Rebuilding website system on Shopify Plus: MyKingdom's strategic move
Overview
MyKingdom is a well-known children's toy brand in Vietnam, owning more than 250 stores nationwide and having an active presence on e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, TikTok, and Tiki. With its scale and growth, MyKingdom realized that in order to continue to grow and meet the increasing needs of customers, they needed a new solution that was more powerful than the old Magento platform.
Challenge
From frequent system overloads and errors during flash sales or high traffic events, to the time-consuming and costly development of new features and maintenance, Magento seemed to no longer be able to meet MyKingdom’s needs. These issues not only caused difficulties for MyKingdom’s management and technical teams, but also limited the customer shopping experience. Some of the features they wanted to implement to improve customer experience and business efficiency simply could not be implemented on Magento.
MyKingdom's biggest challenge was to redesign its entire website system on a platform powerful enough to meet its needs.
That's why MyKingdom decided to redesign its entire ecommerce website system and migrate from Magento to Shopify Plus.
Solution: MyKingdom website redesign journey
With the scale and complex operational requirements of MyKingdom, the journey to rebuild the entire website was a big challenge for Meowcart. After a continuous process of working to understand how MyKingdom operates and clarify the requirements from MyKingdom, Meowcart implemented the construction of 10 major items for the project over the course of 6 months.
Migrate data from Magento to Shopify
In the journey of redesigning the website for MyKingdom, one of the biggest challenges was to carefully and accurately convert all data from the old platform, Magento, to Shopify Plus. This process, while it sounds simple, actually requires precision and meticulousness to every detail. Imagine, thousands of products, hundreds of thousands of orders, customer information, purchase history,... all need to be "migrated" without any mistakes.
Meowcart has "joined hands" with LitExtension, a leading migration expert, to carry out the data migration process from Magento to Shopify Plus for MyKingdom.
First, Meowcart and LitExtension analyzed MyKingdom's entire current Magento system, clearly identifying the data elements that needed to be converted, including product information, customer data, order history, and custom features. From there, a detailed migration plan was developed, including a clear roadmap, methodology, and expectations.
The migration process started with the data storage from Magento and then the setup on Shopify automatically, ensuring no interruptions in the process. The workflow between MyKingdom, Meowcart, and LitExtension was carefully established, starting with MyKingdom making a request, Meowcart and LitExtension receiving the request, LitExtension doing the work with Meowcart's supervision, and finally the review stage from Meowcart and MyKingdom.
The transition process is divided into three main phases:
- 1st time: Migrate basic data, including product information, categories, and customer data.
- 2nd time: Continue the migration in the middle of the stage and update with new data, making sure everything is still in the latest state.
- 3rd: Finally, the golive preparation phase, when the final data from Magento is converted to Shopify, right before the golive date.
In addition, other migration tasks are also performed throughout the process to meet specific requirements from MyKingdom, ensuring that data is converted completely and accurately.
The migration process faced many challenges due to the large data scale and high compatibility requirements with Shopify Plus. In particular, the time pressure made it necessary to do everything quickly but still carefully and without errors. This required precision, focus and quick response from both teams. The combination of LitExtension's experience and expertise with Meowcart's management and supervision created a smooth and efficient migration process.
The data migration from Magento to Shopify Plus was a complete success, with all critical data transferred securely and accurately to the new platform. This not only solved data and platform issues, but also opened new doors for MyKingdom to optimize and personalize the shopping experience for its customers on Shopify Plus.
Build a website on Shopify Plus platform
For MyKingdom, a leading brand in the toy and gaming industry, migrating data from Magento to Shopify Plus was not only a strategic decision but also an opportunity to rebuild a new, more modern website that truly reflected the brand’s identity and potential. The process of rebuilding the new website for MyKingdom on Shopify Plus consisted of two main phases: design and development on Shopify Online Store 2.0.
