Neutral Logistics

Neutral Logistics is a pioneering company in the Dominican Republic offering freight transportation services under the concept of a neutral consolidator.

It is the exclusive representative in the Dominican Republic of the WorldWide Alliance, the world’s largest network of neutral agents.

Neutral Logistics came to us needing a website with some very interesting functionalities that required a lot of talent and effort on our part; among the requirements we had:

1. Agent catalog, displaying the agents we work with, which can be filtered by origin and destination country, giving clients greater visibility of available destinations.

2. Weight and dimensions calculator, a tool that allows clients to independently calculate the approximate cost of their cargo.

3. Itinerary search engine connected via an API, which displays available voyages worldwide. It is directly connected to the World Wide Alliance, the provider our client represents.

4. Package tracker, where each package has a unique number that allows users to track its location along its route in real time.

5. Interactive map displaying routes, dynamically showing the routes taken by ships on an interactive map.

6. Creation of a professional website, designed to represent the company globally.

As you can see, the required work was quite extensive. We had to understand how each of these functionalities worked internally within the company to create them effectively.

The first challenge was gathering the necessary information and formatting it for the website. Luckily, the client had everything in writing, but even so, to use it in a web app, everything always needs to be formatted.

The second challenge was creating the individual apps (we used React for some of them) and testing the WWA APIs.

The third challenge, and probably the most time-consuming, was the interactive map. For this, we needed to create each route using coordinates. This meant that each route could have more than 30 coordinate pairs (latitude and longitude) and more than 90 different routes, sometimes with multiple destinations per route. This was a truly interesting challenge.

We began by gathering information. Given the large number of functionalities, we maintained constant communication with the company’s IT department, which provided excellent feedback on our requests.

We determined which sections we would create for the website and what information we believed would be relevant to the end customer, since this website should not only be a tool for current clients but also attract new ones.

To begin the design process, the first thing we did was create the sitemap showing how the website would be structured. We then sent the first draft of the homepage for approval.

For final approval of the designs, we send the client a mockup (high fidelity) with the designs assembled to simulate the use, clicks and scrolling of the page, after changing a few details, we successfully complete the design phase.

For this project, we decided to use a visual editor that’s part of our workflow (Divi), but only for the informational sections of the site.

For the interactive sections, we chose React, our go-to frontend library. However, we didn’t use it for the map because it had unique dependencies that didn’t integrate well with React, so we built it with vanilla JavaScript.

Of course, the API calls are made from PHP, since these APIs use private user keys that should never be exposed to the client, ensuring their security.

As a final phase before delivering the project, we go through a usability test. We have an internal checklist that we use to track any small details that might be missed, thus ensuring that the client gets a functional, responsive website that loads quickly and is visually appealing to the end user.

As a result, we have one of the most comprehensive websites we’ve ever developed, an extremely useful tool for hundreds of customers who no longer need to call the company to find out where their package is, calculate its dimensions, or see what routes the company offers.

So, if you want to create a tool that sets you apart from your competitors, streamlines your processes, and serves as the first point of contact for your customers, don’t hesitate to get in touch.