Succulent Studio is a California-based startup that offers a subscription service for plant lovers. Customers can subscribe to receive two 8-week-old mystery succulents each month, which are carefully hand-selected and packaged to ensure they arrive in excellent condition.
As a developer at Succulent Studio, I had the opportunity to contribute to the development of a comprehensive subscription platform that provided customers with a seamless and hassle-free experience. The platform was designed to enable customers to subscribe, manage their subscriptions, and make changes to their accounts easily.
Table of Contents
- Main Website
- Checkout
- Account
- Custom Subscription Process System
- Admin dashboard
- Printing and Shipment System
Main Website
The main website was built entirely with Angular and featured server-side rendering (SSR) to ensure fast loading times and optimal performance. Customers could use the site to subscribe, manage their subscriptions, and change their account details.
Checkout
The checkout process was a significant feature of the platform, and it was designed to be as user-friendly as possible.
The checkout process consisted of 3 steps:
- Basics: This is where customers entered their information.
- Shipping Details: In this step the system verified and validated the address in real-time using Google Places API and EasyPost API. Customers could also add a note if the subscription was a gift.
- Secure Payment: Finally, there was Secure Payment, where customers could enter their payment information or choose alternative payment methods like Google Pay or Apple Pay. The checkout also featured a coupon code system to provide customers with discounts.
Account
The account page allowed customers to manage their subscriptions and make changes to their accounts.
- They could track, pause, or cancel their subscriptions.
- Gift a subscription's next month shipment to someone else.
- Change account details like email, password, and payment methods.
We also created a referral system that provided each customer with a unique referral code that could be used by others when signing up. Based on the number of people who used the referral code, the customer could get a reward.
Custom Subscription Process System
We developed a custom subscription processing system using Node.js and Braintree as the chosen payment processor. The system processed thousands of subscriptions automatically each day based on their billing date.
It handled tasks like processing and validating payments using Braintree and sending notifications to customers about their subscription.
Admin dashboard
The admin dashboard provided us with a comprehensive overview of customer accounts, allowing us to manage their subscriptions and execute common actions like
- Canceling and pausing subscriptions.
- Resetting customer passwords.
- Processing payments.
- Creating custom shipments.
- General troubleshooting.
Printing and Shipment System
To automate the process of shipping subscriptions, we developed a printing and shipment system.
This system identified pending subscriptions, grouped them by the order in which they were renewed, communicated with the EasyPost API to purchase labels for shipments, and generated a PDF with all the labels of the shipments.
We also developed a dashboard that allowed us to manage the printing process and review the history of labels created.
Summary
Overall, working on the Succulent Studio project was a fulfilling experience. It was exciting to contribute to the development of a platform that brought a little bit of joy and greenery to people's lives.