Staples' New Development Center For E-Commerce Platforms
By Megan Zielinski, contributing writer
On June 5, Staples, one of the largest global internet retailers, announced the opening of its downtown Seattle Development Center, consisting of talented e-commerce and engineering teams that will work toward developing initiatives to improve their omni-channel capabilities, along with Staples business customers in 26 countries.
The new Seattle Development Center is the second west coast lab, along with the San Mateo Innovation Lab based in the Silicon Valley area. In October 2013, Staples acquired Runa, based in San Mateo, CA, a software company that provides solutions for online retailers to increase sales and company growth by personalizing the e-commerce experience. The purchase of Runa brought in a team of knowledgeable, skilled ecommerce developers into the San Mateo Development Center. “With Runa, we’re adding technology to better serve our customers with personalized items, offers, and delivery estimates, all in real-time. Runa will allow us to tap into the wealth of engineering and e-commerce expertise in the Silicon Valley area,” said Ronald Sargent, chief executive officer and chairman, Staples.
The two centers are dedicated to testing and initiating state-of-the-art next-generation digital platforms, building software, big data research, and focusing on personalizing the shopping experience. “Staples is very excited about the new center of excellence, which enable key performance areas in e-commerce business and provides individuals and managers great opportunities for growth.” said Prakash Muppirala, vice president, e-commerce engineering, Staples.
The Seattle center includes teams with outstanding technical, analytics, communication skills, and experience in Clojure programming, to develop breakthrough solutions—improving productivity and growth for small-and medium-sized businesses and Staples. The developers will work together, testing new ecommerce functions and effective online merchandising strategies. The Staples search team is in charge of bringing new businesses to Staples and improving upon existing search engines—enhancing the omni-channel experience. “Our mission is to both offer the product and provide the best-in-class product search experience to our customers.” The big data development team focuses on building platforms for optimized personalization toward online, in-store and mobile customers—“targeting the right customer with the right products at their moment of need.”
“Staples new Development Center allows us to tap into the wide range of talented engineers, e-commerce and creative professionals on the west coast. We will build integrated, collaborative teams with the goal of making the shopping experience easy,” says Faisal Masud, EVP, global e-commerce.