Case Study - Starbound Records

Company Background

Starbound Records has been a client since 2001. They are a valued member of the online business community on Amazon, Half.com and eBay, receiving the highest possible customer ratings on their respective sites. They are also a respected and well know independent music store located in West Valley City with a selection of over 450,000 items in stock.

Technology

Macromedia ColdFusion MX, Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, Fireworks MX, PHP, CGI, MS Access 2000, SQL Server 2000, FoxPro, Visual C/C++/C#, Basic .NET, Variety of web services.

Projects

Web Design - We designed the entire Starbound Records website and more importantly the user interface that revolves around the inventory server we created. The web interface is easy-to-use and understand. It combines the latest in IT while still being completely accessible to older computers and slower internet speeds. The layout was designed to give the customer the most information possible without sacrificing development time or cost.

Server - The Starbound Records server was designed and is maintained by Nexus Computer Consulting. It is a high performance Windows 2000 system that includes ColdFusion and utilizes IIS 5.0. It has PHP, ODBC and SQL interfaces which are utilized for database searching, but the core is the database created to exist simultaneously with a legacy FoxPro inventory store database. The web server is updated asyncronously and utilizes web services to communicate to various other external sources of information.

Database Parser - This application was designed to send all pertinent inventory information to the major online e-commerce selling markets (i.e. Amazon, Half.com and eBay). The custom built program used specifications Starbound Records wanted and includes advanced features found nowhere else. This gives them a distinct advantage when it comes to online sales.

Results

Starbound Records has had their monthly sales increase 40% since the installation of the Database Parser application. This along with their website and their excellent customer service have helped them maintain their business in a time when record store and companies are closing down. The new technology has helped them realize trends and opportunities that, with our help, they take advantage of almost immediately.