Client
Our client is a prominent furniture manufacturer, boasting an impressive portfolio of 20+ brands and a vast operational presence in 50+ countries worldwide. With a diverse focus, the client spans two distinct lines of business: Workplace Furnishing and Residential Building Products. This expansive reach and multifaceted approach position them as one of the world’s largest, and an influential leader in the industry.
50+ countries worldwide
Challenge
Faced with the lockdown in 2019’s global pandemic, our client was losing out on sales because of the lack of a seamless online shopping experience. The pandemic quarantines led to a rise in home internet shopping. This was an opportunity for the client’s home office furniture brands, as office workers were increasingly adopting remote work and needed to set up or refurbish their home office.
Thanksgiving was around the corner too! We had a a mere 51 days to launch the website, aligning with our client’s imperative to be operational in time for the Thanksgiving/Black Friday shopping weekend. Meeting this deadline was instrumental in ensuring a seamless and timely online presence during the significant holiday retail period.
Completing this work within a tight timeframe was demanding. It necessitated distinguishing between various brands and tailoring marketing to different customer needs. This involved segmenting customers for targeted marketing and required a comprehensive overhaul of our client’s e-commerce platform.
Additionally, our client aimed to enhance their focus on varied customer segments by introducing separate e-commerce storefronts for three different brands. Ultimately, a seamless digital shopping experience was in the making.
Our client was looking to launch a seamless digital shopping experience for all its brands in just 51 days in order to accommodate the need to be ready in time for the Thanksgiving/Black Friday shopping weekend.
Solution
The Hexaware Solution
Hexaware collaborated on a new e-commerce platform to sell furniture directly to consumers and businesses across three brands.
Hexaware had to outfit the websites with a suite of features to compete with other online storefronts, with white label features and a human-centered design philosophy. That meant creating and integrating features like product recommendations, product review features, post-purchase support, and more.
One thing that helped Hexaware to meet the aggressive deadline was to keep a common code base for all three websites.
Design Thinking for E-commerce Journeys
Our strategy involved assessing our client’s current technology ecosystem, conducting primary and secondary research, and utilizing design thinking workshops to define customer journeys and prioritize features for new B2B2C and D2C channels.
We created blueprints across the e-commerce stack for various brands and conceptualized digital business models to optimize targeting for our client’s varied customer segments.
Adobe Commerce | Magento: The Digital Shopping Experience
We employed a strategy for designing and building an e-commerce platform that includes custom and configurable options.
We enabled an enterprise-grade, cloud-based commerce platform, Adobe Commerce, known for its scalability and extensibility. The core solution involved integrating the platform with various commerce tools: Product Information Management (PIM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Content Management System, pricing management, catalog management, and marketing automation.
The solution also integrated an AI/ML-powered search and recommendations system, tools for rating and review management, and post-purchase customer support.
The three websites were SEO-optimized to maintain a high search index and ensure that relevant results appear in Google searches. The search and browse pages were enhanced with dynamic pagination, filters, and refinement options to create highly interactive experiences.
The websites are content-rich, with the flexibility to customize them for sales or special events/seasons.
Adobe Commerce offers features like blogging and email customization, along with integration with plugins for reviews and ratings, dynamic image loading, and marketing. These enhancements help expand the customer base and facilitate easy upgrades as needed.
Flexible Cloud Architecture for E-commerce
A cloud-centric approach was adopted to achieve the goal of creating a business platform that offers a unified and user-friendly experience for all user segments:
- Developed three e-commerce storefronts sharing the same underlying codebase with distinct functionalities (multi-tenancy). Our approach involved maintaining a common code structure across the three websites while adding specific code as needed for customization.
- Domain-driven design and bounded context principles for managing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and microservices.
Benefits
Key Business Benefits:
Go-to-Market within 51 Days
Propelled the company’s online presence with a swift introduction of B2B2C and D2C shoppable channels within a two-month timeframe, tapping into new revenue streams during the early pandemic months.
Simplified Client Onboarding
We improved our client’s business network by successfully onboarding six new clients, as soon as the website was launched. We tailored the onboarding process to easily catalogue and market product ranges of large corporations, expanding the platform’s reach and influence.
30000+ Unique Visitors within Six Months
Boosted the company’s online presence with an impressive 30000+ unique visitors within the initial six months, showcasing the platform’s widespread appeal and audience engagement.
Top-Notch Performance with an ‘A’ Rating in GTmetrix
Ensured the company’s digital success with an ‘A’ rating in GTmetrix performance assessments, signaling top-tier speed and efficiency for the platform we built.
Adaptability Advantage
Enabled our client to stay ahead of the curve with a future-proofed platform that boasts high adaptability to evolving business requirements, providing scalability and flexibility for sustained success.
Digital Communication Enablement
Enhanced the company’s marketing communication efficiency with timely email notifications and updates, fostering seamless communication with its audience and buyers.
Trust-Building Measures
Bolstered trust in the company’s offerings by allowing speed, transparency, and perceived value, solidifying your brand’s reputation and credibility in the market.
User-Friendly CMS Interface
Improved user accessibility and satisfaction with a versatile content management system (CMS) that caters to personalization for various customer types, and a seamless digital sales experience.
Personalization Perfection
Elevated the customer experience with deep personalization features, tailoring user preferences and profiles for a more engaging and satisfying interaction.
In-Depth Digital Customer Insights
Strengthened the stakeholders’ understanding of customer needs with effective user data gathering mechanisms, empowering the company with valuable insights for strategic decision-making.
Collaborative Support Environment
Built a collaborative environment within the company with analytical capabilities, ensuring seamless client support and bolstering overall team efficiency.
Seamless Website Traffic Management
Ensure smooth operations even during peak periods with an enhanced website capacity, handling tenfold more traffic than usual and providing a flawless user experience.
Cash Flow Optimization
Optimized the company’s cash flow predictability while reducing operational overhead with expedited billing and payment processes.
Cloud-Native Architecture for TCO Reduction
Streamlined the company’s resource costs with a reduced total cost of operation (TCO) through cloud-native architecture.
Self-Service Functionalities
Empowered the platform users and associated businesses with user-friendly, self-service functionalities, improving their overall experience and satisfaction.
Summary
Hexaware developed three new websites with Adobe Commerce (Magento) and seamless third-party integrations, various new functionalities, and an unparalleled interface with diversified offerings to cater to our clients’ varied customer segments. Hexaware also enhanced content management to optimize search engine results and ensure more traffic to the website.
Post-implementation, the client saw a great response with an exponential load bearing capacity on the website. On the upgraded website they could see the website footprint increase by 60% as well as sales increased for both its B2B and D2C businesses.
The client benefitted from diversification on the platform and quick access to real-time customer data analysis. They were able to leverage data to run targeted marketing campaigns and understand customer needs better in the process, which eventually increased customer satisfaction, and as a result, improved business value.
