Bella builds a managed appliances storefront on Pimcore

Project Details

  • Client: Bella
  • Industry Type: Consumer e-commerce and household appliances
  • Region: Netherlands
  • Solution: Pimcore and JavaScript

The Overview

Bella worked with Minds Task Technologies to enable business users to manage one storefront for its consumer appliances on a shared Pimcore technology platform.

The solution was a Dutch-language site with multi-language content support that had product information, localized content per language, a step-by-step product finder quiz, and a checkout system.

The Challenge

Business control behind the customer experince

The Bella web store is available as a Dutch-language site and allows consumers to search for and compare products across categories such as refrigerators, washing machines, freezers, and fridge/freezer combination units.

Customers can add products to their carts and place orders or simply browse products. They can also log in to their accounts, make changes to them and provide feedback in the form of reviews.

As a result, business users were responsible for maintaining all aspects of product information and related promotional materials for each individual store page.

Bella shares its Pimcore product catalog with four other storefronts. Therefore, Bella wanted the ability to create an individualized consumer shopping experience while continuing to use the same product information across all storefronts on the shared platform.

 

01 Manageable Routine Content

The editor wanted to have control over the home page, static pages, and the product finder. Previously, quiz configuration was set via a developer console command. It would be desirable to move those changes into a workflow for business users.

02 Keep the right products and language in view

When using a common catalog, you will want an option to select your brands. In addition, each product has a Brand (or “Merk”) value, so the Bella storefront shows the proper collection of products. Also, since some content may need to be translated, you need the ability to make content changes by language, including when translations aren’t available.

03 Consistent Buying & Account Flows

Two major areas of the user experience needed improvement. First, there was a rounding issue with wishlist prices. Second, the review process needed additional validation before submitting reviews. Additionally, a formalized checkout process was needed to link stock availability with delivery scheduling and replace ad hoc processes.

Solution

Product information and brand selection

The shared catalog makes it possible to have one single entry for a product that will be applicable across all storefronts that need it. Filtering by “Brand/Merk” determines whether or not that particular item appears as an option in Bella’s collection. Thus, the product data can be used again for different storefronts, but each storefront has control over which products appear.

Localized content and shared assets

Page content is managed through a CMS for use in maintaining the home page and static pages such as About, FAQ, Terms, Warranty, and Blog. Content is maintained per language. Dutch is the default and becomes the fallback if there is no translation available for a particular item.

Merchandising within the same environment

Coupons, media assets, and promotions can be managed within the same environment, with visibility into orders, customer accounts, and wishlists.

The project specification called for a CMS-driven storefront using approved Figma designs, with full responsiveness and alignment with Domest.nl where required.

Features & Workflow

From Product Discovery To Order Confirmation 

A guided product finder

Category information included within the project’s quiz content has been identified in the project specification. The four categories are refrigerators, washing machines, freezers, and fridge/freezer combination units. For each category, there could be up to five questions, and each question could contain a maximum of three available responses. The quiz directs shoppers to a pre-filtered product list based on the configured answer-to-filter mappings. More than one filter can be mapped per answer.

A defined four-step checkout

Live stock status indicators in green, orange, and red colors are displayed to customers during the checkout process, and delivery scheduling is managed via the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Customers can input their own contact information, select a desired delivery date, pay for the order they have placed, receive order confirmation, and receive an automatically generated branded PDF invoice for each completed order.

Account and review controls

In addition, the company has implemented rate limiting on customer logins as well as one-time password (OTP) functionality. Also included within this application is moderation of reviews entered by customers, with each submitted review linked to the corresponding order and product.

THE RESULT

A shared foundation for everyday commerce

The management inputs include a shared catalogue, localised content management, guided product selection, and a structured checkout. The details below describe storefront coverage and configured behavior.

What the implementation changes

Using the same product record in all applicable storefronts will help prevent duplicate entries in your catalog. Your business users can manage local pages and promotional content, while quiz-mappings enable you to link shopper preferences with related products.

The input reports that the wishlist price-rounding issue has been corrected. It also reports that an N+1 database query for each individual product has been removed from product listing pages, comparison pages and wishlist pages. Lists (wishlists) are now limited to 50 items per customer. Previously viewed items and account-dashboard wishlist views are paginated, with up to 20 items per page. The inputs provide no measured page-speed improvement or sales uplift

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