The largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands wanted to get more out of the Internet. Something extra had to be added to the Albert Heijn website: a complete online shop. Together with other parties, West made this happen for Albert Heijn.
| Market: | Retail |
|---|---|
| Technology: | Java, JavaScript, Oracle, security, iPlanet, Perl, High-availability Sun-cluster |
Albert Heijn offered a home delivery service for a long time, which enabled customers to order food products and have them delivered. There were various ways of doing this, such as via the telephone, fax or using a special computer programme. The next step was the addition of the Internet as a channel for the home delivery service.
West developed the store software and organised a link with the existing back office to process orders and keep the stock, store prices and available delivery moments up to date. West worked closely with graphic designers to make the internet shop aesthetically appealing.
AH's first objective was to create an actively maintained website. On the one hand, this needed to be elaborated graphically by means of an attractive homepage that was updated weekly; and on the other hand, the editors needed to be able to modify the website independently, without needing broad technical knowledge of websites.
West developed the Man-a-Site concept to achieve these goals. Editors can add new content or modify content using simple forms. Graphic designers can also design templates in which the content is displayed. Information is published automatically by putting the information online and also removing it from the site at regular intervals.
Parts of the site such as press releases, customer service and vacancies are very suitable for this kind of publishing, because the pages look similar and they are updated regularly.
In addition to the normal shop, we also created a separate web shop on the AH website for the "Friends of Good Wine". This web shop has a completely individual design (in the same style as the printed version) and provides search options for wine lovers.
Special offers promoting non-standard articles in the shops (such as notebooks, computers, toys, etc.) are also featured quite regularly. In order to make it possible to order these products, West developed a flexible framework that (depending on the offer) can be filled with the the right articles and design.
Thanks to its extensive practical experience, West knew exactly how the technique of an e-commerce site such as the AH site had to be applied in practice.
Due to the requirements for high availability, a double executed Sun Cluster was chosen. The website, shops and protected websites used for developing new content and for the editing system that is part of Man-a-Site all run on this cluster. All the data is stored in an Oracle database.
The shop-related data is also stored in this database and is copied to real-time from the back office database. This separate connection means that the shop can stay operational in the event of a temporary drop-out of the back office.
Java is used for the software development, particularly for server parts such as the shop and the Man-a-Site framework. Parts of the site are executed in Javascript. Perl is also used for the parts that require less performance. The greatest advantage of this is the short lead time between an idea and a result.
The online shop described here no longer exists and was replaced by the well-known albert.nl. West did not help to develop albert.nl, but did perform an audit of the project and a code audit at the request of Albert Heijn. The "Friends of Good Wine" part of the website was maintained and managed by West until the end of 2008.