Modern educational publisher
with a long tradition
Dr. Josef Raabe Verlag supports teachers and school administrators in their day-to-day work with information, teaching materials and work aids. The portfolio is supplemented by digital offerings and school management software. As part of the Ernst Klett publishing group, RAABE is one of the leading education companies in Europe.
DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION IN THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY
The digital transformation does not stop at publishing houses. At RAABE, print products should be able to be ordered directly and online, electronic versions accessed directly and additional digital offerings developed and marketed.
In addition, an online store with the entire, complex product range was to be implemented, enabling customers to order everything quickly and easily online.
Goals of the store relaunch
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Targeted cross-selling and up-selling
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Automation
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Shop as a sales platform & source of information for customers
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Target group-oriented preparation
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Simplify complexity
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Simplify usability
In addition to increasing sales, which is usually the aim of an online store, the automation of processes was at the forefront of the project. The interrelationships between many products through subscription models, for example, had to be prepared for users in terms of content on the one hand, but also made technically possible on the other.
In addition to the products themselves, RAABE is also a source of information with many other offers that should also be visible via the store. Classic store functions such as product reviews, multiple payment options, discount campaigns, etc. should also be available in the new store.
Development of an intuitive online store
We worked with RAABE to develop an online store in which the products are easy to find and the extensive product information is easily accessible. The result is a user-friendly shopping experience that meets the interests of users when they visit the online store.
Shopware served as the basis for the development of the e-commerce platform. Numerous customizations ensure that RAABE's individual requirements could be met. These include a very far-reaching differentiation of article information depending on customer groups, an in-depth connection to the ERP system or the self-evident connection to the payment providers PAYONE and PayPal. RAABE also offers webinars to expand the digital product range. The edudip software is used for this purpose, which can be used to implement webinars and video conferences. An interface was developed for the online store that links store articles with edudip webinars and simplifies access for customers when placing orders. Other webinar data is also used, e.g. to check whether the maximum number of participants has been reached.Central management of all product data
A lot of information is required to display an item in the RAABE online store, such as marketing texts, images, previews and product downloads in various formats. Before the relaunch, the data was distributed throughout the company and it was sometimes unclear where to find the most up-to-date material. A central data source, a "single source of truth", is essential for importing checked and approved product information into the online store.
The Product Information Management System, which we introduced with the help of Akeneo, provided a solution. RAABE was able to collect and consolidate all data in the Akeneo product database. Missing or insufficient quality information was added. The data quality assessment provided by Akeneo and our own internal status system helped with this. In the end, it was possible to create a central database that automatically imports data from the ERP and can also be filled editorially.
This data is automatically transferred to the online store via an interface and can of course also be used elsewhere in the company.24/7 operation of the applications
Online stores or product databases are often business-critical and must be designed to be as fail-safe as possible. At the same time, they must be highly scalable, as the performance requirements, e.g. the amount of storage, increase over time and it must be possible to expand them at any time without any problems.
The hosting infrastructure was set up at Amazon Webservices. This ensures almost limitless scalability. At the same time, the performance of the instances can be adjusted at any time and the online store can be operated with high performance even during peak loads.
