eCommerce How best it made a light come on: B2B webshop for lighting and lighting solutions

SLV was born in 1979 with the goal of making lumination an experience. Their passion for light is as vibrant as the light itself. They aim to be the solution for your vision of light. In addition to innovative lighting solutions, production is carried out with strict quality requirements.

Today, SLV GmbH is a conglomerate that successfully markets lighting solutions in over 100 countries and through 12 subsidiaries currently, soon to be 15. The head office is located in Übach-Palenberg near Aachen, Germany, and 2 years ago they opened their second office in Düsseldorf, Germany.

SLV is the leading supplier of lighting and illumination solutions focused on B2B sales and clients that include but are not limited to electricians, wholesalers, lighting partners, and architects. The company's signature is its BIG WHITE® lighting catalog, a compilation of exciting product innovations, tried and tested classics, and useful accessories with an optimized product presentation, high-quality application photos, and familiar color coding.

The process of relaunching the webshop with a PIM as a central component for the provision of product information for use in various output media and sales channels was done in collaboration with best it. best it is one of the largest owner-managed digital agencies in Germany and Austria and have been successfully shaping the digitization of retail for over 22 years. best it is a service provider that supports their clients in developing an appropriate strategy to provide their customers with a unique shopping experience while implementing digital commerce applications and secure operations.

In a nutshell, here is what makes best it a unique agency:

• Focus on UX combined with 20 years of experience with commerce projects

• Multi-platform knowledge with different MACH technologies

• A proven maturity model for becoming a CX leader

• Digital enablement of clients with a clear roadmap

• Customer engagement model in projects

Together, best it and SLV managed to conquer the challenge of facing the digital future quickly and with immense success by incorporating sales via a B2B webshop as the central element of the company’s strategy. The new eCommerce platform won the Shop Usability Award in the category of best B2B shop.

The Project

The project objectives:

• Modern and contemporary appearance

• Best usability for the B2B target group

• Customized pricing information

• Different product catalogs for each country

• High Performance

• Integration of third-party systems such as CMS, PIM, etc.

• Optimization of mobile shop usability

The challenges:

With limited time and resources, an above-average number of interfaces had to be integrated and merged. In order to guarantee the current data stock at any time, the product and category data had to be updated every 10 minutes. In addition, the navigation structure of the shop had to also be read from the PIM, while changes in the main menu can be added individually in the Spryker backend. Lastly, due to growing internationalization, content maintenance should be managed by the marketing team as well as the subsidiaries of SLV, which required a simple and easy-to-use CMS.

The result:

The project was completed in a little over 4 months. SLV’s system has a number of elements that are now seamlessly integrated. In addition to Akeneo’s PIM and TESSA’s Digital Asset Management, whose database is maintained jointly with Akeneo, Storyblok is used as the content management system. At the same time, the CMS also allows SLV subsidiaries to intervene in the content in order to specifically maintain and publish texts. The different content types are unified via editors – after all, 13different country websites are already maintained by SLV.

Tech stack:

• CMS: Storyblok

• eCommerce: Spryker

• PIM: Akeneo

• Framework: Vue.js

• Programming languages: scss and Typescript

• API: REST API

Why Storyblok?

The issues SLV was looking to solve with the new content management system were related to error proneness, content updates, performance, and security. In addition, SLV needed a system that would allow technical flexibility and scalability. best it, having used Storyblok in the past, immediately suggested the CMS.

Thanks to the power of Storyblok and the support the agency received in the process, they were able to create the content structure and the content itself quickly and seamlessly. The further creation of content was approached in a decentralized manner so that each subsidiary, with the help of the implemented components and Storyblok’s Visual Editor, could create their own content. They can also easily take over some parts of the Dimensions app from the headquarter team in Germany.

best it also focused on the needs of marketing users by enabling them to own specific roles and permissions, schedule content automatically, publish in an omnichannel capacity, and to effortlessly handle localization for 14 languages. At the same time, they benefit from cross-team collaboration. Today, Storyblok is used by 15 team members located in the marketing and digital departments, as well as by 8 users from the company’s subsidiaries.

Lastly, the new shop system and peripherals are well prepared for expansion: Both further markets abroad can be safely served and a generally increasing number of orders and deliveries.

Key Takeaways

At Storyblok, we strive to create the best headless experience for our partners and clients, by making it easy and straightforward for developers and marketers to execute successful projects fast and efficiently.

The project provided SLV with the efficiency and data security they required. The new system in place is highly networked and functional. With the help of Storyblok and its user-friendliness, the SLV team and its subsidiaries can now manage content with ease and peace of mind.