Posted by John on August 27, 2012
My name is Nino Ross Rodriguez and started to work for Forecepts on July 2009 as an Interactive Web Designer. At first I was intimidated with the people around me as everything was really new to me. New environment, new people, new country. As the months slowly unfold in my new company, I became more at home and established my own identity.
I got to know the people in the company, the programmers, the developers, the project managers and the bosses. What I can say about these people is that they are one of the most laid back companies that I have joined in my career.
Starting with my colleagues, they are so approachable and so helpful that they will assist you to the best of their abilities. Though they are a bit shy but they will always be there to help you in any way possible.
The bosses are so down to earth that you can also approach them and ask for anything, as long as that what you are requesting is reasonable. The bosses are too kind sometimes that you will feel shy to ask for something small.
My overall experience in Forecepts is an unforgettable one. We grew up together in the company as a family and we bonded together as brothers and sisters. No one is higher or lower that the other. We are all equal. We are one Forecepts Family.
Posted by John on August 22, 2012
Posted by Lee Peng on August 2, 2012
2006 is really the eCommerce boom in Singapore
We done the most eCommerce projects in this year. Everyone seems want to start their dream store in the virtual world.
From existing shop who wish to go online… entrepreneur who starting a new idea… to … students selling design t-shirt
The sad thing was most of them failed within 1 year of operation… except the following two… and they share the same nature…. Fishing!!
Anglers-Proshop.com (later JDMTackle.com)
Randy. A Jigging & Popping (a type of extreme fishing technique) fanatic, made his hobby his business.
I think the most successful part of this business is he chose to based in U.S.
With this, the business is exposed to the large U.S. local market with cheap shipping option, as well as the global market. Basing in the western country also help the business to escape from price war which is very common in Asia.
Beside this, Randy also participate actively in the hobbyist community, forums and organise many fishing trips. In addition, he also introduced some quality but reasonable price brands to the States… and even build his own rods. These professional knowledge and reputation are really the foundation of the success of the business.
I will use the name JDMTackle to address this website in the later part of this post. (I don’t want google to index the old website name via our post 
)
FishingBuddy.com.sg
An established fishing accessories retail back here at Singapore.
The online present has attract many viewership but not fully online order as many local hobbyist still prefer to purchase at the shopfront. However, lately they have started to sell to the overseas market through the online store and we are pleased to serving them continuously for their success.
Both websites were built using our eCommerce engine as foundation and with certain level of customisations to make it suite better the business. Unlike other eCommerce, the design and development of online fishing stores shared some of their uniqueness….
a.) 1 product, many variations
For example, lure. We have different colors. Different packing. Different sizes.
So shall we split them into different products or a single products with different variations?
We eventually implemented a 3D product variants for JDMTackle with model, size and color.
b.) Many sizes
Imagine this…
Reels are small but heavy
Rods are light but long
Lures are small and light
Accessories are more of the common size
And more…
I can put 2 rods and ship as a tube. When I ship with rods, I count by volume instead of weight
I can put lures and ship with tube for free
c.) Many many shipping options
Due to the size matter and to make price competitive, different shipping options need to be implemented.
For JDMTackle, we have things like
- Fedex for U.S. domestic shipping of all items
- Fedex for international rods shipping
- EMS, USPS, Fedex for international shipping of other items
For FishingBuddy, we have
- SingPost and SpeedPost for local orders
- SingPost, SpeedPost and TNT for international orders
Beside multiple options, shipping rates from different providers are monitored from time to time so that customer can enjoy the best rate. For example we have been switching UPS/DHL/Fedex for JDMTackle and keep revising the EMS and USPS price table to the latest offer.
As the community is small, we eventually got to build another fishing store.. eastackle…
So, let’s fish together
Posted by Lee Peng on July 21, 2012
Sep 2005 – First launch
Feb 2006 – Design change (provided by CTC’s in-house designer)
With added banner management and LIVE of cruise
Minor adjustment in terms of banner and image links
Sep 2006 – 1st Revamp
Here comes the concept of aggregating information and quick search to every products at the home page
Mar 2008 – 2nd Revamp
This revamp didn’t come with much functionality changes but more of a change of design concept as well as in alignment of the many online marketing and the launch of sister website findmerooms.com
Jan 2011 – 3rd Revamp
The previous design was too dull. A new lifestyle design was done up by our creative designer.
