MODCOMP Integration & Internet Solutions

Digital Choice Ltd. Application Story

Background

Digital Choice Ltd. is one of a new breed of virtual companies. Set up to trade in new technology digital products, Digital Choice is registered in the UK and serves the consumer market within the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The business objective of Digital Choice is to sell products, accessories and additional services, such as extended warranty and insurance, to consumers directly via the Internet. This gives the web-connected consumer the ability to shop from home and pay by credit card. With the guarantee of next day delivery at a price lower than the high street stores this is a powerful incentive to purchase electronically.

Digital Choice is focused on the sale of digital products to the under 35's, high-income wage earners. This group is identified as being technology aware and having the greatest disposable income. They know how to use web technology to search, select and purchase over the Internet. They are also familiar with the use of digital technology for business and home entertainment.

One Stop Shopping - an E-commerce Solution

To support the business premise of Digital Choice the management decided to outsource the complete E-commerce solution. This would enable them to concentrate on marketing and fulfillment. However, despite the fact that many vendors were promoting E-commerce solutions most of these were technology companies who offered shrink wrap software products for a particular niche i.e. electronic catalog, on-line credit card authorization, web site publishing tools and security/firewall products.

After considering a number of proposals, MODCOMP was selected to provide a total E-commerce solution. For the following reasons:

PRODUCT: ViewMax, MODCOMP's E-commerce integration server provides all of the functionality required to allow full transaction capability between web clients and host business systems.
INTEGRATION EXPERTISE: MODCOMP's background in front ending mainframe applications and its customer references in the consumer electronic industry demonstrated knowledge of the market and the technology challenges needed to be overcome for this project.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: MODCOMP satisfied Digital Choice requirements to provide a one-stop shop solution from web site design to hosting the digitalchoice.co.uk site within MODCOMP's secure premises at Bracknell, Berkshire.
RAPID DEVELOPMENT: From instructions to proceed, MODCOMP provided a functional application with secure Internet access within four weeks. Three weeks later, after domain name registration, site signature registration and message encryption had been implemented digitalchoice.co.uk went live -- On time and to budget.

The Requirement

The Digital Choice specification for the project included some basic web design good practice rules that recognize the client population and the typical browser/PC environment available in the market today:

The site design must appeal to the target audience. It must not be seen as grey and dull! Home page must include the major benefit(s) of shopping on line.
Simple navigation to view products and features
The download time must be optimized to suit the minimum browser revisions specified -- Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and Netscape 3.02
HTML only -- no Java applets or client executable downloads to be included
Order processing via secure server
Catalog/shopping basket facility
Back office connectivity to an AS/400 fulfillment system
On line credit card authorization capability
Encrypted messaging between web server and the fulfillment system via the Internet
On-line administration function to allow the Digital Choice marketing department to change pricing, access usage reports and establish audit trails.

Conclusion
MODCOMP's unique web server software -- ViewMax -- enabled the rapid build and development of the digitalchoice.co.uk web site. The selection of this product also provided a long term strategic goal. This is the ability to access data on one or more host business systems for real time information i.e. inventory levels, order status and dispatch information. As the product range increases with the addition of multimedia products, audio/visual and personal digital assistants, Digital Choice will benefit from selecting a scaleable product-based approach rather than commissioning a static bespoke web application.

As consumers become used to shopping over the Internet it will be those vendors who can offer competitive prices with a full E-commerce capability who will succeed. Digital Choice is set to become the leader in the growing UK market for digital consumer products.

"Having MODCOMP manage the project and host the E-commerce web site was a real bonus for us," stated Barry Johnson, Director of Digital Choice. "This enabled us to concentrate on the marketing and core business functions of the new venture. We are very pleased with MODCOMP's proactive attitude and we are looking forward to working with them on the next project."