Expert Medical Equipment Brand

Building an integrated system to effectively manage work with dropshipping partners

Creating a public Shopify app to connect an ERP with resellers’ stores

Location:

USA

Cooperation model:

Fixed price

Industry:

Ecommerce, Retail, Healthcare

Partnership period:

August 2024 – August 2025

Improvements plan:

Discovery phase, requirements and estimation analysis, Shopify app development, ongoing support and maintenance

Team size:

Project manager, 2 Shopify developers, QA

Technologies:

Shopify, Shopify Plus, Shopify App, Shopify GraphQL API, Shopify Polaris, Node.JS, PostgreSQL, AWS, Shopify APIs

About the client

Our client is a U.S. company that provides medical and rehabilitation equipment to people with disabilities and traumatic injuries. They've setup a Shopify store and leverage the platform’s robust features to showcase their extensive product line, and manage inventory and orders. The company also offers an opportunity for other merchants to resell its products, while ensuring order fulfillment and managing logistics on its own end.

About the product

Our client offers equipment and medical products in nine categories, spanning different price ranges, which enables them to attract a broad spectrum of customers. It manufactures and sells hundreds of items, from electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters to arch supports and grab bars. The company provides buying guides on how to choose the best item for customer needs, injury guides on how to manage various healthcare issues, and other educational content for its audience.

Challenges overview

Since the company has an affiliate and dropshipping program that enables them to attract more customers and increase sales, they were seeking ways to expand their dropshipping network. For this reason, they decided to create a Shopify app that would allow other Shopify merchants to add and resell the company’s products through their stores without needing to add code or configure their websites manually. Given that our client couldn't find a ready-made tool in the Shopify App Store that met their needs, they opted for our Shopify app development services to create and list a tailored, custom app.

Our solutions – a public Shopify app for dropshipping

Connecting with the Odoo ERP: Our client utilizes the Odoo ERP to manage various processes, including those related to resellers. They needed to integrate the ERP with Shopify stores to synchronize products, stock levels, recommended prices, reseller prices, and shipping details. To build this Shopify integration, our specialists explored how exactly this ERP works and which clients’ processes it handles to ensure smooth interaction between the two systems – the ERP and Shopify. As a result, resellers can connect their stores to the client’s system by just adding their individual access token after installing the app we delivered.

Product synchronization: Our Shopify developers enabled merchants who install the app to view the company's products available for reselling in their Shopify dashboard and add the desired items to their Product section, with the opportunity to edit prices and descriptions.
Price monitoring: To prevent merchants from selling products below recommended prices, we implemented a monitoring system that alerts the client about such cases. The system indicates which store offers a lower price for a specific product and how this price compares to the recommended one. Thanks to this monitoring, the client is protected from losing customers to resellers who engage in price dumping.

Order and fulfillment synchronization: To alert the company about a new order on the reseller's side, we enabled synchronization of order fulfillment processes. Since the company handles the logistics associated with resellers' orders, we also enabled merchants to view and display to their customers the current stage of order fulfillment, whether it’s processing or delivery.
Shopify app listing: Once we had developed the entire functionality and tested all aspects of the app, we began preparing the necessary documentation to present it for submission to the Shopify App Store. Given our prior experience in listing Shopify apps, within a short time after submission, we received positive feedback from the Shopify team and were prepared to make it available to a broad audience of merchants.

Results

With our help, the client got a high-quality tailored Shopify app listed in the Shopify App Store. Currently, the client is offering this app for free to a select group of partners to test and provide feedback. Once the test period is over, the company plans to introduce a fee for using this app and make it available to all Shopify users.

If your business requires custom Shopify development to solve specific problems, contact us. Our in-depth knowledge and experience in this field is your key to success.