Mia
A dynamic, flexible, feature-packed white label marketplace theme for everyone.
Challenge
Create and maintain a dynamic, flexible, feature-packed white label marketplace theme for everyone.
Vision
- Create and maintain a sleek, but flexible, marketplace theme.
- Add new features by client/market demand.
- Fix bugs as they arise.
Research
In instances such as this, a continuous look at the competitor landscape is mandatory.
What are Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, WooCommerce doing? What do their category pages look like? What features do they have? What do their product pages look like?
Working...
Bootstrap
Bootstrap is "the world's most popular front-end component library". The grid system, and featured useful modules (modal, dropdown, popover) are essential.
Bootstrap's core CSS is a bit heavy handed. I do take time to trim out fluff that I, both, am not using in the core templates, and do not anticipate anyone wanting to use.
Currency
A European client posed the first "international" challenge. A client manager suggested I edit every single template that may show a price, and change the dollars to euros. Yikes.
I decided to re-write how currency works. I spent much time, adjusting all of the templates, and created a currency macro, which empowered any client to change their currency, instantly... sitewide.
A macro in computer science is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input sequence should be mapped to a replacement output sequence according to a defined procedure. The mapping process that instantiates a macro use into a specific sequence is known as macro expansion.
Variant Selection
A diverse clientele can lead to a diverse assortment of products for sale. Do the product variants have colors? Shapes? Sizes? There is no single one-size-fits-all for the best user experience. I created a series of variant selection options, so each client can choose the best fit.
Quick View
There were many features of the product page experience that were rigged to run on page load, and only on page load. This all needed to be re-worked, to allow an AJAX-delivered page to be fully functional.
I implemented the full "quick" experience, allowing users to select their variant, and Add to Cart, all from the category page.
Accessibility
As should be the case, extra thought and care is placed towards accessibility. Each page of the theme is run through accessibility checkers and code standard checkers.
Conclusion
Working on an evolving e-commerce theme has been very challenging and rewarding. It has allowed me to tackle problems for a complete cycle... from how something should look, to show something should work. Or even, how something needs to work.
With a project like this... the work is never done. As the industry evolves, and as competitors add new powerful features - it is a responsibility to remain relevant.