Accelerating digital transformation to drive a multi-channel B2B and B2C strategy

🎯 Context and issues: managing several types of outlets and customers

Belveo designs durable parasols, pergolas and shade solutions using patented technology. It is a demanding market that depends on technological and climatic developments and must meet both aesthetic and functional customer needs.
It is therefore crucial to focus on the product and its evolution to remain competitive.

The brand has a multi-channel sales strategy with its own e-shop and physical points of sale, notably at partners such as Leroy Merlin and Castorama.

In addition to managing several sales channels, Belveo must respond to two types of customers in France and abroad: professional customers (including the Perchoir terraces in Paris, La Friche Gourmande, hotels such as the Mercure brands or local authorities such as the town of Vichy) and private individuals. 

Edouard Sartorius took over the management of the company in 2019 and initiated a digitalization strategy to enable the teams to efficiently manage both customer acquisition and orders: from stock management and production to deliveries.

Thus, the time spent on these management tasks can be optimised to focus on the company's core value: its sunshade solutions, the various lines and technological improvements.

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The site, historically created on Prestashop, requires external interventions for each update of content or products. The management of orders, stocks, supplies and deliveries to the warehouses is done by exchanging Excel files that are manually fed.

💡 Solutions: automate inventory tracking and improve the online customer experience 

To meet the challenges of customer satisfaction and agility in order management, two complementary solutions have been created entirely in Nocode:

1. Construction of a management tool to automate the monitoring of stocks and financial flows 

For this purpose, a database was created on Airtable and connected directly to the e-commerce site in order to manage the purchasing process of the goods, the stock variations.

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2. Redesign of the e-commerce site 

A brand new site has been built on Shopify to improve the user experience and allow administrators to update offers and manage the site independently.

✅ Results: 3x more B2B leads and 100% autonomous teams

1. Improved acquisition through the new site

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The redesign of the site and its conversion path has greatly contributed to a better user experience( productcatalogue by category, simplified conversion steps and very reliable Shopify checkout ).

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In addition, thespace dedicated to pro customers has encouraged the entry of new B2B leads. Indeed, 2 to 3 times more professional profiles have initiated order requests on the site, whereas the previous one was more focused on private users.

2. 100% teamautonomy for the administration of new tools in Nocode

The Belveo team is made up of sales people, architects, engineers and logistics managers. In total, a dozen people with a wide range of profiles use the tools developed from Airtable and Shopify as administrators on a daily basis.

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Edouard Sartorius is pleased with this adoption by the whole team: "These solutions have made us autonomous. We can finally solve bugs and make updates ourselves.

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Speaking about the Airtable console, he says: "We have more visibility into our databases and can easily connect them to other tools through APIs.

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This autonomy was regained thanks to the delegation of the project to our Nocode Expert teams who had a real "digital transformationaccelerator role " for Belveo

"Entrusting the project to Alegria.tech was an opportunity to stay focused on the company's core business but also tolearn alongside a Maker. The whole team was very involved in the realisation of the solution and was able to learn on the job.

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3. Technicalstability for continuous performance

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For the redesign of the website, Shopify proved to be an ideal tool and adapted to Belveo's business issues:

• This robust, high-performance solution limits the risk of costly bugs - such as the site crash that penalized high season sales in the middle of June.

• Some features do not need to be customised for their industry. Shopify features, such as checkout, have been tested and approved by many in the e-commerce industry and are perfectly suited to our sector.

• The performance of the tool ensures a smooth browsing experience

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The management tool built on Airtable has solidified the information and data exchange system internally. Its reliability reduces the margins of error.

Edouard Sartorius adds that this tool has made it possible "to foresee and consolidate projects that were previously unimaginable - for example, a cash flow plan with automatic updates. 

From now on, the key figures for business management (stocks, procurement dates, supplier payment deadlines, turnover) are managed centrally.

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