OXID programming of the myMöbel online store with furniture configurator

Webshop development for high-quality furniture

The "myMöbel GbR" (Wadersloh) commissioned eWorks as a certified OXID partner with the technical conception and development of an OXID eShop-based online store for high-quality solid wood furniture: www.myMöbel.de. The highlight was the development of a furniture configurator that was not only able to customize all pieces of furniture to the wishes of the store customers, but was also able to calculate reliable yet attractive prices.

myMöbel was nominated for the "Golden Cart Award 2014" in the "Innovative Business Model" category.

The OXID store development started with the installation of the "OXID eShop" software on a demonstration system, which from then on served as a common visualization object for discussions with the client. The decision in favor of the free OXID eShop Community Edition had already been made before the start of the project, so that it "only" had to be installed and adapted to the client's wishes.

The second project phase primarily involved the store web design, which was not to be inferior to the products in terms of purity and elegance - but still had to appear friendly and modest. This goal was achieved not least through intensive teamwork with the client, who took on large parts of the web design himself. The finished web design was developed by eWorks in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery and integrated into the OXID eShop templates of the new web store. Last but not least, the OXID store templates were subjected to browser optimization for common web browsers and search engine optimization (SEO) for Google and other Internet search engines.

Following the previous creation of the web design and its integration into the store, the focus was on the furniture configurator to be developed: every sideboard, every bedside table, every shelf and every bed should be customizable by store customers almost at will. The aim was to integrate or develop a store configurator that is child's play to use, does not provoke errors and is a pleasure to use - in short, that is fun to use and invites customers to store. As no such OXID configurator was available, it was programmed individually without further ado. The product configurator (like the rest of the store) was developed using PHP programming and integrated into the furniture store using an OXID module. A particular challenge during the configurator programming was the desire for precise price calculation, which ultimately resulted in a real-time unit cost calculation taking into account raw material prices, wages and other production costs. Once this challenge had been overcome and the product configurator had been successfully developed and integrated, eWorks supported its client in storing the page-long price formulas.

The fourth and final phase of the project involved setting up the store with regard to payment methods, shipping methods and other store settings. To enable online payments, the payment service provider Ogone GmbH (Cologne) was connected, which enables payment by credit card, instant bank transfer or PayPal directly in the online store. Once the OXID store had been customized, nothing stood in the way of Trusted Shops certification, which remained particularly exciting because of the individually programmed product configurator. eWorks accompanied the Trusted Shops certification, implemented data protection requirements and other change requests and, after successful certification, installed the Trusted Shops seal in the web store, which has since guaranteed the seriousness and trustworthiness of www.myMöbel.de.

The online store was installed on a web server provided by the client and saw the light of day on April 16, 2013. Following commissioning, eWorks provides its client with advice, rectifies any defects (warranty) and carries out functional enhancements as required.