Digitalisation of sales for the food industry
LAY GEWÜRZE B2B ONLINESHOP AND PIM
The company Lay Gewürze commissioned us with the conception and implementation of an online shop as well as the implementation of a PIM (Product Information Management System). This digitalised sales processes and added an important e-commerce channel. The online shop for spices in the food industry was built with Shopware 6 and the associated PIM was realised with Akeneo.
Lay Gewürze GmbH – a company with a long tradition
The company Lay Gewürze from Grabfeld is active in the food industry and sells its products especially to business customers. The company has existed for over 100 years and has a wide range of herb and spice mixtures as well as other products for refining food.
“With the Shopware 6 solution and Akeneo as PIM, we have built a new sales channel with igniti, which includes everything we need for a modern online shop.”
Jörg Gerstein, Managing Director of Lay Gewürze GmbH
PROJECT FACTS
Goal
Digitalisation of sales through a sales platform
Technology
Shopware 6
Akeneo PIM
Target group
B2B
Services
B2B E-Commerce
PIM
SEO
The goal of Lay Gewürze:
Digital and automated sales platform with Shopware 6.
The goal is to create a solution for digital sales with Shopware 6. This automates a large part of the ordering processes in order to relieve the company’s office staff and increase turnover.
B2B customers should be able to order online at any time via a customer account, including individual products and prices. At the same time, sales capacities can be better utilised, as fewer manual orders are placed by e-mail, telephone or field service appointment.
The aim of digitalisation is efficient order processing, which potentially allows more time for customer care and acquisition. The new online shop will also provide new opportunities for marketing campaigns.
This resulted in the following tasks for us
- Establishment of an additional digital sales channel for more turnover
- Fast, simple and intuitive ordering processes in B2B sales
- Clear presentation of the entire product range
- Mapping of customer-specific prices and products
- Centralisation and increase of product data quality (PIM
- Additional possibilities for marketing campaigns
The implementation: Shopware 6 as a digital ordering solution
In a workshop phase, central requirements for the implementation were jointly defined. On this basis, the decision was made in favour of the Shopware 6 Enterprise version, which as a shop platform represents the best solution for Lay Gewürze’s objective.
Individual order sizes and special blends
A special feature in the functionality of the online shop and the user experience is the ordering options according to different container sizes. For example, orders can be placed according to weight, number of pieces or packaging form. In addition, customised special blends of the spice products are available.
Customised spice products and prices in the B2B shop
The special spice blends mentioned – as well as the prices for all other products – are only visible in the online shop via a customer account.
B2B Suite as an important Shopware 6 feature
The use of the B2B Suite as a Shopware 6 feature offers important additional functions. Sales representatives can log into the online shop on behalf of customers from the food industry, view their conditions and initiate desired orders. In addition, the product portfolio can be clearly presented to the customer on site and also ordered directly if required.
The combination of content and e-commerce with Shopware 6
With the help of Shopware 6’s CMS functionality Experience Worlds, the previous corporate website could be merged with the new B2B shop. This strengthens the Lay Gewürze brand through a uniform external presence.
Use of the flexible middleware Lobster
PIM and ERP carry out the bidirectional data exchange via middleware (Lobster) to the Shopware platform.
Product data management with the open source PIM from Akeneo
In order to systematically improve the quality of product information in the online shop, Akeneo PIM was implemented for the maintenance of product data. With the open source PIM, the decentralised administration of the product information was replaced and a uniform database for the online trade and other output channels was established.
The basis for the PIM is the conception and implementation of a structured data model. This included the initial migration of the product data from the ERP system (MKS Goliath), which was brought together with the other product databases in table form.
Strategic online shop SEO for more visibility in the target groups
For more visibility and reach of the online shop, a search engine optimised (SEO) design of the category structure was implemented. For this purpose, a keyword analysis was carried out for the most common search queries.
In addition, an SEO OnPage optimisation was carried out. This included improving the performance (loading times) of the images and image descriptions with relevant keywords (image title tag). Furthermore, we optimised the image content for Google Image Search in order to reach customers via the image search function.
The result: Optimised sales through digitalisation
The new online shop with Shopware 6 digitalises the distribution of Lay Gewürze and improves B2B business in the food industry in the long term. Sales representatives and business customers can make their purchases at any time via the newly created sales channel. The functionality of the platform is guaranteed by the use of Akeneo as PIM.
Lay Gewürze’s sales representatives are supported holistically with online trading and remain directly involved in sales as part of the digital strategy. The newly created sales channel presents the company Lay Gewürze holistically and competently to the outside world. The digitalisation of B2B sales is complemented by SEO and usability consulting from igniti.
In addition to the implementation of the online shop and the PIM, we supported the sales department of Lay Gewürze with the introduction of a business intelligence tool.
Conquer the market together -
start with the first step
THESE ARE YOUR CONTACT PERSONS
Frank Rub
Managing Director
Stefan Lehmann
Managing Director
Anna Kästner
Sales Consultant
