Expanding into Online Sales with New Technology

The Need

Runnin' Red wanted to start selling shipping labels online. They are positioned uniquely in the market where they can offer steep discounts on shipping rates from Canada to the USA. They wanted to provide users an online self-serve option to purchase shipping labels. A customer could then drop off their parcel at Runnin' Red's warehouse and benefit from faster and less expensive shipping rates than what local carriers could provide.

The Project

Runnin' Red wanted to create a new offering where customers could purchase shipping labels directly on their website. To keep costs low, they wanted to ensure this was an entirely self-service feature for customers. Their existing website did not contain any e-commerce functionality. Roadmap made technology recommendations, then carried out the implementation to allow users to generate quotes online and purchase the shipping labels. Roadmap was responsible for the entire execution of the project including:

• Choosing a platform for generating shipping rates from various carriers
• Connecting their existing website to the rate-generating service via APIs
• Recommending and implementing a payment gateway so customers could purchase the labels online
• Writing unit and feature tests for their custom code-base to ensure the stability of their platform as their features grow
• Creating a custom Shopify app that allowed merchants to show Runnin' Red's shipping rates at checkout
• Create a manifest and packing slips required for moving goods over the border
• Create a public-facing landing page for the promotion of the new service.

The Challenge

These were the challenges within this project:

• Connecting Runnin' Red's website to four different APIs and managing those connections
• Ensuring the code-base and existing features of the website remained stable as more functionality was added
• Integrating into a third-party payment provider
• Navigating the complexities of Shopify's APIs

The Solution

Using our collective capabilities around UX/UI and custom web development, we were able to deliver a full self-service solution. We did this while integrating it into their existing website. We also integrated into an existing admin dashboard to provide reporting and aid in any customer service issues that may arise. This dashboard also offered tools for the Runnin' Red staff in order to make back-office tasks much more manageable, such as creating eManifests and packing slips.

Integrations

We were able to bring several systems together to provide a seamless customer experience:

• Shippo provided labels and rates in a unified API from several carriers
• Stripe provided the payment integration so customers could pay online via credit card
• We used Shopify's CarrierService API to present rates to customers at checkout time
• Postmark provided reliable email deliverability for customer emails

The Results

• Runnin' Red saw immediate adoption from their client base
• Customers saw huge savings when shipping items from Canada to the USA
• Runnin' Red developed a new revenue stream via their website
• News of the service spread fast and a major newspaper did a feature article on them