Fruchthof Nagel: B2B online shop for business customers and online catalogue for end customers

Overview

The objective of the project was to establish a B2B online shop containing around 1500 active items. It should only be possible for users to access the shop after logging in. Visitors without login details should be able to view the products as a catalogue without prices. As well as reducing the workload of sales staff, another important project objective is 24/7 accessibility for customers. The shop should also give the company a better online presence for potential customers.

Special requirements included unit conversion for each item (e.g. box to kg) and continuous updates for the fresh products range.

The solution in detail

The solution involves an online shop with integrated CMS based on Ibexa DXP. The tried and tested B2B-Connector handles connection to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP and enables complete integration of the B2B shop.

Selling fresh products brings with it a whole host of special requirements. One particular requirement is that customers must select their preferred delivery date immediately after logging in as this date determines the availability of products during the ordering process. Many convenience products are ordered from manufacturers just-in-time to ensure maximum freshness. Time for them to be procured in the shop must be taken into account. For example, there are products which must be ordered by 10am on a Monday for delivery on Tuesday. In the shop the first possible delivery date is shown beside these products.

The Fruchthof range changes very frequently and at short notice. Data imports for updating the range therefore take place at short, freely definable intervals.
 Prices are regularly imported in the form of customer price lists for the best possible shop performance.

One special feature of the shop is that the different goods are displayed in the various units in which they are available. The price of the corresponding unit can be displayed in the shop using appropriate codes and descriptions from NAV (e.g. basic unit code, outer packaging, transport packaging, packaging content in smallest sales unit etc.). Additional charges for partial packaging units are also indicated in the shop.

Fruchthof Nagel uses numerous marketing functions to present the product range in its best light. For example, best sellers, special offers and new products which the shop identifies from corresponding labels in NAV are displayed on the home page.
 Similar products are displayed in the product details. Any number of documents and images can be added to any item in NAV and made available to the customer to download from the shop. This can be used to produce a detailed product profile, for example.

The "My range" area contains a summary of individual suggestions for the customer and sector-specific special offers and recommendations. The list of suggested products is produced in ERP on the basis of the customer's most recent deliveries and then forwarded to the online shop such that products of relevance to the customer are displayed and a "shopping list" is automatically created. The content of product- and product-group- related information can be updated in the shop's CMS.

A simple search tool was produced allowing for both a full-text search of all item data and searches by item number and name. Filters based on category and variety are also possible. Customers can search the "My range" area separately.
 In order to gradually improve the quality of hits, search terms are logged in the shop's backend in order to add related terms and spelling variations to the table of synonyms.
 Customers can add items from the search results to their orders directly to speed up the ordering process.

After logging into the shop, block indicators, customer numbers, sector information and the saved additional charges for partial packaging units are retrieved from NAV during the run time.
 In the event of a block in the ERP, the customer is informed that orders cannot be placed at the present time.

Extra rights have been set up in the online shop for sales staff. Staff can use a delegate function to assume the role of one of their customers and place orders for them. Staff orders have special labels and are handled directly in the ERP without any additional checks. A modified form of the delegate function is also used by key account customers. As soon as an employee from a key account customer's head office logs in, they can select which branch or subsidiary they want to place an order for.

In terms of shop design, the customer requested a self-contained design based on existing marketing materials. This fresh, new design was developed by our partner Netgen in Croatia in close collaboration with the customer and silver.solutions who converted the concept design into the necessary templates.

The result

Fruchthof Nagel now has a fresh, modern and most importantly very efficient online shop which smoothly transfers business logic from the ERP to the online shop. The shop solution and B2B-Connector have even managed to smoothly implement special requirements of the sector. Internal processes are thereby optimised and customers can place orders at their convenience around the clock.