Ofix: B2B and B2C eCommerce project with custom features

Challenge

Ofix is a large Mexican office and school supply company with 25 stores countrywide and over 900 employees. Back in 1998, when the company was just founded, it was only engaged in B2C sales, but later decided to join the B2B market as well.

Ofix needed a website that, on the one hand, could provide the retail sales to end consumers (B2C) and, on the other hand, a wholesale of office products to companies. To that date, Ofix was already working with Tecnofin, an experienced nopCommerce solution partner that had migrated Ofix’s store from Microsoft Site Server derivative to nopCommerce. Accordingly, Tecnofin also took up the further development of the project and added B2B functionality.

Solution

Since the functionality and catalogs of the stores had to differ significantly, it was decided to separate the flows of B2C and B2B customers. Retail sales focused on Ofix, already familiar to the customers. For business segment and wholesale sales, Office Club website was created.

Ofix employees got used to store management quite fast. Here is what Martin Vazquez from Dept. Coordination of Ofix says: “I think nopCommerce is a very user-friendly platform. What I really like is the management panel, where I can have total control.”

Both stores are integrated with the corporate ERP system, Oracle Business One, with which they exchange the product data, inventory, prices, customers, and orders.

For customers’ convenience, the integration with EnvioClick was developed. It is a multi-platform shipping provider top-rated in Latin America. The customers can view available shipping methods and providers with the cost of each option and choose the preferred one. Also, drop shipping for both stores was connected to two large suppliers (with more of them to come in the future).

Since Office Club is targeted on the B2B audience, it has some specifically implemented features, such as its own business rules for shipping and payment methods. Some customers can only see some of the products at assigned prices that can be lower or higher than their regular retail prices. Some customers have several employees, each with a personal account, that can create orders and others to authorize them.

Besides, a Punch-Out module was added for a particularly big customer. The module works as an SAP extension, allowing users to log in to SAP, get the whole Office Club catalog, and purchase goods with the order directed to SAP.

Eduardo Adame, General Director of Tecnofin, says he likes to work with nopCommerce on the projects that require customization: “We like nopCommerce a lot because it’s a platform with a very well-structured architecture that enables any modifications. Since it’s open-source, it can be easily adapted to cover the needs of every customer”.

Result

A couple of years after migrating to nopCommerce, the number of products on the B2C Ofix website has risen to 10,000. “Our main website ofix.com.mx had a big growth due to nopCommerce and Tecnofin because there have been developed and implemented new payment forms as well as different logistic solutions, such as a marketplace,” Martin Vazquez comments.

With almost 300,000 visitors per month, the Ofix website has become an ultimate sales channel.

The new B2B eCommerce market with custom functionality meets all the customers’ needs. “Office club is very specific as it requires certain scales, pricing, customized catalogs,” Martin continues, “with nopCommerce, we were able to develop this solution, which enabled us to provide better customer expectations in the Office Club.”

Tecnofin is the leading company in Mexico, in services for eCommerce and eBanking. The company has developed hundreds of eCommerce sites to meet the specific needs of each of its customers in Mexico and other Latin American countries. It also provides consulting and training services in eCommerce.