Result At Glance
Selling gold and silver online is not like selling most other products. Prices change every few seconds during market hours, inventory moves across eBay and a website simultaneously and customers range from first-time buyers to serious wholesale investors. No off-the-shelf eCommerce platform handles all of that well. Erie Gold and Silver needed something built specifically for the way their business works.
Metrics: Before and After
Platform delivery metrics based on functional requirements confirmed at launch. Performance data measured via Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse on the live AWS production environment. Checkout completion, session duration and bounce rate measured against the legacy platform baseline.
| Metric | Before | After | Change | Measurement Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Update Frequency | Manual / delayed | Real-time (API-driven) | Eliminated pricing errors | Platform delivery |
| Channels Managed | Website only | Website + eBay unified | Multi-channel from day one | Platform delivery |
| Customer Pricing Tiers | Single retail price | Retail + wholesale tiers | B2B revenue unlocked | Platform delivery |
| Admin Operations | Multiple disconnected tools | Single centralised panel | Full operational unity | Platform delivery |
| Google PageSpeed Desktop | ~43 / 100 | 88 / 100 | +105% | Google PageSpeed Insights |
| Google PageSpeed Mobile | ~36 / 100 | 84 / 100 | +133% | Google PageSpeed Insights |
| Page Load Time (avg) | ~5.5s | ~2.0s | -64% | Lighthouse / GTmetrix |
| Checkout Completion Rate | ~51% | ~74% | +45% | Precious metals eComm benchmark |
| Avg. Session Duration | ~1m 14s | ~3m 28s | +181% | Post-launch analytics |
| Bounce Rate | ~74% | ~45% | -39% | Post-launch analytics |
- Erie Gold and Silver
- KrishaWeb
- Design and Development
- Building the backend admin panel
- Integrating payment gateways
- Implementing shipping integrations
- AWS cloud infrastructure
How KrishaWeb Built a Custom Precious Metals Platform
Erie Gold and Silver is a Colorado-based precious metals dealer that buys and sells gold and silver bullion, collectible and numismatic coins, world currency and military relics. The business serves customers ranging from portfolio investors adding gold bars to serious collectors seeking a specific Morgan dollar in a particular grade.
Erie Gold and Silver is known in their market for honest, transparent pricing. Customer reviews consistently highlight that the business pays at or above spot for silver and takes the time to educate buyers who are new to precious metals. That reputation is built on trust — and trust in the precious metals business begins with price accuracy. A customer who sees a price on the website and arrives to find a different one will not come back.
The Challenge
The legacy platform had been built for a simpler time and a smaller operation. It could not handle the complexity the business had grown into and every gap showed up as a lost sale, a manual workaround for the team or a pricing error that damaged the trust the business depended on.
Pricing That Could Not Keep Up with the Market
Gold and silver prices move continuously during market hours. The legacy platform had no connection to live market data so prices were updated manually, creating a lag that exposed the business to losses and eroded customer trust when site prices did not match what customers were told in-store or over the phone.
Two Sales Channels with No Unified View
Erie Gold and Silver sold through both their website and an eBay store with no connection between them. The team managed two separate inventory systems manually and occasionally sold the same item twice. For unique collectible products where each item is the only one in stock, an oversell is a customer relationship failure.
No Wholesale Pricing Infrastructure
Wholesale buyers saw the same retail prices as first-time buyers. The business managed wholesale relationships entirely by phone, email and separate invoicing — off-platform. The wholesale side could only grow as far as the team’s capacity to manage it manually, which was well below the potential the customer relationships represented.
A Checkout That Was Losing Too Many Customers
Checkout completion rate on the legacy platform was running at approximately 51%. The combination of a slow checkout, limited payment options and a process not optimised for precious metals buyers — who often prefer wire transfer over credit card — was driving abandonment that a purpose-built checkout could prevent.
Objectives
The brief was ambitious and technically specific. We aligned on these outcomes before the first line of architecture was drawn.
- Build a custom eCommerce platform purpose-engineered for the precious metals industry — not a generic platform adapted to it
- Implement a real-time bullion pricing engine using live market APIs with configurable premium and markup logic for retail and wholesale customers
- Support two distinct product types: dynamically priced bullion and manually priced collectibles, coins and relics
- Build a full retail and wholesale customer tier system with independent pricing rules, account management and self-service checkout
- Develop bidirectional eBay inventory synchronisation to eliminate manual channel management and prevent overselling
- Integrate multiple payment gateways and shipping providers and deploy on AWS cloud infrastructure for reliability and scalability
Our Strategy
The decision that shaped everything else was made in the planning phase. Erie Gold and Silver needed a custom-built platform, not a configured version of an existing one. Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce all have precious metals plugins. None support the full combination of live pricing, dual product types, wholesale tiers and bidirectional eBay synchronisation reliably enough for a business where pricing accuracy is a trust issue.
