Part 1

In our new series "The Developer's Diary" we give you an insight into the everyday life of our colleagues. From now on, they will report at regular intervals on updates, but also on successes and challenges in their projects. There are also interesting technological and methodological insights.

In the following weeks, Marcel - lead consultant and project manager -, Laurens - lead project developer - and Jure - backend development - will take you into their everyday lives at Carrera. To give you an insight into the project and its dimensions, we start today with some background knowledge.

The long-established company based in Salzburg, Austria, is one of the leading manufacturers of slot car racing and equipment in the world. Carrera's trademark is the true-to-scale construction of model racing cars and sports cars. The products are distributed in over forty nations. For more than two years, byte5 and Carrera have been working closely together on the carrera-toys.com online shop. For the current implementation, we are taking over maintenance and service. The consolidation of the system is now also in the hands of byte5.

The redesign of the shop makes it future-proof, modern and scalable. The underlying processes are also being fundamentally revised. Since the monthly provision of the current implementation alone already causes enormous costs, the focus is also on cost efficiency with increased performance at the same time. The project team's services therefore go beyond pure development. Our three-person team provides extensive consulting services, especially in the area of business processes. In doing so, it works together with various departments at Carrera, especially Business Development and Marketing.

The high complexity and the great effort in this project pose various challenges for the byte5 team.

At the same time, existing processes are critically evaluated and optimised together with the departments involved from Business Development, IT, Marketing and Accounting. In the process, all processes are of course also checked to ensure that they are up to date and fit for purpose.

Next.js is particularly suitable for use in the project due to its high frontend content and the possibility of achieving the best possible performance via server-side rendering and generation.

The project started in March 2021 and the first project phase has already been completed. The completion of phase two - with a new backend system - is planned for autumn 2021. This is to be followed immediately by the launch of the entire e-commerce for the American and European markets. The team will then devote itself to the implementation of the B2B landscape. Since the toy manufacturer's main business is in the fourth quarter with the Christmas season, the shop should be completely reorganised by then. For both customers and operators, this will ensure smooth shopping in the shop and its processing even in times of high demand.

We have a lot of plans and look forward to taking you with us into the day-to-day running of the project. If you have any questions, please contact us via our social media channels or our contact form.