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Introducing ToolTwist CloudMall

The ToolTwist Team5 min readCompany

Need an eCommerce site that doesn't look like an eCommerce site? Functionality that suits your business rather than a one-size-fits-all online store? Or a site that your marketing people can tweak and tune for product launches, daily specials, and the seasons?

You may be after CloudMall.

ToolTwist CloudMall is an eCommerce system built from the ground up on a microservices architecture. It fits naturally with mobile API-based services and is designed for scalability and extensibility, so it can grow with the business rather than boxing it in.

Why we built it

We build bespoke software when existing packages don't fit. Over thirty-plus years, the same problem kept coming back: businesses want to sell from their website, but every path has a catch. A "one size fits all" package leaves you looking like every other web store. A large consultancy will build it, then attach a vacuum cleaner to your wallet. And letting a web design firm build it from scratch means re-living the costly lessons eCommerce learned twenty years ago.

CloudMall is the middle ground. Pre-fabricated components and configuration tools let a development team, ours or yours, assemble a customised, reliable system at an acceptable price.

Two parts: the storefront and TEA

CloudMall has two main parts.

A complete, ready-to-use store website, designed to be customised and extended. ToolTwist Designer is a web design and assembly tool your developers use to build anything from new web pages through to complete applications. Because the complex commerce logic is separated out, the people shaping the storefront can be web developers rather than programmers. Changes pass through an approvals stage and are then scheduled for automatic, hands-free deployment to production. In many cases pages can be built by staff with no IT experience at all.

Behind the interface sits TEA, the ToolTwist eCommerce Accelerator, a highly optimised API server providing the full functionality of eCommerce: caching, pricing engines, search, shopping cart, payments, and shipping, with extension points for customisation and integration. TEA can also be called from non-CloudMall sites, giving a web design team a huge head start when adding commerce to an existing site or mobile app.

CloudMall architecture: a Java/Tomcat storefront UI and a node.js API layer over MySQL, Redis in-line cache, and an Apache Solr search engine, with an optional sync path to OpenERP for ERP integration.

Three ways to adopt it

  • Curated cloud-based eCommerce. We build and host a business-specific store for you. If you want to be different from the rest, you have to be different from the rest, so we assemble bespoke systems from prefabricated components plus new development as required.
  • Use our cloud-based micro-services. Already have your own software? TEA can provide an eCommerce back-end to an existing website or mobile app, or feed orders from the CloudMall front-end into your existing ERP. Concentrate on your killer application and let CloudMall handle the humdrum of commerce.
  • Roll your own. Everything is available cloud-hosted or in-house. Treat CloudMall as an all-in-one black box, or pick the parts you need as embeddable components. Every ToolTwist component ships as a hosted binary, source code, or a Docker container.

What's in the box

The storefront is fast and responsive across desktop, tablet, and mobile, with home-page banner carousels and product details editable in real time through ToolTwist Designer. Product pages carry multiple-language and multi-currency support with full variant handling, and a single-page checkout supports guest or returning buyers, multiple shipping methods, and a secure redirect to payment gateways.

The admin portal covers the full operational surface: category and product maintenance (CSV pricing uploads, SKUs, variants, and per-page SEO meta tags), promo-code vouchers, shipping rules, a self-contained warehouse and dispatch module with tracking and ETAs, currency rates, and reports. Marketing integrations include MailChimp, Google Analytics, and LYONESS, and there are modules for an affiliate program and multi-level marketing complete with a network family tree.

CloudMall storefronts in production: the MetroSix electronics store, Nutra Organics, and the MyHeroes personalised-merchandise site.

Tech specs

  • Cloud-based architecture and deployment, primarily on Amazon AWS.
  • Multitenant: many shops hosted on a single set of load-balanced servers and databases.
  • API layer built on node.js, event-driven, ready for modern mobile and IoT devices.
  • Faceted search on Apache Solr, with heuristic search and facet counts.
  • Multiple payment gateways via a plugin architecture; PayPal out of the box; PCI compliant via paymentwise.
  • Self-contained warehousing and dispatch.
  • ERP synchronisation plugins, with OpenERP integration out of the box.

With CloudMall you don't need to sell your soul to the devil, bet the farm, or throw out your trusted web design team to get a web presence that matches your business and engages your customers.

See our work or talk to us about a store built around your business.