Evolution from classic online shop to discovery shopping
diva-e develops modern omnichannel infrastructure for Versandhaus Walz
Using SCAYLE technology, diva-e developed a modern omnichannel infrastructure for the German retailer Versandhaus Walz. To cater to their various customers and offer an optimal customer experience they unite several brands under one roof – baby-walz, Die moderne Hausfrau and walzvital.
With an extensive product range, the Versandhaus Walz successfully reaches a broad target group in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands with it's three brands. To further consolidate and expand this strong digital presence in the future, Walz partnered with diva-e to migrate the existing e-commerce solution to a forward-looking and innovative software architecture.
The initial situation
With increased flexibility towards a more stable system landscape
The reasons for Versandhaus Walz's decision to migrate to a new platform were the limited capabilities of the predecessor technology to adapt to current customer and business requirements, as well as the strong dependency on external factors during deployments. This lack of flexibility not only made expanding the software architecture impossible but also resulted in long loading times and low stability of the online shops.
This was most evident on Black Friday 2022: the high demand pushed the old platform to its limits on one of the most important e-commerce days of the year.
Another reason for switching to a new platform was the previously time-consuming management of the shops: The CMS required a lot of maintenance and did not provide an efficient working environment for the responsible teams.
Migration to modern architecture for growth and innovation
In addition to optimising the stability of the online shops, the goal of the joint project was to develop and sharpen differentiating features from competitors, sustainably strengthen Versandhaus Walz' brands and position them as leaders on the market. The focus was on user experience, enhanced personalization capabilities, inspiring shopping experiences, and improved omnichannel experiences.
From the outset of the project, it was clear to all parties that transformation would go beyond technical migration and also affect internal synergies. A key aspect in planning the new architecture was therefore the optimization of recurring processes, particularly the simplified and cross-channel maintenance of texts and images in the new online shops. The overarching goal was to establish the new e-commerce platform as a central source of information for content, internal business processes and the e-commerce business.
The Black Week 2023 was set as the deadline for the migration of the eleven existing shops of all three brands. From the start of the project in April 2023, the team had a total of eight months to realize the transition.
Realisation
Agile setup for a smooth and fast migration
After successfully completing the initial project of a complete audit of the architectural landscape, including the selection of the ideal tech partner for Versandhaus Walz and all it's online shops in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, diva-e started the migration project together with the Walz project team in April 2023. The predecessor project served to align the company's existing infrastructure for the future while simultaneously laying the groundwork for a contemporary and appealing shopping experience for end customers.
The seamless transition was made possible by the subsequent implementation of the new omnichannel infrastructure based on SCAYLE. In this context, the monolithic e-commerce solution IBM WebSphere Commerce was replaced by a modern architecture with a headless frontend approach.
To ensure efficient implementation, the scoping of requirements for the setup and configuration of SCAYLE was carried out in parallel with the first development sprints. During the first sprints, key elements of the user interface (UX) and the design system were already integrated into the corresponding codebase. The agile project structure, based on a mixed-team approach involving developers and consultants from diva-e and the project team from Versandhaus Walz, enabled a strong synergy during implementation. The predefined migration steps were executed in a timely manner throughout the project:
Review, validation and completion of the defined requirements in the backlog for the development team
Development of a design system following the Atomic Design principle to differentiate business areas
Configuration of SCAYLE for the product data model, shop management, users and their permissions, as well as the implementation of existing business logic
Establishment of the content model in Storyblok as the future CMS
Setting up the CI/CD pipeline and implementing a new frontend - including the integration of external applications for tracking, A/B tests, analytics and reports as well as product reviews and recommendations
Implementation of necessary interfaces for automatic data provisioning to and from SCAYLE
Developer documentation
Bug fixing according to error classification
Development of a migration concept from the existing solution to SCAYLE for a smooth commissioning of the online shops (customer data, order history and URL migration to ensure SEO rankings)
Migration and go-live of the existing shops to the new infrastructure
Result
Stable online shops and maximum flexibility
With the successful go-live of the first shop on the new platform in early September 2023, significant improvements of load time, SEO and deployment cycles were already evident. By November, the remaining shops followed in further sequences. The impressive advantages of the new architecture were particularly evident on Black Friday 2023, when all shops achieved stable and significantly higher sales compared to previous years.
Thanks to the new setup, the individual online shops of the three company brands are no longer dependent on each other. While workflows in the content management system and the content modules are largely identical, they can be used independently of each other.
For each brand, additional modules can be created without affecting the functionality of the other brand shops. The SCAYLE platform is seamlessly integrated into the existing IT infrastructure and will effectively support all brands in pursuing their growth targets and efficiently handling all internal e-commerce processes. In future, all websites in the various target markets can be customized more easily and with minimal technical effort.
With the technical realignment, the company can operate more flexibly and continue to implement innovations and new features such as omnichannel services itself in the future. This significantly shortens the time it takes to launch new features, ensures scalability and strengthens the company's innovative power - especially in the highly competitive retail market environment.
Pureplay SaaS B2C Retail Ecommerce Engine
Headless CMS
VueJS + Nuxt3 hosted on Vercel