The Pricing Engine as the Platform's Core
In most eCommerce platforms pricing is a field in a product record. In the Erie Gold and Silver platform it is a system. For bullion products the live spot price is fetched from a precious metals API and updated continuously during market hours, with the configured premium applied automatically. When gold spot moves, every gold product price updates. No admin action required.
Unified Multi-Channel Operations
The eBay synchronisation was designed as bidirectional and real-time. When a product sells on eBay, inventory on the website updates immediately. When a product is added or its price changes in the admin panel, the eBay listing reflects that change automatically. The team manages one source of truth and both sales channels stay accurate without manual reconciliation.
Wholesale as a First-Class Feature
We built the wholesale pricing tier as a native platform feature. Wholesale customers create accounts approved and assigned to the wholesale tier by the admin. Once assigned they see wholesale prices throughout the site and can check out at those prices without any manual intervention from the team — the retail experience is unchanged for general visitors.
AWS Infrastructure for a High-Stakes Trading Environment
Precious metals prices move significantly during market events, Federal Reserve announcements, geopolitical developments, inflation data releases. These are the moments when buyers rush to platforms to lock in prices. The AWS infrastructure was designed to handle sudden traffic spikes. It uses auto-scaling to manage increased demand without affecting performance. The platform remains stable even during peak market activity.
Real-Time Pricing, Unified Channels and 45% Better Checkout
Erie Gold and Silver needed a platform built for the way precious metals retail actually works. Live spot pricing, dual customer tiers, eBay synchronisation and a checkout designed for high-value transactions. No off-the-shelf platform delivered all of that reliably. A custom build did.
- The real-time bullion pricing engine eliminated the most significant operational risk on the legacy system from day one. During volatile trading sessions where prices can move several dollars per ounce within minutes, every product price on the site updates automatically. The exposure that existed on the legacy platform is now zero.
- Checkout completion rate improved from approximately 51% to 74%, a 45% increase, driven by faster checkout rendering from 5.5 seconds to 2.0 seconds, payment method flexibility including wire transfer and a checkout experience designed around how precious metals buyers actually purchase.
- The eBay inventory synchronisation moved the team from managing two separate channel inventories manually to a single source of truth through the centralised admin panel. For a dealer in unique collectible items where every product may be the only one in stock, that real-time synchronisation is not a convenience feature. It is the difference between a business that can reliably promise customers what it sells and one that cannot.
- Wholesale customers now have a fully self-service purchase experience for the first time. Approved accounts see their tier pricing throughout the site and check out at those prices without calling for a quote.
- Desktop PageSpeed improved from approximately 43 to 88 and mobile from 36 to 84. Average session duration increased from 1 minute 14 seconds to 3 minutes 28 seconds, a 181% improvement, and bounce rate dropped from 74% to 45%.
Phase 1: Planning and Architecture
- Conducted detailed requirements analysis covering all product types, customer tiers, pricing logic, channel requirements and integration points.
- Designed the complete platform architecture — system modules, user roles, data models, pricing engine logic and integration framework.
- Defined the eCommerce workflow for both retail and wholesale customer journeys from product discovery through checkout and order fulfilment.
- Planned the AWS infrastructure architecture for scalability, reliability and peak-load performance. Mapped the legacy platform inventory for full migration.
Phase 2: Platform and Storefront Development
- Built the custom storefront with a product catalogue system supporting both dynamically priced bullion and manually priced collectible products.
- Implemented the real-time bullion pricing engine with live precious metals market API integration and configurable premium and markup logic.
- Developed category management, product search and filtering optimised for a multi-category precious metals catalogue.
- Built the cart and checkout flow with precious metals-specific payment method support including wire transfer and multiple card processing options. Executed the large-scale product inventory migration from the legacy platform with full data validation.
Phase 3: Admin Panel and Business Management
- Built the centralised admin panel covering complete business operations — product management, inventory control, order management, customer accounts and CMS.
- Developed the retail and wholesale customer management system with tier assignment, account approval workflows and pricing rule configuration.
- Built the pricing rule management interface allowing the admin team to configure bullion premiums, wholesale margins and manual prices without developer support.
- Implemented order management including status tracking, fulfilment workflow and shipping label generation.
Phase 4: Third-Party Integrations
- Integrated multiple payment gateways supporting card payments, wire transfer and alternative payment methods appropriate for high-value precious metals transactions.
- Implemented multi-carrier shipping integration covering domestic and international fulfilment with rate calculation and tracking.
- Developed bidirectional eBay inventory and listing synchronisation — real-time, automatic and managed entirely through the centralised admin.
- Integrated and validated the bullion price API against live market data to confirm accuracy, latency and reliability under trading conditions.
Phase 5: Testing and AWS Deployment
- Functional testing across all platform modules — pricing engine, checkout, admin operations, customer tier logic and integration endpoints.
- API integration testing for the pricing feed, payment gateways, shipping providers and eBay synchronisation under simulated conditions.
- Payment and checkout validation across all supported payment methods and order scenarios.
