DrupalCon Sydney 2013: Real-Time Mobile Ecommerce in Drupal

Tired of waiting in line? Sick of having to plan your events far in advance? Luna Park have been listening and will be launching the first real-time, mobile e-commerce system built on open, web-standards (no specialised application!!) by the end of 2012.

Luna Park is one of Sydney's most recognised attractions, a theme park sitting right under the arch of the Harbour Bridge. In operation for over 75 years, Luna Park has seen many changes in business model, with the most important recent changes being the advent of the internet and mobile computing. They compete for Sydney and the world's entertainment dollars among a diverse landscape, and they've aimed to use technology to stake their claim.

Over 2012, Luna Park Sydney worked to build an innovative new e-commerce system that would work directly with their ticketing system in real time. This made it possible to buy tickets with a mobile phone and have them accepted at the gate, or have a customer order from the comfort of their lounge using the same system.

To do this, the team had a number of challenges to face, including working with Luna Park's ticketing system, and designing an online shop that was optimised for mobile devices and desktop alike. They used Drupal Commerce as a base platform and integrated with multiple technologies to deliver the solution.

Luna Park have also sought to embrace technology for other ends, including leveraging a unified customer view using CiviCRM and integrating advanced social media mining techniques to target customers. But it's not just for business, they also have provided a better experience to customers by making it easy for them to share the time they had at Luna Park with their friends on the internet. The online shop integrates with all of these systems to seed systems with data, connect to external networks and to prepare customers for their day.

This presentation will cover how Luna Park has used Drupal to accomplish all these aims, and what they learnt on the way.

Key Luna Park staff will also be part of the presentation team.

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