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eCommerce

Uniting Global Brands Under One CMS

As one of the biggest bicycle and bike accessories groups worldwide, Accell Group wants to unite all its 20 brands under one CMS. Throughout the last 3 years, they have moved four brands from WordPress to Storyblok. Accell Group has successfully streamlined their content operations using Storyblok.

4 Sites
built in 7.5 months
5 Minute
Component Build Time
7
Languages
  • Quote from Rowin Peet, Product Owner at Accell Group

    Moving content to Storyblok is simple. You can start right away and copy spaces and content to fit your brand. Since everything is built using the same parts, you can use one brand's space for another project and add content right away.

    Rowin Peet
    Rowin Peet
    Product Owner at Accell Group

Section titled Coming from a monolithic setup to Storyblok Coming from a monolithic setup to Storyblok

Before using Storyblok, Accell Group's brands were all managed in a monolithic architecture. The group wanted to find a better solution and use object-oriented UX for their website plans. Object-oriented UX uses schemas and components to organize different parts of a website for a streamlined design.

As the company expanded and included more brands, they recognized the necessity for a centralized management system. They identified some important needs, such as:

  • Creating a multi-tree structure to manage content in different languages/locales
  • Workflows for different brands to use internally on content, design, and development teams
  • Clear user roles to organize and identify the spaces each brand and its editors would use
  • A WYSIWYG editor for content editors
  • An App directory that developers could easily choose applications from and experiment with
  • The possibility to create large content releases for new product releases and campaigns
  • Anchoring internal links that can be enabled in the schema configuration
  • A headless setup that can accommodate plans to cater to omnichannel experiences

Section titled Migrating four brands to one CMS Migrating four brands to one CMS

Right from the start, the group chose to use Storyblok to build four new websites. This included the move for Raleigh (from Magento), Lapierre (from Drupal), XLC, and Sparta (from WordPress). Raleigh also changed their look two months after going live with Storyblok. The brand only had to update the design library with the new branding, fonts, and colors, with just one click. Storyblok was able to help Accell Group to:

  • Easily scale across multiple brands on a B2C level
  • Act as a robust system to handle best-of-breed integrations with Shopware (eCommerce) and Algolia (search and indexing)
  • Achieve a simple migration for each brand with a straightforward onboarding process
  • Use and consolidate a centralized design system and tokens, allowing each brand to adapt core components while being in sync in branding
  • Quote from Rowin Peet, Product Owner at Accell Group

    Many of our brands are represented in different languages and countries. Storyblok's localization features enable us to communicate with our target audiences more effectively.

    Rowin Peet
    Rowin Peet
    Product Owner at Accell Group

Section titled Internationalization at Accell Group Internationalization at Accell Group

Accell Group's internationalization setup involves hosting each brand's Space in different country folders. Each page's field type integrates with Storyblok's Dimensions application to support each language. Currently, Lapierre offers seven languages and Sparta three.

Screenshot of Lapierre’s French website

Screenshot of Lapierre’s French website

Internationalization was one of the first needs identified by Accell Group. This was a main necessity to grow and scale. In the future, the brand hopes to bring on more than 10 global brands to Storyblok.

Section titled Using Shopware with Storyblok Using Shopware with Storyblok

Accell Group’s setup does not involve a direct Shopware to Storyblok integration. However, they can show each brand’s products by linking products to external JSON files from Shopware as their product catalog. When a product is selected, additional product data added on Shopware is displayed on Storyblok's frontend along with all of its information through an API link.

  • Quote from Rowin Peet, Product Owner at Accell Group

    We chose the best tools for our needs - Storyblok as our CMS, Shopware for eCommerce, and Algolia for search. This sets us up for growth in the future, whether we add more brands to Storyblok or explore new ways to sell our products.

    Rowin Peet
    Rowin Peet
    Product Owner at Accell Group
Screenshot of Raleigh UK’s product page

Screenshot of Raleigh UK’s product page

Section titled Planning for the future Planning for the future

Moving forward, Accell Group hopes to explore omnichannel experiences for their brands. Accell Group is able to build new components that fit each brand's guidelines. With this, the group is able to bring intuitive customer-facing websites across multiple brands, countries and languages.

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