CASE STUDY
Tennis equipment e-commerce system
An online store that sells both new and pre-owned tennis equipment, with two stock models handled separately in one back office and payment and membership built in. Staff no longer decide the source and price of each order by hand.
RESULTS
What this project changed
- -60%
- Order processing time
- Dual stock
- New and pre-owned stock kept separate
The problem
Selling pre-owned goods and selling new goods are two different stock models. New items can be counted by model number, while every pre-owned racket is a separate item with its own condition, grade and price.
- Off-the-shelf shopping platforms are built around new stock, and pre-owned items could only be forced in as a model with a quantity of one.
- New and pre-owned items appeared in the same product list, which confused customers and cost staff time explaining.
- Once an order came in, staff had to confirm the source and price by hand, which slowed things down and invited mistakes.
What we did
Rather than making pre-owned items fit the new-stock structure, we made the system support both natively.
- New items are counted by model and variant, and pre-owned items are recorded one by one with their condition grade and own price.
- The storefront separates the two clearly, so customers can see whether they are buying new or a single pre-owned item.
- Payment and membership are built in, so orders, payment and shipping status are handled in one back office.
- A pre-owned item is delisted as soon as it sells, so the same item cannot be ordered twice.
Results
With the stock models sorted out, order handling needs far fewer manual decisions.
- Order processing time fell by about 60%.
- New and pre-owned stock are managed separately in one system and no longer interfere with each other.
- Membership and payment are integrated, so shipping and accounting records agree.
CONSTRAINTS
Constraints
The conditions that were fixed from the start. The trade-offs behind the approach only make sense once you know them.
The reason this was built rather than bought is exactly that an off-the-shelf data structure cannot hold pre-owned goods.
- Every pre-owned racket is a separate item with its own condition grade and price, which does not fit management by model and quantity.
- New and pre-owned had to sell in the same shop, but customers must be able to tell them apart at once and never see them mixed in one list.
- A pre-owned item exists only once, so it has to stop selling the moment it is sold, and overselling is not acceptable.
- Payment details are handled entirely by the payment service and are not stored by the system.
HOW IT WORKS
Technology and integrations
What the system connects to, how the data moves and why those choices were made — written so that no technical background is needed.
Rather than making pre-owned items fit the new-stock structure, we let the system support both natively.
- New items are counted by model and variant, pre-owned items are recorded one by one with condition grade and their own price, and each follows its own rules.
- A pre-owned item is delisted as soon as it sells, so the same one cannot be ordered twice.
- Payment and membership sit in one back office, so shipping and accounting work from the same order record.