Design phase:
During the design phase, Meowcart worked closely with MyKingdom to understand the brand style, the values MyKingdom wanted to convey, and the target audience. From there, Meowcart developed a website design that was not only beautiful and modern, but also reflected the MyKingdom identity. The focus on UX/UI ensured that every customer who visited the website had a smooth and easy online shopping experience, from product search to checkout.
Development Stage:
Taking advantage of the new and powerful features of the Shopify Online Store 2.0 platform, Meowcart has built a website that is not only optimized in terms of design but also in terms of technology. From theme customization to integrating third-party applications and services, every aspect of the website is meticulously taken care of, ensuring that the new website will be the most effective in attracting and retaining customers.
One of the key highlights during the development process was optimizing the user experience on mobile devices. With the increasing number of mobile traffic, Meowcart paid special attention to responsive design, ensuring that MyKingdom's new website would display and operate smoothly on all screen sizes and devices.
Set up complex promotions with Shopify Plus
To stay competitive, implementing flexible and effective promotional campaigns is an important factor to help the brand stand out and attract customers. MyKingdom, with its diverse product portfolio and the goal of serving customers in the best way, required the construction of complex promotional programs, which the default Shopify platform did not fully support. This is where Meowcart demonstrated its Shopify experience and expertise by creating an innovative and effective solution for MyKingdom.
To meet this requirement, Meowcart had to go deep into customizing the platform by writing its own Shopify script, a task that requires a deep understanding of programming and the ability to accurately analyze business requirements. In addition, the clever combination with the Bundle app has helped Meowcart create flexible promotional packages, from percentage discounts for specific products, to applying promotions when buying together, helping to increase order value and encourage customers to shop more.
The process of building the promotion function required special attention to detail, from clearly defining the applicable conditions to setting up the way to calculate discounts accurately and fairly. Meowcart had to work closely with MyKingdom to ensure every aspect of the promotion program was carefully calculated, meeting customer expectations and MyKingdom's business direction.
Sync data between Shopify Plus and ERP Microsoft Dynamics AX
Another major challenge of the project was the synchronization of data from the long-standing Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system with the e-commerce platform, Shopify Plus. The challenge was not only in transferring the data but also in deciphering and applying the complex logic of Microsoft Dynamics AX to the operating mechanism of Shopify, a task that required deep understanding and high technical intervention.
Meowcart has expanded its partnership with Hexasync to address the need for data synchronization between e-commerce platforms, Shopify stores, and MyKingdom's AX Database system.
Microsoft Dynamics AX’s data storage and operation logic comes with many complex business rules and constraints, from inventory management, order processing, to customer care and loyalty programs. Synchronizing this data with Shopify Plus, a platform with a different operating mechanism, was a challenging task. This required Meowcart to deeply intervene in Shopify’s operating mechanism, developing custom solutions to ensure that the data was not only transferred but also processed and stored correctly, meeting the set business rules and constraints.
One of the biggest challenges Meowcart had to overcome was developing custom logic for Shopify to be able to "understand" and "process" data coming from Microsoft Dynamics AX. This not only required a deep understanding of both systems, but also required creativity and flexibility in developing technology. Meowcart succeeded in designing unique middleware solutions that allowed the two systems to "talk" smoothly, thereby ensuring that data was synchronized not only quickly, but also accurately and completely.
MyKingdom can now centrally manage its data on a modern e-commerce platform, opening up the ability to expand its business and provide superior customer service.
Synchronize sales channels in one place: Marketplaces & POS
Faced with the challenge of fragmentation in inventory management and order processing, MyKingdom decided to partner with Meowcart to create a comprehensive synchronization solution, a decisive step to improve business efficiency and customer experience.
The solution that Meowcart provided to MyKingdom was not just a technical process, it was a comprehensive transformation in the way MyKingdom managed its business. By synchronizing all orders from different sales channels (from e-commerce platforms, own websites, to traditional stores and offline points of sale) to the Shopify interface, Meowcart helped MyKingdom focus on managing orders effectively, minimizing duplication and errors, while optimizing workflow and freeing up valuable resources.
