Leobit
Printed photo ordering application
Development of an application for ordering photo prints on demand
ABOUT
the project
Client:
Location:
Antwerpen, Belgium
Company Size:
Industry:
Solution:
Our customer’s project offers a modern take on the classic joy of receiving physical photos.
It’s a unique service that allows users to select their favorite digital pictures, add personal notes, and send them to loved ones in the form of printed photos in a beautiful envelope delivered to their home.
Our collaboration with the customer is a remarkable journey of transformation. By addressing their software challenges and implementing new features, we enhanced the platform’s performance and significantly improved the user experience. As of today, we help our customer grow their service to be ready to promote it in both B2B and B2C markets.
Customer
Our client is a European startup that targets individuals wanting to share special moments with family and friends. They offer a service that allows users to send printed photos to their loved ones, bridging the gap between digital memories and tangible keepsakes.
In a world where most photos remain locked away on devices, their service stands out by enabling people to create physical, personalized gifts that can be cherished for years.
Business Challenge
Our customer initially collaborated with another development team and was unsatisfied with their work ethic and the quality of the services. The product they delivered was riddled with bugs, leading to poor performance, frequent system crashes, and user dissatisfaction. The lack of data security was another primary concern pushing the customer to look for another software development company.
Faced with these challenges, our customer needed a reliable and proficient partner to redevelop the platform while adding new features, ensuring a robust, secure, and seamless user experience. This is where Leobit stepped in to bring the company’s vision to fruition.
Why Leobit
Our customer was looking for a company with experience in using new .NET technologies like MAUI and Blazor and was pleased to find out that Leobit has already used them in several projects. They were also impressed by the high level of engagement and proactive communication demonstrated by Leobit’s team. Our developers presented a comprehensive plan to improve the platform’s performance, addressing load times, system stability, and scalability issues. This proactive approach ensured our customer that we are capable of transforming their vision into a high-quality, secure, and efficient print-on-demand platform.
Project
in detail
Leobit executed a comprehensive redevelopment strategy, incorporating various advanced features to enhance functionality, performance, and user experience.
Cloud Cost Optimization
To optimize cloud costs, Leobit restructured the subscription and usage of cloud resources, activating them only during specific hours to perform necessary jobs. This strategy allowed us to reduce Azure expenses by 75%.
We also rewrote significant portions of the business logic, employing the best navigation and data retrieval practices to achieve greater efficiency. This helped us streamline the backend's database interactions and logic, enhancing the application's speed.
Navigation and Performance Improvements
We optimized the API by utilizing Dapper instead of Entity Framework and rewriting several endpoints. This approach significantly improved the creation and response times for smaller services with less complex logic, resulting in much faster API communication.
Leobit also restructured the app’s navigation to load pages in the correct sequence, reducing the load on the device and enhancing performance. The initial synchronization process was accelerated by downloading all necessary data at startup, minimizing data retrieval during subsequent usage and making the app feel faster. We also modified the photo synchronization process. Previously, syncing photos consumed significant time due to large data volumes. Now, photos are downloaded on demand when users view their past orders, improving overall efficiency.
Additionally, we enhanced the contact synchronization function, ensuring that every time users open the app, their contact book is updated with new entries added since the last session. Contact data is uploaded in batches rather than all at once to further improve efficiency.
Leobit also integrated Geoapify to address autocomplete functionality, enhancing user convenience during the checkout process.
Promo Code and Referral System Development
Leobit developed a promo code system in which codes are created in the admin panel and distributed externally. Promo codes are also automatically sent to users who haven't placed an order within a certain period after registration.
Referral codes are automatically generated upon new user registration. The referral system allows users to share their unique referral codes with friends; both parties receive a €5 discount on future orders once the friend registers and places their first order.
The Journey
Behind Client's Success
Technology Solutions
- The startup time was significantly reduced from 2 minutes to 15 seconds, providing users with a much faster and more responsive experience.
- By optimizing navigation, the app now runs more smoothly, with improved animations and no glitches, resulting in a seamless and enjoyable user experience.
- Implemented Azure Vision AI Service Integration for automatic photo cropping based on points of interest, also leaving the possibility for users to adjust easily or manually crop photos
- Reduced Azure expenses by 75% thanks to restructuring resource usage
- Improved admin panel loading times by implementing pagination, significantly speeding up data retrieval and order status updates.
- Integrated Geoapify to enhance user convenience during the checkout process
Value Delivered
- Thanks to the performance improvements, the customer’s user base grew by 25%
- Managed and processed a total of 3,5K+ photos through the platform in the first 6 months
- Thanks to our cooperation, the customer is now confident in their product and ready to actively promote it in both B2B and B2C markets