dm’s implementation of a B2B portal across 12 languages

• Headquarters: Karlsruhe, Germany

dm had a system that was difficult and costly for their developers to use. When they needed to renew their license for that system, they decided it was time to switch to a headless CMS. This would give them more control over how their website looked and was presented to customers. dm worked on the migration to Storyblok for 8 weeks and were able to create content for their B2B portal in 12 different languages.

Building a B2B portal as one of Germany's biggest retailers

dm (dm-drogerie markt) is one of the biggest retailers in Germany with a B2B portal website. This is where suppliers can learn about their products and stores. Using Storyblok, dm manages all information about their products and stores. This information goes to about 800 suppliers. dm spent about three weeks looking at different systems before they decided to use Storyblok as their CMS. dm chose Storyblok for the ability to easily reuse content across different campaigns and pages with an atomic design structure.

dm already knew what they needed to do to replace their old system that was slowing them down. Because of this, they were able to start working on it right away.

The main reasons why dm chose to go with Storyblok depended on the following:

• The easy-to-use Content API to adapt to their needs in a best-of-breed solution
• A SaaS solution that makes it easier for dm to use as an out-of-the-box solution
• Storyblok's 99.9% uptime with SLA guarantee (opens in a new window), backup, and restore solution
• User roles/role management (opens in a new window) that keeps up with dm's various roles and content visibilities for each country's setup. This is set up for editors, for content attributes and visibility.
• The Visual Editor (opens in a new window) allows dm's 40 - 50 content editors in various locations to roll out the same content structure in different languages.
• A live preview helps content editors visualize their content.

In 8 weeks, dm successfully created their new site and B2B portal from their old CMS setup. They also moved all the localized content to their Storyblok setup within 6 weeks. Each country's site had approximately 20 pages implemented in their respective languages.

How does dm use Storyblok as a B2B portal?

The setup that dm uses amongst their content editors across Europe (12 countries and languages) acts as a B2B portal. Various suppliers within dm's network access Storyblok to see how their goods and products are sold. This also includes what kind of advertisement is used on their products. In each country, 3-4 content editors work daily in Storyblok. Each editor updates product details, descriptions, and information. This includes both a public-facing site and a private-access site via a login. Such a private-access site made role management a vital part of dm's decision to manage how content is seen by their audience in that respect.

Hand-in-hand, dm uses both pages through their design system tailored to their online shop. Wanting to reuse the same design layout and UI, the brand could use existing components and apply this to the B2B portal. This made it easy to model the same content across the various sites as components and be used by their content editors.

Localization in dm's 12 markets

Handling various languages throughout dm's setup relies on a fixed and standardized path, such as the site's header and footer. Beyond that, each country's content editors can translate their content accordingly. They can change the content based on their location and supplier information. Storyblok helps organize each country's content in different folders, so the same content can be used across all of dm's sites.

As a result, dm built a multilingual B2B portal that hundreds of suppliers use across Europe. This is continuously being updated by their content editors as the business grows and scales.

As a CMS, Storyblok aided in dm's implementation of just 8 weeks. The result has flourished to a fully functioning management and information portal that is used, managed, and edited daily.