Gluo wins the MACHnificent Champion at the MACHathon 2022
In June, the third edition of the MACHathon was held, organized by the MACH Alliance, seeking to solve real-world problems through disruptive technologies that integrate services and technologies in APIs.
MACH Alliance is a non-profit organization made up of technology companies that help enterprise organizations navigate the complex landscape of modern technology. It believes and works for the business advantages of open tech systems that are microservices, API-first, cloud-native, and headless.
At Gluo, we won the MACHnificient Champion, the main award of the event, for the Shared Purchase Experience project. This award is given to agencies that stand out in integration, feasibility, usability, relevance, and complete development
By winning this award, Gluo has become one of the first digital agencies in Mexico to formally enter the world of Composable Commerce. This software architecture consists of selecting the best e-commerce technologies and unifying them into a single customized application through the use of APIs.
Composable Commerce is a trend in the development of digital commerce in countries such as the United States, Canada, and Europe, as it allows for the creation of complex purchasing experiences that meet the expectations of today's users.
We will continue to develop our Composable Commerce practice to stay at the forefront of e-commerce development.
About the project
In the real world, the shopping experience is a social activity.
You can ask your friend's opinion to know if that shirt looks good on you, or buy supplies for a road trip with your friends, or even ask a store employee to help you choose the right outfit for the wedding you're attending. Can these types of experiences be replicated or even improved online?
In this project, we offer an online concierge service. We believe that even in a digital world, we can connect with other people to have satisfying shopping experiences.
Our Shared Purchase Experience project provides customers with the experience of assisted shopping, in particular, getting help from an assistant with knowledge and experience with the products offered in the store.
In a session between the assistant and the client, the assistant can capture information about what the client is looking for, present products to the client interactively, and put together a cart that the client can pay for at the end of the session.
The solution is built as an extension of an existing BigCommerce store, expanding the customer's options when trying to complete a purchase and accelerating the store's ability to interact with its customers and increase conversion.
How we built it
The experience was developed using the Next.js framework, hosted on Netlify. We connected to CockroachDB, which is a cloud database service, using Prisma as our ORM.
Backend functions were developed with Netlify functions hosted on AWS and connected to the BigCommerce API. We added product search functionality with Algolia, and for video calls, we are using Twilio.
To add quick customization and frontend components, we included Builder.io. Finally, for synchronization between the guest and the host, we are using web sockets with a cloud service called Pusher.
Project challenges
When we started the project, one of the ideas we had was to find and use the best tools for the job, regardless of whether we had prior knowledge of the tool or not.
This was a challenge for us when adding services, tools, frameworks, or libraries. In the end, the multidisciplinary nature of our team and our learning mindset allowed us to reach the goal.
