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Cooking and outdoor enthusiasts have come to the right place at Knivesandtools. Think kitchen or pocketknives, but also torches and binoculars. Lab Digital was invited to think along about the architecture of this brand-new e-commerce platform based on a modern 'composable' architecture.
Besides their main domain knivesandtools.com (active in several countries), Knivesandtools has several other websites on which high-quality products are offered. One example is skerper.com. The legacy platform on which this was running was outdated and in need of renewal. We needed to bring all these sites together on a central platform from which new sites could easily be rolled out from one and the same base. All this in-house and under one important condition: a seamless customer experience.
Looking at Kato’s requirements and various components needing a specific solution, composable architecture was the obvious choice. To get a head start, we utilised our MACH Composer framework, which connects to commercetools and AWS, among others, and is intended for composing and orchestrating modern MACH architecture platforms.
We created a powerful headless platform for Knivesandtools that emcompasses all of the 13 websites, and is able to display them on demand - including unique, brand specific business rules and content.
After an intensive co-creation process, we came to a detailed 'to be' architecture and corresponding backlog, which was developed by Lab Digital into today's final result.
Whether you are a cooking enthusiast, or an outdoor fanatic, on the Knivesandtools website you will find a high-quality product you like. And be careful with your new sharp purchases, they don't sell band-aids!
Danone Specialized Nutrition focuses on healthy growth and development in early life.
Danone offers the target audience an alternative digital commerce platform when retailers and pure players are saturated. Lab Digital composed, developed, and maintains this worldwide solution.
The goal was to augment existing experience platforms – which already had an essential role in the customer journey of the Danone brands - with e-commerce functionality, in a smooth and seamless way. In addition, being able to scale fast with as little tailoring as possible was important.
The platform is based on infrastructure in Amazon Web Services. It uses the MACH-solution commercetools as the primary e-commerce engine, connected to centrally maintained sources such as PIM, DAM and ERP. Of course, the landscape foresees connections to necessary tools like payment providers and shipping/warehouse solutions. The total architecture is meant to be ready-to-use and unlocks integrated headless e-commerce possibilities for new markets.
With the DTC platform we built an e-commerce solution that can be deployed worldwide, in every country, in every language, for every brand and for every channel where commerce is relevant.
Together, we created a collaborative atmosphere that enabled us to combine steady and high-quality technical development with an end-user-focused experience while doing fast rollouts in a large and international environment.
SLB Group is a software intermediary for the Dutch educational market.
Its services make the purchasing of licenses cheaper and easier for students and education staff. Finding the right license online was not so easy, so Lab Digital was brought in to help with service design, technical architecture, design and development.
The challenge was to build a future-proof digital platform where technology seamlessly supports SLB Diensten’s services towards their clients. For this, it was essential to identify where the bottlenecks were in the current process and platform and to determine from a business need perspective what the ideal platform should entail.
The platform is based on infrastructure in Microsoft Azure. It is founded on MACH principles with Commercetools as the primary e-commerce engine, integrated with an open-source Wagtail CMS and a custom-made developed price engine. The platform integrates seamlessly both Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, developed by Broad Horizon Solutions.
A well-balanced team of customer experience designers and visual designers, developers, testers, a project manager and program manager perfectly complemented the SLB team.
This project empowers SLB Diensten to enhance support to the Dutch educational market by expanding their core task to include the consultant role. Streamlining the ordering process creates more time to proactively advise schools on their digital ecosystem and engage relevant partners.
Spring GDS (part of PostNL) is the largest independent cross-border logistics provider in the market. It handles over 100M+ shipments per year, and ships to over 190 countries via offices in more than 15 countries.
Their customer-first approach has, for over 20 years, meant they listen to their customers' needs for custom tailor shipping solutions that fit their business, not someone else's.
As Spring operates in many markets, with different products and services, one of the biggest challenges was to make sure their global organization shines through in their local expertise; to create uniformity and consistency in content as well as brand perception.
Based on insight from international stakeholders, Lab Digital designed and developed a platform that allows Spring to tell its story, and also provides scope to further digitise and expand its services. The Wagtail CMS makes managing this multilingual platform, that has unique content per region, almost as easy and fast as sending shipments internationally.
Lab invested time in understanding Spring, including our key stakeholders. Ensuring the platform will deliver the best user experience for our target groups across all geographies.
The Spring team was complemented perfectly by a well-balanced group consisting of customer experience designers, visual designers, developers, testers, and project management professionals.
