Optaros announced its design and assembly of a new online shopping concept for Wonderbox, a leading international Internet and retail company that sells the “Wonderbox”, which is a themed gift box containing vouchers for 6000 experiences from which the recipient can choose. Optaros redesigned and re-platformed Wonderbox’s online store, creating a Web 2.0 experience that drives excitement, usability and conversion rates.

Innovation is exploding in ecommerce as the industry reaches the end of its first decade. New online shopping experiences, including Wonderbox’s unique retailing concept, are proving to be successful and making legacy storefronts appear old and tired. Wonderbox sells experiences in a box through a large network of partners and distributors, including Thomas Cook, Virgin and Cultura. Since its launch in 2004, Wonderbox continues to increase its influence in the rapidly growing ecommerce retail industry, boosting its sales.

As international demand for this gift continues to increase so does the number of customers, partners and distributors that Wonderbox manages and interacts with. Optaros' Assembly Methodology provided rapid prototyping to turn this new retailing concept into a compelling user experience that makes thoughtful use of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and layering to create an extremely usable and compelling site. The underlying technology is assembled from components in a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) to provide long-term agility and scalability.

"Optaros enabled us to optimize our vision by uniquely combining their Next Generation Internet (NGI) design skills with hardcore technical expertise," said Bertile Burel, CEO for Wonderbox. "Seeing the full solution in prototype so early on in the Optaros process is highly valuable, and their open source expertise saved us significant money on re-platforming. Optaros’ flexible and scalable multi-channel ecommerce assembly enables us to scale our business, increase sales and improve partner and customer relationships."

Optaros assembled Wonderbox’s ecommerce solution in only six months. Optaros’ global team from Bucharest, Geneva, Boston and Zurich redesigned the ecommerce front end and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, including integration with back-end logistics and external partners.

“Our retail clients are working aggressively to bring compelling new online shopping experiences to market,” said Philippe Grosjean, vice president of Optaros. “Wonderbox’s success is more proof that new ecommerce concepts can lead to significant results with the right partners.”