to replace its online catalogs with full-fledged e-shops.

Plenty of pet food retailers already have e-shops, and we also wanted to make shopping easier for customers, since until then they'd had to call or order by email. We chose to work with Superkoders mainly because we'd already worked with them on a veterinary app before, and the collaboration went well.

The design for the new e-shop was prepared for us by the advertising agency Ogilvy, and we helped put together the technical brief.

As part of preparing the technical specification, we then consulted with both Ogilvy and Calibra on a few adjustments that helped speed up and simplify the e-shop.

Along with the design, clients usually hand us a functional specification that describes how the e-shop should work — for example, where the products on the homepage should come from, or what payment and shipping options the e-shop will offer. From there, we figure out the best way to solve it technically.

Once the specification was finished, we got started on development. We build our e-shops on the Nette framework, always starting from a pre-built CMS core that we then customize to fit the project.

The e-shop development itself was unusual in a number of ways. The Calibra e-shop, for instance, has no classic product categories, so we had to figure out how to technically handle filtering and tagging in a way that felt good for users while not hurting the site's SEO potential.

Our pre-built core is ideal for most e-shop solutions. It already has plenty of functionality solved, so we don't have to build everything from scratch, which saves the client both time and money. At the same time, it still lets us customize anything to fit the client's needs.

Another challenge was the technical connection between the e-shop and the internal ADAMIT warehouse system, as well as the connection to the ERP system.

Connecting an e-shop to internal systems a company built in-house is always fairly specific work, since you don't know those systems and have never built that kind of integration before. Even so, we managed to get everything up and running in a reasonable amount of time.

Connecting to the accounting system turned out to be more time-consuming and technically demanding than we originally expected, but we had great support from Superkoders throughout. They couldn't have done more for us.

We built the Calibra e-shop in 11 language localizations, with each language version easy to customize for its specific country. Once a foreign version of the e-shop is ready, Calibra can launch it themselves, literally with one click. They manage every language version from a single content management system.

We see huge added value in that — thanks to this collaboration, we effectively got 11 e-shops that we can launch in other countries either immediately or in a very short time. On top of that, we're not limited by a template, and we can come up with any custom feature we want for each language version separately.”

In the coming months and years, we'll keep adapting and launching further language versions for Calibra as needed, and continue our long-term collaboration on developing all of their e-shops.