Furthermore, using a common inventory for all sales channels has solved the complex inventory management problem that MyKingdom used to face. With the ability to update inventory quantities in real-time, MyKingdom can now ensure product availability for customers anytime, anywhere, minimizing out-of-stock or high inventory, thereby optimizing profits and improving customer satisfaction.
MyKingdom has seen a significant improvement in business performance, from speeding up order processing, reducing administrative costs, to enhancing the customer shopping experience. Channel synchronization is not only a technical solution but also a smart business strategy, helping MyKingdom increase its competitive advantage in a market that increasingly requires flexibility and efficiency.
VTA Express
Faced with the big challenge of synchronizing and processing orders from many different sales channels, Meowcart together with Meowship (a product in the Meowcart ecosystem) helped MyKingdom develop the VTA Express solution, a breakthrough in logistics management, from order routing, custom carrier, to order tracking.
MyKingdom faced significant challenges: complex order processing logic limited by Shopify, with a maximum processing time of 10 seconds and default routing rules. Additionally, connecting with shipping carriers (3PLs), selecting the right shipping method, and accurately updating order statuses added to the complexity of the process.
Meowcart has approached the problem comprehensively, developing VTA Express with many outstanding features:
- Connect 3PLs: Helps connect shipping units in Vietnam, select the appropriate shipping unit to process orders, update order status from shipping units automatically. This is one of the outstanding features because currently Shopify does not support connecting with shipping units in Vietnam, merchants have to create orders themselves. Meowship is the pioneer product to solve this problem.
- Order Routing: Develop custom logic for MyKingdom, including selecting the hub closest to the customer, the hub with sufficient inventory, order splitting logic, and routing orders to the specified hub. This helps optimize the delivery process, minimizing time and cost.
- Custom Carrier: Customize shipping methods based on connected 3PLs, thereby providing customers with more options when shopping online.
- Order Tracking: Integrates the ability to track order status directly on the website and through the management system, helping customers always stay updated on their order status.
- Decentralization and Report & Analytics: Provides decentralization capabilities for administrators and employees, thereby improving management efficiency. Basic to advanced charts and reports on orders help MyKingdom have an overview and details of business operations.
The launch of VTA Express has brought positive changes to MyKingdom. Not only solving the challenges of logistics and order management, this solution also helps MyKingdom optimize its operations, improve customer experience and enhance its competitiveness in the market. Customers can now easily track orders and receive products quickly and conveniently. This is a typical example of applying technology to solve business challenges, opening new doors for development and success in the digital age.
CDP Integration
MyKingdom wanted a solution that would not only help them collect and analyze customer data effectively but also personalize the shopping experience across all communication channels. At this point, Meowcart needed to find the right tool and integrate it smoothly into MyKingdom’s existing system.
MoEngage was the ideal solution for MyKingdom’s requirements, with its ability to provide insights and customer behavior analytics, enable multi-channel engagement, customer journey management, and AI-powered campaign personalization. Meowcart chose MoEngage not only for its technical capabilities, but also for its flexibility and high compatibility with MyKingdom’s existing system.
Choosing MoEngage allows MyKingdom to build unified reports, accurately analyze customer behavior, and take immediate action to optimize the customer experience. In addition, MoEngage also helps predict and prevent customer loss, improve engagement, and increase customer lifetime value through personalization and optimization of marketing campaigns.
After integrating MoEngage, Meowcart believes that MyKingdom will have a clear change in customer engagement. Personalized and timely notifications will help strengthen customer relationships, reduce churn rates by predicting behavior and proactively preventing customer loss. Marketing campaigns will also be optimized, helping MyKingdom improve investment performance and increase sales.
Customize Checkout
In their journey to optimize the online shopping experience for their customers, MyKingdom faced a big challenge: how to customize the checkout page to suit Vietnamese addresses, a challenging task due to Shopify’s limitations in directly intervening and customizing the checkout page. This is where Meowcart, with its creativity and expertise in Shopify Plus, made the difference.
