Support and further Development for Möbel HARDECK’s Spryker Shop

HARDECK, a family-run furniture company, operates five stores across Northern and Western Germany and has successfully managed an online shop based on the innovative Spryker commerce-platform since 2018. In January 2023, basecom was commissioned to support and further develop this shop. Our initial focus in cooperation with HARDECK was to update the shop technically. Following this, we continuously expanded and optimized the shop, particularly enhancing its frontend with new features.

The most challenging aspect of this project was taking over an existing shop and implementing new features and updates on the fly while our team became familiar with the implementations from the past four years. Additionally, we were tasked with executing technical upgrades and integrating numerous interfaces with external third-party systems. Balancing these technical issues with new front-end requirements was a key part of our work.

Spryker

The online shop hardeck.de is based on the Spryker commerce system. After taking over its management, we collaborated with the Hardeck team to implement various measures to optimize and further develop the shop.

Backend

Several technical upgrades were performed on the backend, largely unnoticed by customers:

• PHP upgrades to ensure that the system is technically up-to-date and to close security gaps in unsupported versions
• Node Version Update

Additionally, code style has been adjusted, automated testing has been introduced, and important features have been rebuilt. These include the Load More feature and the discount module.

• Load More – allows additional products to load on catalog and search pages instead of using pagination
• Spryker Discount Module enhancements e.g:
  • Buy six chairs and get the sixth one for free
  • Get 50% off every second textile item
  • Exclusion of clearance items from discounts

Other shop development activities included implementing drop-shipping capabilities to utilize partner inventory, improving performance, enhancing interfaces with Factfinder, Dynamic Yield, Gurado, Styla, and other third-party systems, and connecting payment provider interfaces to PayOne and TargoBank. Our team is also responsible for communication and coordination with the external hosting service provider.

Frontend

Several changes and optimizations have been made to the frontend, including the implementation of a new comprehensive contact form (see hardeck.de/kontakt), which

• provides deeper insight into customer concerns
• requests more detailed information from customers
• allows inquiries to be forwarded more efficiently
• saving time and money

We have also redesigned the shop’s filter functions to optimize usability and provide enhanced options for narrowing down searches. In addition, we started to convert individual frontend components to VueJS and implemented various technical updates.

UX, UI & Web Analytics

Beyond implementing specific technical measures for the support and further development of the web shop, we provide the HARDECK team with consulting and services in the areas of UX, UI and web analytics:

• Consulting on the current implementation and identifying further potential for the shop
• Consulting to optimize the conversion rate and gain deeper insights into the customer journey
• Offering advice on optimizing the user experience

Supporting the UI/UX contact person at HARDECK

The HARDECK online shop presents an exciting B2C case for basecom. Although we did not initially build the shop, we have successfully collaborated with HARDECK to enhance the web shop both technically and through the addition of new features. The numerous interfaces to other systems and the solid, flexible framework provided by Spryker open up many possibilities for implementing new ideas. We look forward to continuing our cooperation and introducing many interesting new features.

Founded in Bochum in 1937, HARDECK is a well-known family-run furniture store. Today, it operates four large branches in Bochum, Bramsche, Hilden, and Senden, along with a furniture store and kitchen studio in Hamburg and an online shop. Both the physical stores and the online shop offer customers everything they need for their homes.