Challenge

• Perform business analysis of the customer's idea to determine the project concept and needs of potential users
• Design the website architecture with multi-storefront functionality and all necessary integrations
• Develop a project roadmap with time framework and cost breakdown
• Create a demo version of the marketplace to present it to investors

Implementing the Project

How website architecture design helped our client receive a grant for marketplace development

In 2022, Simtech Development received a request from a startup founder. With the
support of investors, they planned to launch a marketplace based on the CS-Cart
platform with numerous custom modifications. To pitch the project successfully
a demo version was required. We offered a combo of business analysis, architecture
design, and home page customization. Spoiler: after 3 months, the client received
a grant for developing a trading platform.

Let's go back to November 2022, when a young, ambitious girl addressed Simtech
Development to set up a store and develop a custom solution tailored to the beauty
industry. She said she had worked in the beauty industry for many years. At some point,
she decided to unite the participants of this industry into a digital ecosystem where they
could get valuable and in-demand services.

The project was potentially attractive to investors, but they wanted to ensure it was unique and appealing to users. The customer was looking for ways to prove this, and we suggested the following:

Conduct business analysis
- Make a document that will immerse investors in the essence of the project.
Design store architecture
- Explain the future structure of the website and its functional content,
as well as justify the timing of MVP development and its cost.
Set up the store home page
- Show financial partners what the application will look like when it’s ready.

Our cooperation took place according to this scenario. But let s break everything down in order.

Business analysis of the project

In Simtech Development, business analysis involves studying business tasks of our
customer and suggesting tools and technologies to implement the idea into reality.
While working with the client, we prepared a document that reflected:

• Business concept and website goal
• Classification of goods and services
• Description of target audience and their needs
• The optimal business model for the store
• Monetization methods

Let's look at each point in detail.

The goal of the beauty marketplace
Unite all participants in the beauty industry into a single ecosystem in an up-to-date beauty marketplace format.

Goods or services on the site
Users will be able to purchase:

Cosmetics
- Makeup and care products for face, body, hair; consumables for beauty specialists.
Training
- Online and offline master classes, courses, lessons, and webinars. At the same time,
both national and regional event posters should be available on the website with the
opportunity to reserve a place or buy a ticket.
Beauty services
- Book a service, choose a specialist, and the time of your visit directly on the website.

Target audience
There are 2 large target groups.

1. Regular customers, mainly women and girls who care about their appearance.
2. Representatives of the beauty business:

• Nail artists, makeup artists, tattoo artists, SPA and other services
• Owners of beauty studios
• Manufacturers of professional cosmetics
• Regional distributors of professional cosmetics
• Experts organizing professional training

Target audience needs

Some user categories will be able to simultaneously play the role of both a buyer
and a seller on the site.

Business model

The optimal model for a beauty marketplace is B2B2C or business-to-business-toconsumer.
According to this model, sellers can offer their products and services to both
individuals and legal entities. For example, a dealer sells shampoo at retail to end
consumers and wholesale to masters and beauty studios.

At the same time, B2B transactions are not always wholesale. For example, a master can
sell the “Hardware Manicure” course to a private individual or maybe to a SPA salon, the
owner of which will purchase it to improve the skills of their employees.

How does the marketplace make money?

Together with the client, we determined that the following monetization models
would be optimal for the business:

• Subscription to one of the paid plans for sellers of beauty services
• Transaction fees from the sale of goods and training programs
• Advertising promotion of goods and services of sellers

What did our client achieve with the help of business analysis?
Deep understanding of how processes should work. The client adjusted
the concept and business strategy based on the data we discovered.

Store architecture design

To help the client create an ecosystem for beauty industry participants to interact
and receive quality products and services, the Simtech Development team had to work
on various aspects of the site:

• Multi-storefront structure
• Intuitive user journey
• Marketplace functionality and differentiation of features by user roles
• Custom integrations and improvements

Multi-storefront structure

The beauty marketplace will have general and regional storefronts, where users
primarily interact with local suppliers of goods and services. According to the site logic,
a distributor can choose only one region to distribute goods, and a manufacturer
can only work in a location without distributors.