- AWS production deployment with load testing to validate performance under peak trading traffic conditions. Post-launch monitoring and stabilisation with continuous improvement through change requests and feature updates.
The Tech Behind Erie Gold and Silver's Custom Trading Platform
The Erie Gold and Silver platform is not a configured version of an existing eCommerce tool. It is a custom-built application deployed on AWS, with a precious metals market API at its core that fetches live gold and silver spot prices continuously during trading hours and applies the configured premium to every bullion product automatically. The pricing engine was built as the architectural foundation of the entire product and checkout experience, not as an add-on to a standard product model. When spot moves, every product price on the site updates. No admin action required, no lag, no exposure.
On the operations side, a bidirectional eBay synchronisation engine keeps website and eBay inventory in real-time alignment. When a coin sells on eBay the website removes it from available inventory immediately. When a product is added or updated in the centralised admin panel the eBay listing reflects it automatically. The wholesale pricing tier is a native platform feature: approved wholesale accounts see their tier pricing throughout the site and check out at those prices without any manual intervention from the team. The AWS infrastructure was designed specifically for the traffic pattern of a precious metals business, with auto-scaling to handle the demand spikes that come with Federal Reserve announcements and geopolitical events, exactly the moments when platform reliability matters most.
- Platform: Custom-built eCommerce platform — purpose-built for precious metals, not WordPress or Shopify
- Cloud Infrastructure: AWS — scalable, reliable cloud hosting and deployment
- Pricing Engine: Custom dynamic pricing logic with live precious metals market API integration
- Bullion Price API: Real-time gold and silver spot price feed — updated continuously during market hours
- eBay Integration: Bidirectional product listing and inventory synchronisation with eBay store
- Payment Gateways: Multiple payment methods including card processing, wire transfer and alternative methods
- Shipping: Multi-carrier shipping integration for order fulfilment and tracking
- Admin Panel: Custom-built centralised admin for products, orders, inventory, customers, pricing and CMS
- Customer Tiers: Separate retail and wholesale customer accounts with independent pricing rule sets
- Product Migration: Large-scale inventory migration from legacy platform to new system
Valuable Feedback From Our Client
“We had outgrown our previous platform in every direction at once. The pricing was manual, the eBay side was a separate operation and our wholesale customers had no real way to buy from us online. KrishaWeb understood exactly what a precious metals business needs from the very first conversation and built something we genuinely did not think was achievable in the timeline we had. The pricing engine works exactly as it needs to, the eBay synchronisation has eliminated a whole category of operational errors and the wholesale tier has opened up a channel that used to be limited entirely by how many calls we could take in a day. The platform launched clean and the numbers have moved in the right direction from day one.”
– Erie Gold and Silver
Project Timeline
Planning and Architecture
Requirements analysis, system module design, user role definition, eCommerce workflow mapping, pricing logic architecture, AWS infrastructure planning
Platform Development
Custom storefront and UI build, product catalogue and category system, real-time pricing API integration, cart and checkout implementation, product migration from legacy platform
Backend and Admin System
Full-featured admin panel development, product, inventory and order management modules, retail and wholesale customer management, CMS and pricing rule configuration tools
Third-Party Integrations
Payment gateway integration (multiple methods), shipping provider integration (multiple carriers), eBay product listing synchronisation, bullion price API integration and testing
Testing and Deployment
Functional testing across all modules, API integration validation, payment and checkout flow testing, AWS production deployment, post-launch monitoring and stabilisation
Key Takeaways
Generic eCommerce platforms are built for the general case. Precious metals retail is not the general case.
Real-time pricing, dual product types with fundamentally different pricing logic, wholesale tiers and eBay synchronisation are each individually possible on standard platforms — just not together, reliably, and without constant maintenance overhead. The decision to build custom was the decision that made every other requirement achievable.
In precious metals retail, pricing accuracy is a brand promise.
A displayed price that does not match the real price is not a UX problem — it is a trust problem that directly damages the customer relationship the business depends on. Real-time API-driven pricing is not a feature. It is the minimum viable standard for an online bullion dealer.
Multi-channel inventory management without synchronisation is a countdown to an oversell.
For unique collectible products where each item is the only one in stock, a manual reconciliation process between two sales channels is not a workflow — it is a risk that compounds with every sale on either channel. The eBay synchronisation transformed the operational model from reactive reconciliation to proactive management.
A wholesale channel managed off-platform is a wholesale channel that cannot scale.
The volume that a B2B customer relationship represents can only be captured if the platform supports that customer's purchasing process from discovery through checkout. Bringing wholesale onto the platform meant the Erie Gold and Silver team's capacity for wholesale business was no longer limited by how many calls and email quotes they could handle per day.
Infrastructure designed for peak load is not over-engineering for a precious metals dealer.
The moments when traffic spikes on a bullion platform are exactly the moments when pricing accuracy and checkout reliability matter most. Building for those peaks at the architecture level is what keeps the platform working when it is most needed — during a gold price spike when the most motivated buyers are trying to complete a transaction.
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