As a newly found company, Faisto had no webshop. As a fact, they did not have any sales channels at all. The Lemvigh-Müller group, who owns Faisto, therefore wanted to build a modern webshop that could sell a wide range of tools, work wear and safety equipment.
DENMARK'S MOST USER-FRIENDLY TOOL WEBSHOP
With the desire for a site with lightning-fast response times and very high scalability, the collaboration with Alpha Solutions marked the beginning of a project that resulted in one of the most advanced cloud solutions to date. Consumers could praise themselves for having acquired Denmark's most user-friendly tool shop.
A MODERN APPROACH
The webshop was built on a Sitecore platform, but the solution itself was exclusively linked to cloud technology. In other words, Alpha Solutions delivered an intelligent client to the browser that collects and process the data that comes from the many cloud elements. React, in the Front-end, was responsible for communication with the cloud systems.
It was an extremely modern solution, since the webshop only used a relatively small amount of server power from the Sitecore platform. The solution was, because of advanced caching in CDN, able to make most pageviews without interacting with the server, which is primarily used by the shopping cart and check out. The page speed was therefore extremely fast and the solution incredibly scalable.
THE VALUABLE PIM
One of Faisto’s biggest challenges in establishing a B2C channel was to enrich products with text descriptions and images to be user-friendly and understandable to the general customer. By using inrivers' cloud hosted PIM, Faisto was able to begin the content task from day zero in the project.
AI-SUPPORTED PERSONALIZATION
In addition, the webshop also ran one of the most advanced RichRelevance (now Algonomy) solutions ever. The Algonomy technology is used for product recommendations, search, category viewing and content recommendations. It gives a super personalized finish and adds another layer of ease of use, as the customer will find the most relevant products much faster.
STOCK IN STOCK
Alpha Solutions made a tight and fault-tolerant integration to the ERP system, SAP. Faisto sold from the group's common warehouse locations, and in the integration to the warehouse, an advanced reservation logic was built to ensure that Faisto customer’s products were not sold simultaneously on the group's B2B-channels.
If the Microsoft Azure-based webshop lost connection to SAP, the webshop was still able to receive orders based on the last known storage mode. The shop could sell without SAP. Orders are registered and queued in the cloud, which automatically updates SAP with sales when SAP is back online.
With orders that can include anything from large machines to small nails, stock and shipping must work flawlessly.
ABOUT FAISTO
Faisto was a Danish webshop that offered a wide range of tools, work wear, safety equipment and nails, screws and bolts. Faisto's vision was to give the joy of well-executed craftsmanship to everyone by offering quality products that match customer needs.
The company was owned by Lemvigh-Müller, the largest steel and engineering wholesaler in Denmark. Lemvigh-Müller was founded in 1846 at Kultorvet in Copenhagen and has 1.200 employees.
WHAT THE CUSTOMER SAYS
“Alpha Solutions is technically skilled, and they are extremely capable of transforming technology into business. They have an eye for the commercial aspect and run the processes with great flexibility.”
“On faisto.dk we have between 4500 and 6500 products. The need for a PIM system was correctly advised by Alpha Solutions. It enriches the user experience for our customers and makes the solution scalable.”
- Mads Vangkilde, CEO, Faisto, 2019
TECHNOLOGIES
Sitecore
Sitecore Commerce
inriver PIM
Algonomy
Tealium Tag Management & Analytics
Adobe Content
To provide Faisto with the complete overview of all orders, Alpha Solutions fully synchronized with the shipping provider, Consignor. The technology gives customer service the full overview of the package’s location on its route from warehouse to recipient. Every movement of the package is registered with the carrier and made visible to customer service, so they always can support the customer with the location of the parcel.
EXCEEDED THE OBJECTIVES
The result became one of the most advanced RichRelevance solutions ever. The Faisto webshop was characterized by being Denmark's most user-friendly place to buy tools.
Furthermore, the rapid and efficient implementation from Alpha Solutions also meant that Faisto exceeded their objectives.
In September 2019, Faisto won a Sitecore Experience Award for Best Commerce Experience in EMEA Nordics in collaboration with Alpha Solutions.
THOMAS HALLING
Solution Architect
