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.
A B2B shop for Fruchthof Nagel
Fruchthof Nagel, based in Neu-Ulm, southern Germany, is a leading fruit retailer and logistics provider. For more than half a century, the company has offered its customers quality, freshness, up-to-date pricing and an increasing number of product-related services.
The ambition of the project was to establish a B2B online shop containing around 1,500 active items. It should only be possible for users to access the shop after logging in. Visitors without login details should be able to view the products as a catalogue but without prices. As well as reducing the workload of sales staff, another important project objective was 24/7 accessibility. The shop should also give the company a stronger online presence for potential customers.
The solution involved a silver.basic online shop integrated with Ibexa. The tried and tested Web Connector handles connection to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV ERP and enables complete integration of the B2B shop.
Selling fresh produce involves a whole raft of special requirements and processes. One particular requirement is that customers must select their preferred delivery date immediately after logging in as this determines the availability of produce during the ordering process. Many convenience products are ordered from manufacturers just-in-time to ensure maximum freshness. Time for them to be procured in the warehouse must be taken into account. For example, there are products that must be ordered by 10am on a Monday for delivery on Tuesday. In the web shop, the earliest possible delivery date is shown beside these products.
Fruchthof Nagel uses numerous marketing functions to present the product range in its best light. For example, top sellers, promotions and new products are 'fed' into the shop from NAV and displayed on the home page. Similarly products are displayed with detailed product information. Any number of documents and images can be added to any item in NAV and made available to the customer to download from the shop. This functionality can be used to produce a detailed product profile, for example.
After logging into the shop, block indicators, customer numbers, sector information and the saved additional charges for partial packaging units are retrieved from NAV during the runtime.
In the event of a block in the ERP, the customer is informed that orders cannot be placed at the present time.
Extra rights have been set up in the online shop for sales staff. Staff can use a delegate function to assume the role of one of their customers to place orders on their behalf. Such staff orders have special labels and are handled directly in the ERP without any additional checks. A modified form of the delegate function is also used by key account customers. As soon as an employee from a key account customer's head office logs in, he or she can select for which branch or subsidiary an order needs to be placed.
In terms of shop design, the customer base demanded a self-contained design based on existing marketing materials. This fresh, new design was developed by our partner Netgen in Croatia in close collaboration with the customer and silver.solutions who converted the concept design into the necessary templates.
Fruchthof Nagel now has a fresh, modern and most importantly very efficient online shop which seamlessly transfers business logic from the ERP to the online shop. The silver.basic shop solution and Web Connector have even managed to smoothly implement special requirements of the sector. Internal processes are thereby optimized and customers can place orders at their convenience at any time of day.
