Convenient purchase of schoolbooks from Cornelsen Schweiz

New online shop for teachers, end customers and trainee teachers

The project task was to set up an online shop for the Cornelsen Schulverlage Schweiz AG linked to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. While the primary target group for the shop are teachers, end customers and trainee teachers are also able to order resources online. The design should be oriented to the overall look of the online presence of the German parent company. The focus of shop development was the implementation of a powerful search function that perfectly reflects the teacher’s field of work.

Attractive shop with real-time connection to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and comfortable search

The Cornelsen shop was created using the latest version of Ibexa DXP with a real-time link to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. All product data is retrieved from NAV and includes detailed hierarchical data that can be used in the shop as filters, along with countless other criteria. Beside classic titles, the Cornelsen shop also contains worksheets and e-books for immediate download. The most important classification criteria for the entire product range are the school level and subject.

At Cornelsen Schweiz, the decision was made against the presentation of products in a classic hierarchical catalogue. The main access to the product range is via colour-coded boxes in which teachers must first select the appropriate school level. All products meeting the according school level are then displayed, and it is possible to filter further by series, series issues, subjects and other criteria. Customers can switch between the product details of a series title and the entire series at any time to view all other related titles. In the search results by classic search words, series and series titles are always displayed with the highest priority, as these are of particular interest to the teaching work.

The registration and order process in the shop has been specifically adjusted to the situation in the field of education. Teachers are able to add several schools to their profile at which they work. The schools are saved in NAV. All address forms are linked with the school database. Allowing teachers to easily find their school. According to the teacher’s profile information, all conceivable combinations of delivery and invoicing addresses can be selected during the order process.

Where applicable, volume discounts are calculated automatically. Trainee teachers also receive special discounts if their student status has been verified and approved in their profile.

Thanks to the integrated content management system (CMS) of the Ibexa DXP, Cornelsen Schweiz is able to manage all other website content (e.g. events, news, marketing and service pages) extremely easily in the shop backend

Further practical features ensure customers a positive user experience:

• Convenient registration for existing customers, with a pre-filled form
• Wish lists
• Direct orders
• Ordering of print catalogues
• Redeeming of vouchers
• Newsletter connection to CleverReach

More online orders, more visits, satisfied customers

After just a four-month project period, a highly-efficient online shop for Cornelsen went online in Switzerland that takes the special circumstances within the publishing industry into account. The feedback from customers in the first few weeks confirms the good preparation of the publishing house’s product range with the help of the search function. 

What the customer is saying

What were the biggest challenges for you during implementation of the new shop?

The biggest challenges for the new shop were the product structure and address management. The new shop lists the products in their in part multi-level series structure and processes further article features such as lesson subjects, school levels, series numbers or school years. Our customers are now able to order products using any conceivable combination of private address and an unlimited number of school addresses both as the delivery and invoicing addresses, and to save and manage the addresses in their profile.

Why did you decide on silver.solutions?

Due to our broad range of products, the implementation of an online shop made a highly complex requirements structure necessary. Expertise and experience were therefore key decision-making factors in the search for the most suitable service provider. Our decision for silver.solutions was primarily based on the recommendation by OTE GmbH and the existing interface between the two companies. The many years of experience and expertise of silver.solutions in the connection via the B2B-Connector and the associated flexible adaptability were also decisive to our decision. We see the search function tailored to our needs and customer management as special shop features.