Aarstiderne
““We are very satisfied with our new solution, which has introduced the possibility for several more employees to edit the site. The integration to Navision is a solid, work saving solution – on a good day, several thousand customers visit our site, and they can order goods themselves on the website. We can now offer them more variety.””
-Erik Jakobsen, communication officer, Aarstiderne.
Summary
Aarstiderne is a virtual supermarket, selling and delivering boxes with groceries to approximately 35,000 online customers. The boxes are ordered on the website aarstiderne.com, and are delivered to the door every week. The many customers, products, orders and deliveries are handled by an advanced solution based on the Sitecore Content Management System which is integrated with Aarstiderne’s Microsoft Business Solutions Navision system.
Challenge
Aarstiderne has, within a few years, established one of the most extensive and advanced e-commerce companies in Denmark. Visitors have the possibility to subscribe to a range of ecological groceries. aarstiderne.com offers around 30 pre-packed boxes with groceries, and then the visitor may order additional content or remove certain items according to taste.
Aarstiderne is a company in continuous growth. Today more than 700 different items are sold from aarstiderne.com, which has over 35,000 customers – all sales are online via aarstiderne.com, and goods are delivered across the country.
E-commerce is the very basis of the business of Aarstiderne, and the extensive possibilities the customers must be offered make colossal demands on the company’s web solution. For Aarstiderne it is imperative the visitors get the best possible experience and that the entire system runs in a reliable, stable and secure way.
With the very broad range of clientele, the variation of the customers IT skills is large. Therefore Aarstiderne focuses on user friendliness – the information must be clear; a customer must be able to find exactly the desired groceries for the box and order successfully.
The company already had a financial management system from Navision. They wished to integrate it with their new CM system to make the order handling more smooth.
Solution
With a Content Management System from Sitecore, Aarstiderne has obtained a website that is easily updated, clear and customer-friendly.
The CMS automatically collects information concerning the products in the Aarstiderne Navision product-database, so that a customer on aarstiderne.com can see which product may be purchased, and what there is in their shopping basket. Sitecore can also retrieve delivery information for the customer and automatically add the order in the Navision system, where it is automatically processed.
This is possible as Sitecore is fully integrated to the Navision system of Aarstiderne, and this integration is completely invisible to the customers. Everything happens in a consistent manner in the browser interface without any delay.
This integration optimises the workflow of Aarstiderne. In the past this information had to be entered manually by an employee, so this is a great improvement.
The Sitecore solution for Aarstiderne is also equipped with advanced search functions so that the users may find the goods at any time without any problems.
Result
On the Aarstiderne website almost every process in relation to customer ordering has been automated. By removing the link between size and resources, the company has been able to grow more rapidly. The employees also get time for other more sales focussed activities.
With Sitecore everybody in the company can update the groceries offer on the website – the product code is entered, and the CMS retrieves the relevant information in the financial management system. This integration is extraordinarily smooth and the employees are released from the time consuming and routine update tasks.
Customers also have better possibilities of buying when it suits them. As the new system treats orders automatically, you may, as a customer, order goods for the upcoming week until midnight the Sunday prior to that week. This improves the customer service that Aarstiderne is able to give – a factor that is critical to customer retention.
In February 2003, Aarstiderne.com won the IT-business’ e-commerce prize and the company is considered to be one of the best success stories of the Danish e-commerce.
Technical Description
The Content Management System is fully integrated with the Aarstiderne Microsoft Business Solutions Navision system. When a customer logs on to aarstiderne.com, the customer also logs directly into the Navision system, and when an order is given, it is given directly into Navision.
Sitecore makes sure that all processing of the order happens automatically. The processes are identical to those made manually by an employee – Sitecore speeds the process, and the employee is released from the very time consuming and routine task.
The fast and effective communication between Sitecore and Navision is possible, because certain elements on aarstiderne.com are extracted directly from the Navision databases. These extractions are fully integrated in the design of aarstiderne.com, so the integration of data from two different databases is transparent.
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