Strengthen your brand with an international CMS

Wanted: A strong partner for e-commerce internationalisation

In 2015, Weleda was looking for an IT service provider that had a deep technical understanding of its CMS system, knew the pitfalls of international e-commerce business and had enough resources to handle a project of this size, especially since the system was already "up and running".

Weleda wanted to continue using its CMS (Bloomreach), but had not been able to take full advantage of its benefits in the past. The company was therefore looking for a candidate with a lot of experience and know-how. Although Bloomreach is the dominant CMS system on the market, its interfaces with other systems are not internationally standardised and a licence is required to set up each interface and to import and export data.

The candidate should therefore have a good understanding of the international e-commerce business. Many countries have their own inventory management, with different regulations, payment service providers, search engines and shipping methods. For example, some regions write from right to left, while in certain markets, such as Germany, products are only available in pharmacies. And, as with anything in e-commerce, time is money. If orders come in but the interfaces don't work, sales suffer immediately. International expansion also requires reliable, professional and licensed staff.

After a call for tenders, SoftwareOne's ideas made the shortlist, won them over and in 2015 they were given responsibility for the entire website.

Access to new markets

With a mix of cutting-edge know-how and a solid foundation, SoftwareOne was able to maximise the potential of the e-commerce engine and successfully connect the interfaces to other systems such as Google Maps and Salesforce. SoftwareOne, a CMS expert and certified Bloomreach partner for 20 years, was convinced that the system would only be successful if the e-commerce engine was implemented correctly and with a lot of expertise from the outset. So SoftwareOne first repaired and structured, then defined fixed international framework parameters and automated product descriptions. Country by country, technology by technology, service by service. In the process, a successful balance was struck between brand identity and country diversity, where brand communication and specifications are consistently and consistently adhered to, while at the same time being adapted to needs and tastes.

Plans and strategies for successful online trading

Over the years, additional marketing activities have been carried out alongside the day-to-day business. Image, product and anniversary campaigns, landing pages, competitions and other marketing activities were carried out on the global website platform. The work became increasingly complex and required a lot of in-house development. We also oversaw the complete rebranding of the company, refreshing, modernising and renewing the Weleda brand.

For SoftwareOne, this means continuing to support technically demanding campaigns and websites in more than 40 countries. Overall, project support remains a challenge because things are constantly changing: guidelines, components, details. Nevertheless, the many years of positive experience have turned the partnership between the two companies into a friendship that continues to this day.