Happy Lights

The client already had several websites created for different purposes on other platforms and wanted to have one online store that would combine them all. Because of the big number of customizable product options, the back-end functionality had to be very complex and combine many interdependent elements. At the same time, we needed to make it simple and easy to use for the customers on the front end of the store.

From both the business and the technical point of view, the best solution was to create a new B2C Shopify store with a custom product builder functionality where all customizable product options could be set up on one page.

There were three types of products that required the custom builder functionality:

• Indoor light strings
• Ceiling and table lamps
• Outdoor light strings

The functionality of a builder is more or less the same for each product — there are just some minor differences with the types of cotton balls or the availability of the LED USB cord for some models.

This builder is for a different type of product. Although its structure is almost the same, there are some changes — customers first need to select the type of lamp and the size of the cotton balls. Like in other product builders, the interactive element with the image of the final product changes according to the selected type, also showing the length of the string.

To prevent customers from choosing the lights that have run out of stock, we needed to track the inventory of every single light ball. It would not be possible for a standard Shopify store because the colors of a product are typically set just as product options and are not individually tracked. For this purpose, every color option of a light ball within the Happy Lights’ Shopify store is not a product option but a separate product, which has its stock and is tracked individually. This functionality prevents customers from buying items that are not currently available and helps to avoid any kind of unpleasant situations both for the business and for its clients.

This solution which is crucial for the proper functioning of the store created yet another challenge. A typical Shopify cart consists of all products bought in a store, and when a color option of a light ball is set as a separate product, a standard Shopify cart, in this case, would be a total mess consisting of all the balls, cords, and plugs. This way, customers would feel that they are buying several random messy items instead of a single custom light string, which would make the customer experience in the store significantly worse. To fix this, we customized the cart, and now customers see just the final product they buy, not all its separate parts.

As Happy Lights is a European-based business, they have to add VAT to their sales. Many details and conditions should be considered while calculating this tax, so the business required two final prices for their customers to choose from — with and without VAT.

The same item can be bought in the Happy Lights store in two ways — as a separate product and a part of the string. The prices in these two cases are different, and we needed to take that into account to perform the correct calculations. The Draft Order API is typically used for this, but at the same time, it also significantly restricts the usage of discount codes and automatic discounts. To avoid these limitations, which are not suitable for an online store, we managed to get the desired functionality by using the Shopify Buy SDK on top of it.

Therefore, we had to build a complex development solution so that the discount codes could be applied to the cart, making it possible to buy one product for two different prices within the same store.