eCommerce platform for the wine merchants von Salis and Valentin Wine

Challenge

The wine merchants von Salis and Valentin Wine operated an aging online store that did not meet current requirements in terms of performance or functionality.

The two companies were looking for a new solution to be prepared for the challenges of the coming years in the eCommerce sector. The CMS functionalities should support creative ideas from the marketing department. The optimal ERP integration should support internal workflows, reduce error sources and increase efficiency.

The new web store should optimally support both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) processes. The goal was to make restaurateurs as well as private customers feel equally at ease and satisfied.

In addition, the common use of the codebase and the connection of the existing ERP were of central importance to enable the costs to be shared between the two wine merchants in the future.

Solution

Based on nopCommerce, we built a professional and forward-looking open source eСommerce software for the wine trade.

Through our automated Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) processes, we maintain two platforms that are completely separate. Intelligent switches in the code allow custom solutions to be implemented. In addition, we wrote component-based CSS to enable different looks for the webshops despite the shared codebase.

The platform is run on Azure, this allows for quick customization of resources and the use of exciting services. For example, Azure Cognitive Search was integrated to significantly increase search quality for customers.

The eCommerce Application features:

• Facebook Pixel, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google Optimize integration
• Azure Cognitive search
• Easy sign up Process for business to business customers
• Complete synchronization with the ERP (Comatic)

The prices and discounts per customer are prepared during synchronization between ERP and nopCommerce so that high performance can be maintained despite the highly complex and highly individual price structures that have grown over the years.

Result

By combining a professional eCommerce system (nopCommerce) and a highly flexible and stable content management system (Umbraco), we created a website that meets the needs of both marketing and the back office, both now and for the future.

The full integration of the ERP means that the store owners do not have to interact with the back office of nopCommerce, but only with their ERP. This has resulted in simple processes that meet the highest quality standards.

Stock levels are displayed and updated in real-time from all sales locations (POS and online) and shipment tracking is seamlessly integrated. This results in significantly fewer support requests and the resources freed up can be used to further expand the core business.

The use of additional components, such as Google Optimize for A/B testing, makes our solution a secure investment with a wide range of functions, a high degree of automation and the possibility to introduce new services in the future.

OPTEN AG is a Swiss company specialising in professional eCommerce solutions, custom development and apps. We develop system-relevant platforms to optimally position you and what you offer on the Internet.