Client
Our client is a leading global furniture manufacturer with an extensive portfolio of over 10 brands operating across 50+ countries. Their business encompasses two distinct lines: Workplace Furnishings and Hearth Products. They are widely recognized for their ergonomic designs, commitment to sustainability, and incorporation of cutting-edge manufacturing technology.
50+ countries
Challenge
Faced with the uncertainity caused by the global pandemic, our client, a leading B2B furnishings manufacturer, struggled with the slowdown of their office furnishings order book. Their clients had paused capital expenditures on workplace furnishings as employees commenced working from home. Many businesses had quickly shifted to providing work-from-home allowances to enable employees to set up home offices and purchase home office furnishings, but our client was not set up to deliver frictionless B2B2C shopping experiences.
In addition to its corporate buyers, our client knew that the surge in remote workers was driving up demand from stand-alone consumers for home office furniture that could be easily purchased online.
To benefit from this significant market shift, our client needed to rapidly reimagine their digital strategy. They envisioned a seamless omnichannel eCommerce experience with headless architecture for multi-brand merchandising and fulfillment that would serve both of its new client personas. And, they wanted to seize this opportunity in time for their largest revenue generation day of the year—Black Friday.
Completing this shift from B2B to B2B2C and D2C within the tight timeframe involved a complete overhaul of internal business systems, as well as the significant overhaul of their eCommerce platform to support these new-age experiences.
- B2B2C corporate storefront: A gated eCommerce site to support the dealer network and prevent channel conflicts. Here, corporate employees could access a white-labeled website to make purchases from an enterprise-specific catalog with customized pricing.
- D2C eCommerce platform: This platform would enable the client to easily spin up branded online storefronts for its own D2C brands. These new digital experiences would cater to both guest users and registered users, delivering a customizable on-brand experience offering account management, wish list management, social media sharing, smart search options, and newsletter subscriptions.
In just 51 days—just in time for the Black Friday shopping weekend—we developed seamless multi-brand D2C eCommerce experiences and white-labeled B2B2C shoppable experiences.
Solution
Engineering a Shoppable Experience for B2B2C & D2C Partners
With less than 60 days before the Black Friday sales went online, the Hexaware team embarked on a journey to reimagine the client’s eCommerce experience platform and spin up the new eCommerce experiences. We employed a design thinking approach with research, we developed personas, consumer journeys to craft a comprehensive experiential strategy.
Hexaware collaborated, reimagined, designed, and launched new digital-first immersive channels catering to multi-brand D2C eCommerce experiences and white-labeled B2B2C brand shoppable experiences to diversify the digital sales strategy of our client, a top 5 multi-brand global furniture manufacturer.
We built two new distinct eCommerce shoppable experience channels from the ground up to capture disruptions in business and consumer behaviour, and compete with other online storefronts.
We successfully met the aggressive deadline by implementing best-in-class solution architecture principles. Our approach involved designing a multi-tenant code base with multi-brand theming, ensuring on-brand experiences and scalability for future extensions.
Design Thinking for E-commerce Journeys
We assessed our client’s existing technology ecosystem, conducted primary and secondary research, and utilized a design thinking approach to define customer journeys that catered to every unique consumer persona, whilst prioritizing features for these new B2B2C and D2C channels.
To build the experience, we created blueprints and templates that allowed on-brand experience theming for every unique brand.
Adobe Commerce Cloud | Magento: The Digital Shopping Experience
We assessed and evaluated multiple PaaS and SaaS eCommerce product offerings across feature sets, pricing, 3rd party integrability, security, future scalability, and extensibility criterion specific to the client and selected Adobe Commerce Cloud (erstwhile Magento) as the best-fit product.
For the B2B2C shoppable experience platform, the emphasis was on facilitating seamless transactions between businesses and end consumers. Key features included robust account management tools tailored for B2B users, such as bulk ordering, customized pricing options, and personalization features.
The D2C shoppable experience platform offered SEO-optimization to ensure high search index relevance across search engines. The search experience was designed to be performant, yet simple, powered with lazy load, facets, and refinement filters to enable highly interactive experiences.
Our implementation covered:
Platform Enhancement
- Implemented an enterprise-grade, cloud-based commerce platform (Adobe Commerce/Magento) for scalability and extensibility.
- Integrated various systems with our client’s new web platform, for data-driven strategy:
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Streamlined operations and data accuracy through integrated ERP systems.
- Order Management System: Optimized order lifecycle management with real-time visibility and efficient workflows.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Centralized customer data and enhanced engagement with personalized interactions.
- Product Information Management (PIM): Ensured consistency and completeness of product data across channels.
- Content Management System: Enabled agile content creation and delivery for engaging experiences.
- Packaged business capabilities (PBCs): Enhanced shopping experience and post-purchase support with recommendations, reviews, ratings, and more.
- Marketing Automation: Enhanced customer engagement through automated campaigns, personalized messaging, and dynamic content delivery.
