Case Study - Qualchem

The Story

Qual Chem is a premier chemical supplier that has been working with us since 2010. Over the years we proved that we can offer quality services and we can fulfill any of the company’s demands. Ever the environmentally conscious, Qual Chem products were approved as GREEN by the EPA.

Initially we were hired to redesign the main Qual Chem website and its partner websites. Our next objective was implementing the W3B CRM as the one-stop software solution to be used by the company and its employees.

As we progressed with the project, Qual Chem asked for a modern and competitive solution for their proprietary ordering system that they were using for distributors. After figuring out the business system, the product lines, and the way said products were presented, we ended up creating an ordering module called DistribQualChem.

Since then, we have continuously upgraded the web application by adding functionalities and improving the ordering process. We are currently creating the mobile design and the native iOS and Android applications.

Key development features

The technology we decided upon for the DistribQualchem ordering system was the acclaimed Laravel framework, which helped us build a fully functional responsive website, and we plan on using the Vue.js framework for the mobile interfaces. Furthermore, we opted to host the website ourselves, as the application constantly requires security updates, maintenance and backups.

Here's what we've developed for the ordering system:

1. Distributors management

   • A place where they can add, edit, and remove distributors. This is also where the shipping addresses can be changed, since each distributor can handle more than one location.

2. Products management

   • A place where they can manage the products, create product groups, set the costs, push or unpublish (availability).

3. Parts and groups

   • In this category they control the parts (such as car wash chemical equipment parts).

4. Premium lines

   • This is a way for the company to handle special orders and premium distributors’ lines.

5. Shopping cart

   • This is an online shopping cart system where their distributors can login and access the products, add them into a shopping cart and conclude the order. We’ve handled the particular details of a distribution system such as minimum quantities (fully administrable by the admin), multiple shipping addresses, multiple locations and special instructions.
   • We’ve made it so that the order history is accessible at any time
   • We’ve allowed the option to save an order and come back later and finish it.
   • This section also contains the technical products’ details.
   • Customised access, as some distributors (such as carwashes) allow their techs to place orders.

Results

As a result of this development, Qual Chem now offers far easier order placement process for their distributors, as well as an improved user interface and experience.

We’ve satisfied the distributors’ request for a way to save an order at any moment and proceed with it later on.

We’ve created a responsive solution for viewing the web application on a mobile device.

We are also working on a template ordering system as well as iOS/Android native apps.