Extensive Pimcore project with NBB

Founded in 2001, NBB is a leading online retailer specializing in notebooks, mobile devices, and consumer electronics in Germany and Austria. The company also operates seven physical stores across Germany.
As part of its digital transformation, NBB partnered with basecom to enhance its online platform by replatforming its web shops to Shopware 6. In parallel, the company replaced its legacy PIM and DAM systems with Pimcore X Enterprise, seamlessly integrating these solutions into its existing digital ecosystem. By implementing Pimcore, NBB has laid the groundwork for future dynamic growth.

NBB oversees a vast inventory of over 500,000 products and more than 3 million digital assets across its online shops. Previously, the company relied on custom-built, in-house PIM and DAM systems. However, to support future growth and enhance operational efficiency, NBB decided to transition to Pimcore X Enterprise, a robust and scalable solution that offers great flexibility for managing its extensive product catalog and digital assets across multiple online stores and sales channels.
One of the main challenges during this transition was ensuring seamless integration between various third-party systems. This was particularly critical as the implementation of Pimcore occurred simultaneously with the replatforming of the web shops. The key objective was to enable smooth data exchange between these systems without disrupting ongoing operations.

Comprehensive Data Management Reorganisation with Pimcore X Enterprise
To replace NBB’s outdated data management system with Pimcore and ensure the availability of product data – such as product properties and images – across all systems, the first step involved enriching the new system with the inventory data from the legacy PIM and DAM systems. This data was then integrated into a newly designed data structure.
Simultaneously, products and images from other internal systems needed to be added to Pimcore. To facilitate this, a custom API was developed, capable of maping all existing use cases and extending them with Pimcore-specific features.
A key project goal was to maintain references to the old PIM system, enabling a time-independent migration of other internal systems. This approach reduced time pressure and allowed for more flexible planning.
To ensure all product data changes in Pimcore were immediately available to other systems, data was sent to an Apache Kafka queue. The implementation process was carried out in close collaboration with NBB’s internal development team.
One significant challenge was handling large amounts of data from option providers and enabling bulk product editing, which the existing system couldn’t accomodate. Pimcore X allowed for the replacement of the large OptionProviders with relations, providing the project with a key enhancement.
Importing DAM data presented another challenge, as the process would have taken several days. However, through configuration adjustments, the image import runtime was reduced to just one day.
NBB’s product catalog includes not only standard items but also also bundles and insurance products. Pimcore’s custom layouts were used to display only the data fields relevant to each specific product type. Although Pimcore’s inheritance sometimes led to compatibility issues, these were resolved with clever configuration and a tailored solution for ObjectBricks.
Given the vast amount of data – including numerous product options and variants – it was essential to ensure the system’s performance remained optimal. To address this, direct SQL queries were cached, eliminating the need to rerun them with each request. Additionally, caching all OptionProviders reduced the frequency of reloading large data sets.

Our collaboration with NBB has resulted in the implementation of a flexible and robust data management solution tailored to the company’s unique needs. The newly developed PIM and DAM system enables NBB’s product managers to effortlessly create, edit, and refine products throughout their lifecycle, right up until publication.
Pimcore X Enterprise, adapted by basecom to meet NBB’s specific requirements, provides a stable and powerful platform. Its flexibility ensures that NBB can efficiently manage its extensive product catalog and dynamic evolution.

NBB is a leading online retailer specializing in notebooks, mobile devices, and consumer electronics in Germany and Austria. Established in 2001, the company operates the well-known e-commerce platform notebooksbilliger.de. With a workforce of over 420 employees and nine locations across Germany, NBB continues to expand its presence in the competitive retail market.