Modernized Experiential Features
- Integrated AI/ML-powered search and recommendations system.
- Implemented rating and review management tools.
- Comprehensive post-purchase customer support management.
- Integrated 3D spatial experiences
SEO Optimization
- Optimized the websites for high search index and Google search visibility.
- Added dynamic pagination, filters, and refinement options for interactive user experiences.
- Enabled content customization capabilities for increased flexibility in digital markets.
- Enabled content marketing capabilities for extensive, impactful seasonal campaigns.
Integration and Plugins
- Integrated plugins like Bazaarvoice for reviews and ratings, Cloudinary for dynamic image loading, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- Utilized Google Analytics for customer insights and targeted marketing.
Powerful Cloud Architecture for E-commerce
We adopted a futuristic cloud-centric methodology to achieve the goal of creating performant, scalable and extensible shoppable experiences that are easy to use, frictionless, and serve every consumer persona. We:
- Developed multiple D2C brand & B2B2C storefronts that share a single underlying multi-tenant codebase with distinct functionalities specific to the brand. Our approach involved maintaining a common code repository that powered each storefront with brand-specific theming to realize a true on-brand experience.
- Drove our implementation with domain-driven design and bounded context principles for managing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and microservices.
Benefits
Easily Adoptable B2B2C & D2C Digital Experience
Implemented a productized digital experience architecture that enables seamless extension and customization of functionalities, allowing our client to efficiently meet the diverse needs of its B2B2C partners and D2C consumers.
Simplified Partner Onboarding
Improved our client’s business network by successfully onboarding six new clients to B2B2C shoppable experiences. In the D2C segment, we designed an onboarding process to easily catalogue and market product ranges for three large partner corporations, expanding the furniture manufacturers’ influence.
Go-to-Market Within 51 Days
Propelled the company’s online presence with a swift introduction of dynamic shoppable experience channels in 51 days, tapping into new revenue streams in the early pandemic months.
Improved UI Accessibility and Customization
Enhanced user interface accessibility and customization options, enabling our client’s platform adopters to personalize the platform to match their buyers’ preferences and needs.
Expanded Digital Footprint by 60%
Significantly broadened the company’s market reach and influence, resulting in a 60% increase in overall digital footprint. This expansion highlights the company’s successful penetration into new markets and customer segments, driving growth and opportunity.
30,000+ Unique Visitors Within Six Months
Boosted the company’s online presence with an impressive 30,000+ 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 across the eCommerce shoppable experiences.
Adaptability for Quick Digital Presence in New Markets
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.
High-impact Marketing Communication Capabilties
Enhanced the company’s marketing communication efficiency with timely email notifications and updates, fostering seamless communication with its audience and buyers.
Enhanced Customer Trust-Building Measures
Bolstered trust in our client’s offerings through speed, transparency, and perceived value, solidifying the brand’s reputation and credibility in the market, fostering long-term loyalty among its customer base.
Scaled Website Traffic Capacity by 10x
Successfully scaled the capacity of the company’s website traffic by 10x, accommodating a surge in online visitors and ensuring seamless user experiences even during periods of high demand.
Personalization Perfection for End Consumers
Elevated customer experience with personalization features and tailored user preferences and profiles for a more purposeful and contextually engaging interaction experience.
In-Depth Digital Customer Insights
Strengthened stakeholders’ understanding of customer needs with effective data gathering mechanisms, empowering the company with valuable insights for strategic decision-making.
Collaborative Analytics & Support Environment
Built a collaborative environment within the company with analytical capabilities, ensuring seamless client support and bolstering overall team efficiency.
Optimized Cash Flow Predictability and Overhead Reduction
Optimized cash flow predictability while reducing operational overhead through streamlined processes and efficient resource management. This enables the company to allocate resources effectively towards strategic initiatives and growth opportunities.
Cloud-Native Architecture for TCO Reduction
Streamlined the company’s resource costs with a reduced total cost of operation (TCO) through cloud-native architecture.
Low-code, No-code Self-service Functionalities
Empowered partners with user-friendly, self-service functionalities, improving their overall experience and satisfaction.
Summary
Hexaware developed both a D2C eCommerce platform for our clients’ own brands and a B2B2C eCommerce platform to support its corporate partners with customizable white-labelled experiences.
In a record time of just 51 days, we successfully transformed the client’s eCommerce experience. Both of these eCommerce experiences were built on Adobe Commerce (Magento) with seamless third-party integrations, diversified offerings based on customer segments, and advanced functionalities.
Hexaware also enhanced content experiences and optimized SEO/SEM for improved traffic generation to these shoppable experience platforms. The result was two new revenue streams, a fortified digital footprint growth of 60%, and consequent sales growth from these new business channels.
The client benefitted from business model diversification and quick access to real-time customer data and analytics. They were able to leverage data to run targeted marketing campaigns and understand and respond to customer needs and behaviours better, which eventually increased customer satisfaction, and as a result, improved business value.
