Waterdrinker
B2B-e-commerce platform
An easier and faster way to buy plants, flowers and accessories
Over the past 40 years, Waterdrinker has developed from a local plant trader into one of the largest exporters of flowers, house and garden plants worldwide. In 2016, Waterdrinker asked us to build a custom and mobile-friendly eCommerce B2B platform so that their different customer groups could easily buy flowers, plants and accessories online. Three months after the start, we delivered a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Since then, we have continuously developed and released new functionalities.
Tailor-made services for different types of customers
INSIGHT
Waterdrinker strives to provide tailor-made services and experiences to their different customers: florists, garden centers, wholesalers, chain stores and retailers. Both main customer groups, Cash & Carry and Big Professional Buyers, required different functionalities and those functionalities required custom integration with Waterdrinker's existing systems.
We conducted usability testing sessions to gain insight into the purchasing behavior of Waterdrinker customers. We learned that Waterdrinker users do not behave like traditional consumers. For example, a large professional buyer who regularly purchases large quantities of plants requires a fast and smart checkout process – optimized to place repeat orders. These customer insights helped us optimize overall navigation and remove bottlenecks.
Why did we build a custom B2B eCommerce platform?
CHALLENGE
Initially we explored several open source shopping frameworks such as Magento 1 & 2, Sylius and Solidus. We concluded that off-the-shelf store frameworks did not provide sufficient stability or lacked the ability to connect to an industry-specific ERP system.
Because of this we decided to build custom software. The main goal was to ensure that the framework would be stable, adaptable and resilient. This customized system can deal with the current complexity, possible delays in Waterdrinker's ERP system or API and handle many parallel requests.
One infrastructure, different storefronts
SOLUTION
The custom store engine we built connects to Waterdrinker's existing systems and displays different storefronts for different customers. Each storefront has been optimized to provide the best possible experience to the Cash & Carry and Big Professional Buyer customer groups.
For example, large business buyers can easily top up their weekly stock to ensure their store has enough plants and flowers in stock. Cash & Carry customers can find inspiration and stay up to date with the latest trends in a special section.
Designed for maximum flexibility
When creating the front-end for Waterdrinker, we kept one challenge in mind: everything we built had to be flexible enough to easily change the look and feel of the store. We have developed an easily customizable white label solution that allows Waterdrinker to have multiple storefronts with different visual elements and range.
RESULTS
The platform is now live. Customers submit their purchase orders with ease and we work to optimize the experience.
Since the first release in 2016, we have continuously developed new functionalities in sprints, short periods of 2 weeks. Before each sprint we prepare the user stories based on a backlog. After each sprint, all stakeholders have the opportunity to review the software and discuss next steps.