B2B platform for Sonepar Suisse

Innovative Spryker online shop for the Swiss electrical wholesaler

How do customers get to their destination even faster? The electrical wholesaler Sonepar Suisse and valantic tackled this question. The focus was on two topics: Different aspects of digital commerce and productivity. The challenge of optimal user guidance was accepted – and mastered with flying colors.

The results at a glance

The Sonepar Suisse B2B platform excites users with the following features:

Innovative navigation concept: It should be easy to find the products that customers are looking for. The aim was to present the enormous product portfolio of 220,000 items in a user-friendly fashion.
Combitool: With the combitool, customers can assemble and order any combination of switches individually by clicking or dragging and dropping.
Lamp finder: The lamp finder is equipped with a search filter page and helps customers find just the right bulb for a particular lamp.
Corporate and commerce: These two areas blend harmoniously on one page.
Power features: Just like with an ERP system, customers have insight into goods management and order history at all times.

About Sonepar Suisse

Sonepar Suisse is one of the leading companies in the Swiss electrical wholesale business. The company employs more than 450 people at 14 locations throughout Switzerland and sells electrotechnical products and solutions.

In addition, customers benefit from comprehensive service, advising, and logistics services. In the fields of light and renewable energy, Sonepar offers comprehensive advising and project support. Sonepar Suisse is part of the French Sonepar Group, which operates in over 40 countries and employs about 45,000 people.

The challenge

Sonepar Suisse customers handle complex projects and require many individual parts, but often do not have their own warehouses. The ability to order simply and intuitively is therefore a top priority. The re-platforming project has created a sustainable and progressive system base. This can be adapted by the company to individual customer needs at any time.

As part of creating a unified corporate appearance under the Sonepar Suisse brand, the website, including the online shop, was redesigned in 2020. Now it is important to further improve the user-friendliness of the B2B platform with additional functionalities – among other things by optimizing the combitool.

The solution

The aim of the project was to create a B2B platform optimized for efficiency, one that is perfectly suited to the needs of electricians. The customer-centric navigation concept sets new standards. Clever features and services such as the combitool or the bulb finder facilitate the sometimes very complex orders.

Heart: The combitool

The benefits of the improved combitool are:

Usability

Quick and efficient ordering for technicians.

Limitless possibilities for customization

Special requirements can be visualized, planned, and ordered in no time at all.

Complete price transparency

Customers know at all times what an individual product configuration will cost.

Good to know: A part of the order is delivered directly from stock via the company’s own logistics department or made out of individual components in logistics. This ensures delivery reliability. In addition, the availability of goods is displayed depending on the customer’s location – including the fastest delivery route. In addition, other warehouses and all pick-up locations are also visible, so that delivery planning can be controlled independently.

Feature: The bulb finder

With the bulb finder, you can find the right bulb quickly:

Visual filter: Instead of a drop-down list, the filters for bases and shapes are shown with pictures.
No search without results: The filters are dependent on one another. With each selection of a filter, it is calculated which filter combinations are possible and only these are displayed for the user.
Multiple filters: Several filters can be used simultaneously per filter criterion.
Expandable filters: Filter criteria can be expanded. It is possible to filter by any attribute of the products.

Focus: Digital commerce

Most of the transactions via the combitool
Efficiency as an overarching element
User-optimized navigation and operation
The sales strategy focuses on the online channel
Process cost optimization and value enhancement for customers and the company

Focus: Productivity

Lean navigation concept with a one-click philosophy
Customer-friendly and intelligent search
Approval workflows directly in the B2B platform
Complete transparency about the location of goods
Individual price display for different properties: Normal orders vs. large quantities
Informational documents are available at any time (AB, LS, and RE)
Creation of new locations with automatic check in ERP and determination of the geocoordinates
Self-administration of the organization with its own user and rights system
Electronic request placement and individual quotation with direct ordering option
Shopping lists, order history, and multi-shopping cart for efficient re-ordering

The implementation

With the Sonepar Suisse e-commerce project, valantic has realized an innovative B2B platform based on Spryker. The well-known customer was actively involved in the development. Spryker offers an innovative and flexible platform-as-a-service solution with more than 900 API-based modules.

The project process was as follows:

Conducting of customer interviews
Interview and workshop with the management
Workshop with Marketing, Sales, and Product Management
Preparation of user stories
Creation of designs
Support in content preparation
Formulation of a road map with milestones for the next 3 to 5 years

David von Ow

CEO Sonepar Suisse

”Thanks to the successful cooperation with valantic, our first-class platform was refreshed. By focusing on optimal user guidance, the usual outstanding functional scope was made even more efficient and offers our customers individual management possibilities and tools for self-management.“

The customer benefits of the B2B platform

Thanks to the optimization of the combitool and the new navigation concept with a one-click philosophy, Sonepar Suisse customers will be able to reach their destination even faster in the future. With an ERP-like structure, the B2B platform ensures complete order transparency and offers reliable tools for individual self-management.

B2B platform for Sonepar Suisse, valantic Case Study

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Your Contact

Alexander Zoulkowski

Head of Operations at valantic CEC Switzerland

+41 71 313 55 70