Photolab.ca

Digital Photography Processing Site

Customer

Loblaws Companies is Canada’s largest food retailer and distributor. Throughout the multiple store banners in the Loblaws family, their approach is to focus on food but serve consumers’ everyday consumable needs, enhance customer loyalty and profitability through controlled-label programs and deliver everything with flawless execution.

Mission

Loblaws is seeking to become the de facto “one stop shop” for Canadians through extending the services that their customers can receive at the grocery store. They are on a constant mission to add new services and to improve the services already in place.

Challenge

Loblaws was currently providing customers with the ability to drop off their photos in store and have them sent out for developing through their Photolab service. In addition, this service had been extended to include digital uploading of pictures on the internet through www.photolab.ca with subsequent pick-up in store. However, the solution that had been put in place was not going to allow Loblaws to compete in an ever more competitive marketplace that is looking for exceptionally fast turnaround times on digital processing.

Loblaws viewed their national network of over 450 stores as a significant competitive weapon in this market, but their current software solution was not allowing them to take advantage of their massive distribution network.

Approach

Agora developed an entirely new version of Photolab.ca – built on the Microsoft .NET Platform. Agora partnered with Fuji Canada for the physical processing of the photographs, Mediaclip for a custom albums solution and Fusepoint for application hosting services. Agora provided System Integration, Business Analysis, Project Management, Systems Architecture, Development, Testing, and ongoing maintenance and support. This multi-partner approach was necessary to develop and implement and robust solution as well as to meet very aggressive launch timelines expected by Loblaws.

Agora’s development team spent weeks analyzing competitive online photofinishing sites and searching for best of breed components to ensure the new site would provide the best possible customer experience.

Solution

Photolab.ca’s new .NET site was put in production on time and was receiving orders within minutes of launch. The launch included cutover of over 450 stores that provide distributed fulfillment of prints across the country.

In addition, Agora architected and developed a highly customizable administrative function called Online Management Portal that allows Loblaws to dynamically manage all aspects of their online photo business – from configuring new stores, products and pricing, to monitoring the status of the entire printing network and dealing with customer service issues as they arise.

The entire solution is built with .NET 2.0 and utilizes a SQL Server 2000 database. .NET Remoting was utilized extensively. Other technologies employed include C++, Flash 8, XML, AJAX, ATL COM+, ZIP and SFTP. The solution is completely web services compliant, allowing Loblaws to integrate any third party components with relative ease.

The physical architecture is highly scalable to allow for the exponential growth that is expected in this marketplace.

Impact

By implementing the new site for Photolab.ca, Loblaws has taken a leadership position in the digital photo-finishing market in Canada and further entrenched their stores as an important stop for all consumers. Photolab.ca has recently been evaluated as the most user-friendly online digital photofinishing site in Canada by an independent research company.