The multi-storefront feature was crucial for two more reasons. Firstly, each seller had
their own mini-shop with a separate storefront. Secondly, different storefronts were
provided for regular customers and professionals: they differed according to the price,
minimum quantity of goods for an order, list of services, and delivery conditions.

The multi-storefront function is available in CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Ultimate edition. It’s
also possible to launch a mobile app, which will become an additional channel for sales
and communication with clients.

Intuitive user journey

Despite the diversity of target groups, their user journey will look the same.
You can follow it in the picture below.

Visualizing potential buyers' user journey is critical when developing an eCommerce
project. It helps to:

• Analyze and predict user behavior on the site
• Make their experience of interacting with the trading platform pleasant and intuitive
• Build effective marketing and business strategies

Marketplace features

Our developers have defined the following roles and functionality
for the beauty marketplace.

Integrations and improvements
- The beauty marketplace should offer plenty of custom IT solutions.
Here are some of them:

Algorithm to determine user's location
- Geolocation will be determined by IP address using the Google service.
When a customer visits the storefront for the first time, they will see a pop-up
window asking "Is this your location?" and answer options "Yes" and "No".
If the answer is “No”, they can select the desired region and be redirected
to the appropriate storefront.

Integration with a booking service
- It is impossible to buy beauty services on the site. But you can familiarize yourself
with the services, view the profiles of the masters, sort them by categories and other
filters, and then book a visit. To implement this solution, we proposed integrating
the marketplace with an online booking service.

Integration with an online learning platform
- Specialists selling their video training programs can upload them on the learning
platform. We integrate it with CS-Cart so that after purchasing a master class, lecture,
or lesson, the buyer can watch videos without leaving the marketplace.

Integration with local payment service
- The client wanted the sellers’ settlements with the marketplace owner to be quick
and transparent. One option for solving this issue was integration with a local
payment service, which provides the setup of recurring payments (autopayments)
and splitting of funds.

Automatic payments will be relevant for beauty service providers who
will subscribe to one of the marketplace paid plans. Automatic debiting
of funds needs to be confirmed every 3 months, which will be a way
to prolong the cooperation of sellers with the trading platform.

As for splitting, the mechanics are relevant for the sale of goods: after making
a purchase, the funds will be automatically divided into the marketplace
fee and the seller’s profit and go to different personal accounts

Make content pages for additional traffic to the site
- We will create additional pages to attract users to the site. These are pages
with vacancies for beauty studios and rental of workspaces/offices, a directory
of bloggers for cooperation, and announcements of beauty events.

Custom Feed Widget module for linking sellers' pages with their accounts on social networks
- The feed is expected to be added to the seller's micro-store. This is a way
to bring creativity to the store, add unique zest, and make it visually attractive.

Creative mechanics to retain users
- The Simtech Development team proposed adding videos in story format
to the main page of the marketplace. Maybe one day it will look like this?

We also suggested that the startup owner hold giveaways more often — customers
love them. It is enough to place a banner with a “Get an online coupon” button
on the main page, distribute numbers to users, and then hold a stream on YouTube
to determine the winners.

Setting up the home page

We deployed the site on hosting, installed and configured the design theme,
and placed content on the main page: logo, blocks, banners, buttons, and menus.

We also built a tree of categories and subcategories (in the “Makeup” group alone,
there were 43 of them!).

Next, we tested the correct display of the store in different browsers for personal
computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets: Chrome, Firefox, Safari for Mac OS,
Safari for iOS, and Edge.

These settings were sufficient for the demo version of the project.
Now, investors could see what the marketplace on the Internet would look like.

Wrapping up

Now, to the most exciting part. The client successfully pitched the project, and the Simtech
Development team will begin its development shortly. What helped the customer convince
investors of the uniqueness of the startup and receive funding? Certainly, passion for the
project, uniqueness of the business idea, lots of preparations, a bright presentation,
and reliance on the expertise of Simtech Development.

Results

• Financial partners received a  comprehensive project description thanks to business analysis.
• The document obtained during the website architecture design provided an understanding of the structure and content of the marketplace, user roles, and functionality.
• Setting up the home page showed what the site would look like on the global network.
• Based on the developers’ assessment, investors were able to see the total cost of launching the project and the implementation timeline.