Priceline is a well-known Australian pharmacy retailer with almost 500 stores throughout Australia. With a loyal customer following, Priceline has a vision to become Australia’s leading health, beauty and wellbeing retailer.
Thanks to their commitment to providing effective customer service and offering the largest product range at the best price, their total network sales rose 2.4% to $2.2 billion in 2019, and this rate of growth is fully expected to continue.

Priceline acknowledged that it would need to adopt a more advanced digital strategy to supplement its already successful retail empire to prepare itself for rapid changes within the industry. However, a faulty architecture and antiquated platform versioning were holding them back.
The previous Priceline.com.au site was quite outdated. Based on Magento Enterprise Edition version 1.10, it was almost unusable on mobile, let alone optimized to handle the massive influx of consumers using mobile as their primary shopping channel. It even had functionality issues on desktop, making it completely unacceptable under modern eCommerce standards

THE PLATFORM
The new version of Priceline.com.au was rebuilt completely, based on Magento EE version 1.14. Data was migrated into the new platform ready for the newly designed website. The former Concrete5 front-end was replaced by a customized Magento CMS module, fixing the bottleneck that slowed the system down so drastically.

INTEGRATIONS
With their new website, they were able to include new integrations to modernize the experience with new features and functionality. The integration with loyalty and order fulfillment systems was optimized, enhancing their loyalty scheme and improving its usability across all channels.
The payment gateway was changed to a more secure system for better performance and fraud detection. This ensures that customers are protected when purchasing from the store.

SYSTEM OPTIMIZATION
To thoroughly test the system and put it through its paces, extensive unit test scripts were made and performed constantly during the development and, in combination with automated functional and load tests, ensured that the bugs were kept to a minimum and that any performance issues were detected early.
Priceline wanted customers to have the best experience possible, and this auditing and testing of their system reassured them that everything was optimized to fit with their vision.

USER INTERFACE AND USER EXPERIENCE
Customer experience was at the forefront of Priceline’s mind for their new online store. A new front-end was made using a responsive design, which ran well on tablet and other mobile devices and also reflected their brand image. The user interface was built to be easy to use and navigate, allowing customers to find what they are looking for as efficiently as possible.
The AWS hosting was also set up for better performance during sales periods, meaning they are ready to handle peaks in traffic, even during busy holiday periods.

GOING FORWARD
Priceline will continue to add value and offer better services to their customers through the power of Magento and the continued support of SmartOSC. A sophisticated digital strategy and the right technology to back it up are the decisive factors in ensuring this pharmacy giant’s longevity in eCommerce.