To solve the problem, Meowcart customized Checkout.liquid, a task that required a deep understanding of Shopify's structure and programming language. By adding the necessary information fields and displaying the address fields as a Drop Down, Meowcart not only solved the problem of entering the address but also ensured that the checkout interface was consistent with MyKingdom's brand colors, enhancing the shopping experience and increasing the conversion rate for customers.
Understanding that Shopify will completely switch to using Checkout.Extensibility in 2024, Meowcart has proactively researched and developed the Public app - VieCheckout. This is a pioneering step, not only for MyKingdom but also for the Vietnamese e-commerce market, helping to customize the checkout address in Vietnam exclusively for Shopify Plus. VieCheckout is a solution that helps display address information fields such as district/county, ward/commune in dropdown form, solving the difficult problem that customers often encounter when having to enter information in these sections themselves.
Custom Reports
In today's diverse and complex business environment, internal management and accounting have become one of the key tasks, requiring high accuracy and flexibility. MyKingdom has recognized the urgent need to create customized reports to monitor and analyze business performance, and that is why the customized reporting system - MyKingdom Analytics was born.
The biggest challenge in this process was that the values needed for reporting did not exist in Shopify. This required Meowcart to create and develop new data fields that could be pulled from Shopify orders for reporting purposes. This was no small task, as it required not only a deep understanding of data management systems, but also a high level of programming and customization.
Meowcart built MyKingdom Analytics with two types of reports: fixed and custom.
- Fixed reports are designed based on templates provided by MyKingdom, with fixed column values dragged and adjusted accordingly.
- For custom reports, Meowcart has created a repository of data columns, allowing MyKingdom staff to easily create various report templates through drag and drop, thereby retrieving data flexibly.
One of the most outstanding features of this solution is its flexibility in responding to changing requirements. Although MyKingdom's requirements change frequently, Meowcart is always ready to support and make changes, ensuring that the reporting system is always updated and accurately reflects the business situation.
On-going maintenance
After entering the Golive phase, MyKingdom's journey in the e-commerce world does not stop at the start but continues to develop, adapt and improve. During the operation, it is inevitable that many new requirements and changes will arise beyond the original project scope. This is when Meowcart, as a technology partner, continues to support MyKingdom through the Ongoing Maintenance service - a commitment to continue developing and supporting MyKingdom on the journey ahead.
Meowcart's maintenance service includes not only fixing errors that arise, but also updating and upgrading the system, ensuring that MyKingdom's website always operates smoothly, securely and is up to date with the latest technology trends. In a world of constantly evolving technology, this helps MyKingdom not only maintain its position in the market but also continue to grow and expand.
Meowcart provides maintenance services based on actual working hours, a flexible approach that allows MyKingdom to easily adjust resources according to actual needs. This not only helps MyKingdom control costs effectively, but also ensures that any new issues and requests are resolved quickly and promptly.
In MyKingdom's continuous development journey, Meowcart is not only a technology partner but also an inseparable part of success. The maintenance service provided by Meowcart has proven that, with the right support and companionship, MyKingdom can firmly step on the path of sustainable development, conquer all challenges and seize all opportunities in the volatile world of e-commerce.
Result
After a long journey of "overcoming the barrier" with Meowcart, MyKingdom has finally officially launched an extremely impressive new look on Shopify Plus. This is not only the end of a "transformation" process but also opens a new chapter for MyKingdom in the world of e-commerce.
The decision to redesign the website not only reflects MyKingdom’s commitment to providing excellent customer service, but also demonstrates their strategic vision in applying technology to drive business growth. Migrating to Shopify Plus with the support of Meowcart not only solved existing problems but also opened up new opportunities for MyKingdom to expand, optimize and personalize the online shopping experience for customers.
The new website with Shopify Plus platform and specially built features has brought significant and positive results, exceeding expectations. The project is not only a technical success but also an important contribution to the business development of MyKingdom.