E-Commerce portal for Vincentz with the Ibexa platform and the B2B-Connector for Navision

Overview

silver.solutions was tasked with the setup of a shop portal for different specialized areas of the Vincentz Network with a wide range of functions for a wide range of products. The range of products in the Vincentz group covers books, games, CDs, but also email newsletters, downloads, booking of advertising space and subscriptions (of magazines), events as well as standing orders for book series or calendars. It is required that users can order in the shop anonymous as well as registered. Furthermore the shop will be used by private customers as well as business customers. A connection to Microsoft Dynamics NAV is absolutely necessary because data administration incl. images, PDF files, etc. takes entirely place in the ERP system.

The solution in detail

Further requirements include:

• Products should be added to the shopping cart from different areas of the website.
• For handling payment transactions the services of a payment providers have to be integrated.
• Multiple language support required
• Registered users should be able to edit an interest profile in the shop in order to receive personalized ads and recommendations.
• Advanced search for different product categories (books, journals)

silver.solutions realised the shop solution for Vincentz Network on basis of the Ibexa platform. E-Commerce modules developed by silver.solutions extend the functionality of the platform. Thanks to the use of the B2B-Connector all data can be transfered between shop and the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

The different shop areas have been set up in the administration section of the ECMS and form the main navigation structure of the shop. It is possible to add products to the shopping cart from all shop areas (elderly care, coatings, craft and hobby), from product lists and from product detail pages as well as from the search result list. Prices and information on stock availability are directly and customer specifically requested from Navision. In the shopping cart different taxe rates get displayed separately. Products can be added to the shopping cart directly from the single websites of the portal areas, too.

A special challenge was to integrate the different products such as books, subscriptions, booking events or advertisements. For every case silver.solutions set up individual templates to meet the particular requirements of the single categories. Thus it is possible to enter different shipping adresses for subscriptions. In addition to the printed subscription users can choose email newsletters or free gifts.

For events the shop considers the number of available seats. Moreover the list of participants is displayed in the shopping cart and during the ordering process.
On booking events all categories of the respective journal are displayed. The price for an ad is calculated based on the chosen format (column x mm).
Products and relevant product details are imported into the shop using a special import function. Prices and stock availability are requested from Navision at runtime. In case Navision is not responding the shop displays unit prices.

For handling payment transactions the electronic payment service provider iPayment has been integrated. Payment is possible by credit card, on account, against prepayment or by direct debit.

The shop supports multiple languages. Master language is German except for “European Coatings” where English is master language.

The advanced search offers an area especially for searching for books and journals. It is possible to search for ISBN, editor, author and/or title for a special area or in all areas of the shop.

The result

The shop solution for Vincentz has been implemented as a e-commerce portal. This allows administrating all data for the single shop areas in one administration system. Users can thus browse several areas of the shop and order products from those areas. Moreover it is possible to add products to the shopping cart from the websites of the Vincentz Network. Products are stored in the shopping cart without that the customer has to leave the page he is just browsing. The customer only gets into the shop when he wants to send his order.