silver.solutions is a service provider for B2B e-commerce solutions. Since 2000, the Berlin-based company has been developing powerful online platforms, B2B shops and integration solutions for companies from the technical trade and other industries. silver.solutions advises companies on their digital strategy and has realised more than 200 customer projects.
Educational shop for schoolbooks, worksheets and e-books
The Cornelsen Publishing Group is one of the leading providers of educational media in the German-speaking world. Over one thousand employees based in Germany, Switzerland and Austria work closely with authors and publishers to identify the best solutions for successful learning. In addition to the marketing and sale of the group's entire product range, the Swiss team is also responsible for product development within the Swiss market.
The project task was to set up a website and online shop linked to Microsoft Dynamics NAV for the group's Swiss arm, Cornelsen Schulverlage Schweiz AG. While the primary target group for the shop are teachers, end customers and trainee teachers are also able to order resources online. The design of the new shop had to fit in with the overall online presence of the German parent company. The focus of shop development was the implementation of a powerful search function in sync with the priorities of the teaching profession
The project
The Cornelsen shop was created using the latest version of silver.eShop with a real-time link to Microsoft Dynamics NAV. All product data is retrieved from NAV and includes detailed hierarchical data that can be used in the shop as filters, along with countless other criteria. Alongside the full range of traditional schoolbooks, the Cornelsen shop also contains worksheets and e-books for immediate download.
Cornelsen Schweiz decided not to present products in a hierarchical listings catalog but instead classify them according to educational level. The main access to the product range is via color-coded boxes where teachers must first select the appropriate school level. All products for that level are displayed, and it is then possible to dig deeper by filtering according to series, series issues, subjects and other criteria. Customers can easily switch between the product details of a series title and the entire series to view other related titles. In search results using classic key words, series and series titles are always displayed first, as these are of particular interest to educators.
The registration and order processes have been adapted for the educational context. For example, teachers are able to add all the school where they work to their profile. The schools are saved in NAV. All address forms are linked to the school database, so teachers can find their school(s) easily.
Thanks to the integrated Ibexa DXP, Cornelsen Schweiz is able to manage all other website content (e.g. events, news, marketing and service pages) extremely easily in the shop backend.
The benefits
After just four months, the new Cornelsen shop went online in Switzerland. The feedback from customers confirms the great improvements in cataloging and search functionality.
The primary aim of our new online shop is to offer our customers from the field of education the opportunity to identify and conveniently purchase suitable learning resources for their lessons in the easiest possible manner. We managed to achieve both at the time of going live thanks to the smooth search and filter functions in addition to the well-conceived address management.
