Building a new way to shop
Our client offered digital products and services to businesses in hospitality and consumer industries, from independent shops and farm stores to cafés and other venues. Its aim was to help those businesses attract customers, convert interest into purchases and increase average order value. Halesia was responsible for the technical design, build and implementation across that product offering.
At its centre was the AI Basket Builder: a conversational shopping assistant that helped customers decide what to buy and assemble an order. Halesia took the client's product specifications through architecture and development into a working product, bringing product discovery, relevant upselling and click and collect into one experience.
From a conversation to a basket
Customers could open the assistant on a business's website, describe what they wanted and ask questions about products. The assistant used the business's catalogue and the conversation to suggest items, help build the basket and recommend complementary purchases as the order developed.
This made the conversation itself a way to shop. A customer could explore options, choose products and receive relevant suggestions within the assistant, with a click-and-collect journey to arrange collection. The commercial objective was to make purchasing easier while helping businesses surface useful additions that customers might otherwise overlook.
Halesia also implemented dietary information and local artisan product features. These were incorporated into the shopping flow, with dietary details shown where relevant and local products distinguished within the recommendations. We designed the interaction so these features appeared in context, keeping the experience focused as customers moved from choosing products to arranging collection.
The engineering behind the assistant
Halesia designed the system around each business's catalogue, prices and configuration, with a website integration layer connecting the customer interface to the basket-building logic. This allowed the product to be adapted to different businesses and embedded within their websites.
We separated AI-assisted conversation and recommendations from the conventional software logic for basket quantities, totals and order handling. The completed core build brought together recommendations, click and collect, dietary information and local artisan products in a working demonstration, giving the client a concrete product to present to businesses and use for feedback.
Delivering the wider product offering
Halesia's role extended across the client's digital offering. We built and implemented marketing websites, web apps and other software products intended to support customer acquisition, sales and revenue growth. The website work provided businesses with a digital presence through which they could showcase their offering and connect customers with the client's sales tools.
The client defined the commercial proposition and the needs of its business customers; Halesia supplied the technical capability to make those products work. Our responsibility covered translating specifications into a technical approach, building the interfaces and underlying software, and integrating the resulting products into the customer experience.