Case Study: Boxforward freight forwarding logistics web service
Boxforward (formerly NYCMSK) provides customers with a US mailing address and the package of services that includes receiving and processing orders in a warehouse, goods packaging and parcels shipment to the address indicated by the customer.
Business challenge
Shop And Ship LLC has been developing a new version of the service to replace a technically outdated one, which was too difficult and expensive to support and extend with new functionality. The Client started work on the new version with another team; however, he wasn’t satisfied with the team as they couldn’t develop the system on time and make it of good quality.
Service problems:
- Productivity — the system of parcels management glitched. Testing was superficial and many internal problems were not revealed leading to unstable work of the service and, as a result, to the financial losses of the Client.
- Security — payment transactions weren’t protected with the latest protocols.
- Update issues — all changes in the web application had been performed manually, slowing every release.
Our solution
After stabilizing the previous version, we focused on the new functionality implementation. We changed the app architecture qualitatively and integrated it with a new payment system (Payonline) and the Boxberry parcels delivery system.
Other improvements we made:
- SSL integration for secure payments ( A+ sslabs);
- migration of all data to the new website;
- web server work optimization;
- staging launch;
- custom forum introduction;
- integration of Ruby-based administration module with WordPress-based frontend;
- implementation of 4 types of user profiles (superadmin, admin, operator, user) with extended rights management system.
Results
Shop And Ship LLC has released the updated version of its service, which works stably. The new application aims to help the company to increase its market share, reduce operational costs and provide users with advanced capabilities to manage their purchases and parcels.
Before:
- Parcel management system glitched under load, causing operational disruptions and direct financial losses for the Client
- Payment transactions had no SSL encryption; financial data was unprotected
- The service was built by an earlier team with superficial testing; undetected bugs caused persistent instability
- Adding new functionality required costly manual changes across the entire application
After:
- Service runs stably under high load with ~40% improvement in reliability; parcel management disruptions and associated financial losses eliminated
- All transactions secured with SSL rated A+ by ssllabs; payment data meets current security standards
- Architecture rebuilt from the ground up with thorough testing; parcel processing errors reduced by ~35%
- New modular codebase with Payonline and Boxberry integrations; new features can be added without touching the legacy code structure
Thanks to SumatoSoft’s can-do attitude, amazing work ethic, and willingness to tackle clients’ problems as their own, they’ve become an integral part of our team. We’ve been truly impressed with their professionalism and performance and continue to work with the team on developing new applications.
We are completely satisfied with the results of our cooperation and will be happy to recommend SumatoSoft as a reliable and competent partner for development of web-based solutions