Within 2 months, the new website generated 200+ leads of which 9 converted within that period to signed clients.
Within Wagtail, we created one main site. Copies for local sites are auto generated and contain translated content (such as buttons, menu items, forms, and standard copy) to minimise manual actions. This makes content management so much easier.
Heijmans is a listed company that does property development, offers construction & technical services and builds large-scale infrastructure projects. What sets them apart is their focus on sustainability.
We helped them convey their core values through a new corporate website, in which we emphasised visual impact and storytelling.
As Heijmans’ activities span a wide array of clients (consumers and private businesses to local and central government), the challenge was to express the activities of the company in a way that’s understandable for a broader audience. To address this, Heijmans revised their communication strategy, focusing on storytelling and meaningful content, giving in-depth insights into how Heijmans helps make the world a bit more accessible through infrastructure.
In line with Heijmans’ wish, our solution was built around storytelling. Content editors can use templates to easily set up and manage content pages with extensive collections of images, photography and full-screen videos, textual statements (typography), and hierarchy between the different page sections.
With the headless open-source CMS platform Wagtail, we ensured a performant experience for all visitors.
Lab Digital helped us set up a future-proof and easy-to-maintain platform, that is also visually impactful and offers lots of room to tell our stories. It’s the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration!
A well-balanced team of customer experience designers and visual designers, developers, testers and a project manager perfectly complemented the Heijmans team.
In 2021, we launched the first version of the highly customizable Heijmans website. Based on mutual trust and close involvement, we were able to prolong our collaboration. By measuring the right data and analysing the experiences of users and visitors, we’re now incrementally improving and renewing the website.
Glen Dimplex, headquartered in Ireland, is the largest manufacturer of electrical heating appliances globally and a leading provider of domestic appliances, cooling, ventilation, and renewable energy solutions. Incorporated in 1973 as Glen Electric with 10 employees, the company now has annual revenue exceeding €1.5 billion and employs over 8,000 staff across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia/Oceania.
With all the brand sites built on Aqcuia, Glen Dimplex was seeking a solution to make all brand sites transactional to consumers with a quick time to market, with a minimal impact on the technical landscape.
We integrated commercetools as the commerce solution within the existing Aqcuia websites. Commercetools provides the cart- and the checkout-functionalities, this allowed us to easily add transactional functions to the existing website without interfering with existing technology. By using a composable architecture, Glen Dimplex can roll out new brands or regions in 6-8 weeks without having to change the existing brand sites.
In this project, we are working alongside the in the internet agency that handles the brand sites for Glen Dimplex. Precise coordination resulted in a pleasant collaboration, meeting the agreed deadlines and a smooth go-live of the ecommerce functionalities.
The integration of the commercetools UI kit ensures seamless integration of Aquia brand websites and e-commerce functionalities. This contributes to the customer journey and target conversion of the online shop.
Agradi is a large, international webshop in the field of equestrian sports apparel, equipment and other animal supplies. Lab Digital has been Agradi’s e-commerce partner since 2016, being fully responsible for the design and development of all Agradi websites (NL being the largest).
Agradi’s previous website was built on old technology. The goal was to improve e-commerce functionality, and enhance the customer experience with a reliable and scalable platform. In 2016, we launched the new platform and we’ve been optimizing it ever since. Together we have implemented many new custom features that have boosted commercial growth.
The platform is based on infrastructure in Amazon Web Services. It uses the Django-Oscar framework as primary e-commerce framework, connected to centrally maintained sources such as PIM and ERP. Of course, the landscape foresees connections to necessary tools like payment providers and shipping/warehouse solutions. Main complexity is to easily manage the wide variety of proprietary promotion and discount elements, while supporting highly seasonal and constantly changing inventory. Further, our solution automates the return processes, saving FTEs.
Together, we created a collaborative atmosphere that enabled us to combine steady and high-quality technical development with an end-user-focused experience while doing fast rollouts in a large and international environment.
The Agradi e-commerce platform has seen a significant growth in visitors and order intake since our collaboration. While significantly lowering the number of SKUs, the order intake has more than quadrupled. We are proud to work on this platform every day and are looking forward to continuing to work together with Agradi towards new business goals.
We are not here to define new business strategies for our clients, but a profound understanding as if it was our own business is fundamental. This forms the foundation to compose a tech strategy that brings them to the next digital level and turns their strategy into a success.
Organisations serious about future-proofing and wanting to renew their technology landscape and scale reliably can profit from our solutions. A long-term focus and integrated collaboration bring partnerships to the next level.
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