Client
Two World Unite Corp.
Industry
Retail & eCommerce
Features
Shoppable Video Commerce Platform
Video-synced Product Listing
Advanced/Granular Search
Multi-Level Multi-Entity Commission System
Multilingual Scalable Architecture
Python
PostgreSQL
AWS
Java for Android
Two Worlds Unite Corp., a South Korean company, created a suite of platforms called Woo Club targeting the South Korean and Southeast Asian markets. One integral part of their vision for this modular suite of separate, standalone products was a shoppable video platform—an innovative system that allowed sellers to tag products in videos streamed through the platform.
For example, a user could feature a YouTube video of a music festival and tag products throughout the video that viewers might want to buy. Each time a tagged product showed up in the video, the featured product would appear next to the video. Viewers could click on the product to follow a purchase link. If they did not click, the next tagged product would appear next to the video, and the previous product would scroll up and out of sight. Users could also list the products in a video as well, even filtering them if they chose.
Two Worlds Unite initially hired a U.S. company to build the first version of the solution, believing that an American company would deliver an excellent product. Unfortunately, the product fell short, as it was not designed with the South Korean and Southeast Asian markets in mind.
“We were guided by a poor U.S. development team, driven by the U.S. marketplace, U.S. trends, and movements,” says Chris Thomas, Director of European Sales & Marketing at Two Worlds Unite.
Beyond product-market fit, the site itself was unattractive, so the company decided to rethink Woo Club’s design and architecture when building Version 2. Additionally, they needed a platform that was:
This would allow them to relaunch the product in South Korea and roll the platform out quickly, across multiple countries.
Given the complexity of the undertaking, the management team needed to find a development partner that:
This was no easy task, and at first, they struggled to find an experienced, capable vendor that could accommodate their budget. That is when Chris turned to Net Solutions, with whom he had worked in the past. Net Solutions proved to be a near-perfect fit, and they were able to accommodate the company’s budget.
The Net Solutions team members rolled up their sleeves and got to work, identifying each step in the customer journey and building a platform based on those requirements. The main features of this shoppable, taggable video platform included the following:
Requirement #6, tagging products from videos, presented an initial challenge because the YouTube API did not support screenshot extractions—something that would have made it easier for users to tag products.
With this in mind, Net Solutions created a unique, standalone solution to extract screenshots. This allowed users to view multiple thumbnails from the approximate point in the video they chose to tag. That meant users did not have to worry about clicking on the precise frame they hoped to tag, stopping and restarting the video to find the right thumbnail.
The boards were colorful and friendly. We were very happy with them, particularly the functionality and usability.
Management wanted Woo Club to include basic gamification features, like advancing users to different levels based on their activity. Every level would unlock new functionality, encouraging users to participate more. For example, users at higher levels could create more boards.
Also, in addition to earning commissions off sales, each sale would help users advance to a higher level. In fact, a user could even tag products in a video that other users posted to the platform (assuming the original poster had not tagged those items).
Ultimately, this made the rules of calculating commissions highly complex and intricate, and it required innovative thinking on the part of Net Solutions’ engineers.
Other features designed to make the site more enjoyable included:
The back-end system was fairly straightforward, allowing administrators to:
We were hugely appreciative of Net Solutions’ effort and commitment.
The platform’s launch was well received. Supported by an effective marketing campaign, the site quickly picked up steam and had 2,000 active users in just eight weeks. Users loved the concept, and word-of-mouth soon powered the platform’s growth.
Buoyed by their success, the Woo Club team built additional functionality on top of the new design and added numerous enhancements in response to Voice-of-the-Customer (VoC) Data and their research.
Confident that they had found a dependable, reliable team, Two Worlds Unite launched many additional projects with Net Solutions. These included a completely Magento-based Woo Market clone for the Vietnamese market and a video recording and streaming platform.
The Net Solutions eCommerce team have created Woo Market Vietnam, a Magento driven store for this region and once populated will feed products into Woo Club for our Vietnamese members.
We respect your privacy.
