As part of my degree, I had to create a final year project. My intent is not to go into the details of the project from a University level, but more from a development point of view.
My project was to take a problem I had experienced from several of my employers clients, during my placement year and try to create a solution for these problems. This problem to draw a line under the why… Many young companies who start to sell there products online through eCommerce stores found that marketing their products balanced with a minimal budget often did not result in a good return on investment (ROI) Whether this be a problem with education on the effective management of any given Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. Or simply miss understanding their own clientele.
I proposed to create a solution that would not replace their existing eCommerce website but simply compliment or enhance their existing solution. My project was based around a sole business but my application was built to be as generic as possible in order to be used by any given business or company.
The application admin area offers the following
Create navigation structure for products.
Create/Amend/Delete products.
Review/Administer/Complete orders.
Review store and Facebook specific analytic’s
The application front end offers the following
Navigate through all the products.
Add products to basket.
remove products/adjust product quantity in basket.
Checkout and purchase products.
I wanted to keep the admin area relatively easy to manage with enough graphical representation for people to be able to glance and intuitively know their every move. On that same note I also wanted any user to understand or to be able to seek in the information they required from the any screen they may happen to be viewing. You can see from the following image how I tried to achieve this.
What gives this application it’s marketing title is the way in which it provides relative information in an easy to use and understandable way. This aspect is two fold. The first part provides the business with what they would expect from any eCommerce platform such as stock managment, gross takings by month/year, top selling products etc etc. The application makes good use of the Facebook API. It is able to give the business real time statistics based on a user who spcifically uses the application giving such stats as
- Gender
- Relationship Status
- Location
- Age
These kinds of statistics will give the business the kind of demographic information they may already know, many new companies I find fall into the category of thinking they know! When they see the information it usually raises a few eyebrows! Using this information the application also presents the same demographic information but specifically for users who have bought products from the application. This will give the business a much better understanding of their client base enabling them to market their products more efficiently and put PPC campaigns to better use.
The front end of the application is simple in its form as professes to only provide the basic of functions that an ecommerce store can provide. As stated previously a user of the application can browse the products, add them to basket and modify their basket once there. I have since added the ability to provide voucher codes for the user to enter upon checkout giving them either money off or a given percentage off the total basket value. This gives the business a way to give their customers an incentive to use their application and buy there products.
I hope to be able to provide a more detailed post soon, hopefully give you some idea behind the scene’s and how the application was coded. I aim to specifically provide information on creating a Facebook application.