E-commerce website and back office software for a leading Christian e-book retailer

When Wordsearch®, a Christian e-book retailer, was acquired by LifeWay Christian Resources®, it needed to upgrade its software systems. Wordsearch had six months to achieve PCI credit card security compliance and avoid potential regulatory fines.

The Wordsearch team needed a modern e-commerce solution that allowed:

• retail customers to complete their orders online rather than contacting customer service.
• company sales reps to quickly enter orders for their institutional clients.
• the fulfillment team to automate their manual e-book subscription processing and royalty payment calculations.

The new Wordsearch system preserved Wordsearch’s data, met PCI compliance requirements, and automated manual processes.

Wordsearch invited RoleModel Software to assess their existing systems and recommend improvements. The team proposed a new web-based application using the existing databases. The new software would preserve Wordsearch’s data, meet PCI compliance requirements, and automate manual processes.

RoleModel's design team launched the project by conducting stakeholder interviews and creating user stories to prioritize the business objectives. RoleModel leveraged the user stories to design and start building the new software. At the same time, the team introduced testing systems to quickly identify technical issues and decrease development time. RoleModel team members prepared Wordsearch's IT infrastructure for a zero-downtime transition to the new software by addressing legacy database issues and creating deployment scripts.

RoleModel shipped a robust, mobile-friendly web application that met the PCI compliance goals within the six month time limit. The new website significantly improved the eCommerce user experience and increased online sales. The system automated e-book subscriptions, eliminated labor costs and improved e-book royalty reporting. Regional sales professionals used the software to work remotely and increase their productivity.

RoleModel Software went beyond simply delivering a PCI compliant solution. The team delivered a well-crafted system to improve productivity and lay a solid technical foundation for Wordsearch's future growth.