eCommerce How Story of AMS propelled Bols into a new eCommerce market

• Headquarters: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Technology Stack: Next.js, Vercel, and Shopify

When the COVID pandemic hit, Bols had to think fast to innovate and keep up with the shift in the industry, as all revenue streams from bars, restaurants, and the airline industry halted. Shifting to a consumer-based approach, Bols set on expanding into the United States as its eCommerce entity and new ready-to-drink cocktail proposition.

Bols’ US market launch with Storyblok and Shopify Plus saw the brand bring in good organic traffic with high SEO rankings for different keywords and cocktails, with at least 200k to 300k monthly users and a 2-month implementation with Dutch agency Story of AMS. 

Challenges amid COVID-19

Bols’ previous customized CMS setup and webshop lacked the tools for an autonomous workflow for their marketing team. This hindered their ability to handle the project expansion for the US market. Story of AMS advised Bols to rethink their tech stack and migrate to Storyblok, allowing the brand to control content and handle its go-to-market strategy. 

The recommendations were to take up a sturdily-built eCommerce platform that could handle the brand’s shift to a consumer-based initiative. 

Benefits towards Bols’ US eCommerce expansion

Storyblok helped solve Bols’ eCommerce expansion through content-driven commerce with these specific features: 

• Dynamic page-building that allows A/B testing to evaluate and improve the customer purchasing experience
• Independence for marketers to single-handedly manage their content and create campaigns with the help of reusable blocks
• The overall developer experience for the agency to easily hand over projects to Bols’ marketers to independently handle content and campaigns as they go
• The simplicity of using the Visual Editor—with just a bit of guidance, developers and marketers can easily orchestrate streamlined content and campaigns in real time

Why did Story of AMS choose Storyblok for Bols? 

As a global brand, Bols distributes to more than 110 countries worldwide, focusing on B2B distribution, and nowadays also directly to consumers through their newly relaunched eCommerce site. They previously used Story of AMS’ custom-built solution operating on a basic static level for their website. Then, the brand and agency decided to take on Storyblok as their headless CMS of choice. 

Bols aimed to reinvent and sell its products through a direct-to-consumer (D2C) approach. The brand wanted to be ready if anything like the pandemic were ever to happen again. Story of AMS consulted the brand to switch to Shopify Plus, using their plugin to pull data from Shopify to Storyblok for their Dutch and US eCommerce shops. With the help of the ‘Shopify Plus Bulk Inviter,’ they could migrate all of Bols’ customer data and invite their existing customers to activate their accounts in the new store. Storyblok enabled teams to easily create and manage content according to the different campaigns and product lines. It also provided valuable speed and SEO capabilities.

From there, Story of AMS also created a form builder within Storyblok for Bols’ Bartending Academy, which connected to Storyblok and sent data to the appropriate locations. Bringing on Shopify Plus also meant opening new payment streams, localization prospects that could handle their Dutch site (being in Dutch and English), and their expansion to the US that would need localization for the local audience in American English. 

Storyblok’s dynamic page-building nature also allowed A/B testing to be conducted to evaluate and improve Bol’s customer purchasing experience. This could then measure appropriate marketing KPIs such as click-through rates and conversion rates to push towards an increase in revenue, greater loyalty, and an overall better consumer experience. 

The Storyblok and Shopify Plus combination aided Bols with powering their eCommerce expansion in the US. With just 2 months of implementation, Bols was able to launch into a new market to meet their needs amid the COVID-19 crisis: they shifted their B2B business to a B2C and D2C (direct-to-consumer) setup, with 300k+ new users at launch. 

Telling great stories with content-driven commerce

Storyblok gives the tools to Bols to produce content-rich storytelling on their products where they cannot only sell just their products but also sell moments and experiences. Taking up Storyblok and a Shopify Plus combination aided Bols with powering their eCommerce expansion to the US with the right localization tools. It also gave flexibility and management to Bols’ marketing and commerce teams: now, they can fully manage and orchestrate their content as they want their story to be told.