Unfortunately the team who drive the original few versions of website left CTC and the content is now way under-maintain (Only left group tours are updated. Free & easy content is updated but nobody load the price. So you might see many empty space here)
Posted by Lee Peng on
It was a 7 years journey with Commonwealth Travel, marking the start of our relationship with the travel industry…
We were back then a tiny company and we managed to win the contract against another vendor who is more experienced in the field. Really appreciate the first management group who trust us and gave us the opportunity.
The original website before revamp wasn’t rich in content and features…
The requirements were very brief. They want a more vibrant website that has the component of tours (group / free & easy / cruise), flights, hotels, membership and booking enquiries.
We know nuts about travel back then. But we know how to organise data and information and learn through what we have.
So our tiny Bukit Batok office was full of product booklets, brochures, flyers, price sheets as it if we want to travel around the world.
We work with the marketing team and we didn’t arrange direct interviews with other department. Something due to our lack of experience. Haha. Anyway, we did study other products to figure out what shall we do. It is kind of open specs project anyway.
Timeline was very tight. We signed the contract in late May and wish to LIVE in mid Aug. The most “lucky” was we have another Headhunting company system project signed at the same time and I was the only programmer -_-!!
Thank God that Patrick join us as intern during his university school holiday and we have 2 “team” working on different project.
After 2 months of 10am – 11pm fights, here is the result
(The WayBack Machine didn’t capture the background image properly. The actual one looks much nicer. Trust me!)
The new website is much comprehensive in feature:
- Structured tour information for group, free & easy and cruise
- Upload of group tour price and availability from back office system
- Complex free & easy and cruise price matrix (pls imagine for cruise, you have different departure seasons, different deck, different cabin etc)
- Flights and rates
- Hotels and rates
- Comprehensive booking enquiry form so that most of the traveller information are captured
- Travel club membership
- Travel club privileges directory
Technically, PHP + PostgresSQL were used. pgSQL was selected because MySQL 4 didn’t has the sufficient features we want.
Many has contributed to the successful launch of this project, especially the young and dynamic CTC marketing team back then.
Anyway, the journey started and many things happened after this…
Posted by Lee Peng on July 20, 2012
Here we talk about HappyApe.com we developed in 2005.
As this was our 2nd eCommerce project and we were exploring ways to do it more efficiently.
After evaluating some off-the-shelve products like osCommerce and cubeCart, we felt that is is better for us to develop our own eCommerce engine that is easier to use by merchant and easily customisable.
HappyApe.com was launched after 2 months of day and night fighting to build the engine and integrate the design together.
We stretch ourself to provide 2 payment options: Credit card using WorldPay and PayPal.
This was the first time we integrate PayPal and I would said we really had hard time to learn from messy PayPal documentation website to get things like PDT and IPN works properly. Though hard, it become one of our most valuable asset to get PayPal done the proper way.
In fact, we had our 3rd eCommerce project anglers-proshop.com done concurrently at the later stage of the development and launch it 2 weeks after we launched happyape.com. Again, our solution tested and worked 
Posted by Lee Peng on
Way back in Nov 2003, our 2nd official project, first project that we charged 5 figure…
Kimleekiat supplies pantry food and stationaries to companies with delivery service. What they required is to expand their sales channel from phone order to online order.
This project consist of a public website, introducing the company and a sign-up to the “Pantry Management System”.
The “Pantry Management System” allowed company users to browse through catalogue and place orders, setup frequent buying list, track order status and generate reports.
The admin system allow Kimleekait to setup inventory, setup specific pricing for companies, build change of price with notifications, processing of orders, printing invoice / DO and comprehensive sales reports.
This was the first project that we gone through the proper SDLC. Proper proposal was given during quoting of project and detailed specifications was drafted out before the start of programming.
Proven to be a working system and Kimleekiat is still using it happily now!
