Case Study: Kodansha

Project Brief

Creative Theorem was invited to pitch for the development of the European online B2C and B2B portal for Japanese book publisher Kodansha.

The website needed a design that inspired the user's imagination and gave a feel of the East. The website would allow users to search the full online book catalogue in a number of different ways as well as pay for books by Credit or Debit Card securely through Amazon.co.uk.

As Kodansha Europe is also a distributor of books to wholesalers and bookshops internationally the site also needed to have a trade section that allowed trade users to place and manage their orders online.

Ultimately the site would serve as a resource for people interested in Japanese and other Asian cultures in UK and Europe. The system design would therefore have to be open as possible for the development of further functionality for general as well as trade users.

Project Description

The initial phase of the project involved defining the brief and the functional specification for the system. This involved working closely with Kodansha's marketing and operations team to clearly define the user functions and system functions for the site.

With the system fully defined development of the site began with the user interface and the backend developed in parallel. The interface has been designed with simplicity in mind as well as producing something that reflects the imagination of the books that it publishes and promotes.

While CT's designers worked on the front end the in-house software engineers set about developing the functionality behind the website. A trade customer and online book catalogue database had to be designed as well as a bespoke content management system. The website also had to be integrated with Amazon.co.uk using Amazon's web services API. This integration using SOAP technology allows users to perform all book research and shopping cart functionality on Kodansha's website. The user is then transferred to Amazon.co.uk to process card payment securely. Amazon also fulfils the order with delivery.

Project Outcome

Kodansha Europe, for the first time, can provide an online resource with e-commerce functionality to their customers in Europe. The kodansha.eu website will ultimately be a major resource for users in the UK and Europe to not only purchase books but also act as a resource to find information on Japan and other Asian cultures.

The site itself now provides users with far more detailed content about each book as well as a large variety of search methods to find exactly the book the user wants. Users can order online through Amazon and book shops and wholesalers can now restock on Kodansha, Serindia and Orchid Press books using the trade section of the website.

Since the projects launch Kodansha has experienced a significant increase in overall sales turnover.