Hammacher Schlemmer

Microgroove has developed significant engineering assets in tooling and best practices for large-scale Platform development. In short, what makes a Platform is that it not only operates the consumer-facing website, but the application layers that are critical business functions.

With Hammacher.com, Microgroove brought these assets to bear in the creation of a customized Platform, delivered to Hammacher’s internal IT staff.

Prior to commissioning the Microgroove-engineered solution, marketing staff had very limited tools and overly-restrictive time windows for affecting their website. In that world, a product catching heat on the web from a NY Times review, or high-profile blog, and the tools were not there to make an easy response on the site to catch that wave and maximize sales.

Microgroove brought its extensive expertise in CMS and workflow design to address these real-world etailer scenarios. Our CMS approach is to create tools that put the power of publishing in the hands of the experts, rather than in the hands of the technologists. And, to do that in their terms, using their language.

As is the case with many ecommerce solutions, this project required a very diverse set of skills and technologies. Platforms of this scale rarely stand alone, but rather interoperate with other back-end systems and third-party providers. A quick list would include: PCI Compliance, Credit Card Transaction Processing, Customer Data Security, Mainframe Integration for Inventory & Fulfillment and Affiliate Marketing Sites.

Often underestimated in scope and importance is the concept of cut-over; going from the legacy to new system. Considerations include security, data migration, rollback plan, stability of transaction data and operational continuity. There is no substitute for Microgroove’s collective experience when tackling these complex technical tasks.

As it stands today, Hammacher.com runs a world-class ecommerce business on a new Platform that they conceived, and now own and operate. Microgroove takes a great deal of pride to have been engaged in engineering their solution.