Queen Victoria Markets

The challenge

Queen Victoria Market, or QVM for short, was facing a challenge when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They needed a way to keep their traders selling their products, even though the traditional in-person market was closed. That’s where we came in. QVM approached us for help in creating an online marketplace that would be effective, scalable, and efficient. They wanted to build something that would use existing technology and not start from scratch. This was important because they wanted to make sure that their traders could keep selling their products, even during these difficult times.

Our approach

We ran an initial discovery phase with QVM to understand how their business operated. This meant that we delved into everything; purchasing, picking and packing, delivery, accounting integration, plus a whole lot more. It allowed us to ensure the best possible user journey for the audience as well as a seamless integration process for their traders.

Based on everything QVM had explained to us, we decided that the most efficient way to move forward was to refactor, leverage, and enhance their site at the time. With the use of WooCommerce (a WordPress plugin), we would be able to support a rapid rollout of a fully-fledged online marketplace.

While we weren’t building a completely new website, this project did require a full software development life cycle. This meant that the entire project involved analysing, designing, developing, and testing.

Strong communication was upheld throughout this process to ensure both parties were aligned and our developers worked endlessly to ensure the final product would be fit for purpose.

The outcome

Arcadian Digital was able to create a fully-functioning two-way marketplace to cater to QVM’s needs throughout the pandemic. We also set up and configured all infrastructure from an Auto Scaling Group to an AWS Firewall to ensure all transactions were fast, safe and secure. This allowed QVM to support high traffic on their website throughout promotional campaigns and gave their team complete peace of mind.