travelite
B2C Online Shop for the Luggage Specialist

The collaboration between travelite and sitegeist began at the start of 2021. The aim was to create a completely new private customer store with Shopware. For this purpose, an individual design was to be conceived, drafts created and finally technically implemented. It was and is important to travelite to make the path from product to checkout as convenient and easy as possible for store visitors through a good UX(user experience).

Connecting the Navision merchandise management system to the store was also part of the project. The technical design and implementation was carried out in collaboration with travelite IT - the file exchange is constantly being optimized.

Technically, the online store is based on Shopware 6 with a Shopware Professional license.

Individual and stylish

An individual template is used throughout the online store. Drafts were created in advance and made available to travelite. A design system was created based on these templates, a kind of digital construction kit for developers. This allows adjustments to be implemented more quickly and with less effort.

Starting with the homepage and an individual header and footer design, a representative design is used on the category/article overview page: the highlighted tile look brings the most important details and the product image into focus. The so-called "Color Shower" shows visitors the possible article color variants. The new filter design and the category tiles developed in-house allow customers to easily and conveniently select the desired products.

The item detail page with a tidy view with the most important details such as item description, item images and price information has been completely individualized. Important product features such as dimensions, material and weight are displayed to visitors via accordion navigation. This function does not exist in the Shopware standard and was developed specifically for this purpose. The item description is divided into an alternation of detailed image and text, which also picks up the customer emotionally.

In the Shopware standard, after selecting an article variant, the article can no longer be changed in the shopping cart, but only increased / decreased in quantity or removed. In the travelite store, the function to change the selected variant (color and size) afterwards was added at the customer's request. This extension is used in the checkout and in the "Mini Basket" / "Off Canvas".

File exchange between ERP Navision and Shopware

For the time being, a connection via API to the Navision 2008 merchandise management system has been dispensed with. Files are imported into the store via an SFTP server, which imports the article master data into the store. Furthermore, the stock levels are imported, i.e. the stocks in the store are always up to date.

Once the order has been processed, Navision can transfer the current processing status of the order and dispatch. This allows customers to track the delivery.

Internationalization travelite

Following the successful launch of the store, travelite entered into a support contract in order to continue to receive advice and support from sitegeist for new ideas in the future. Internationalization is a central topic here. The aim of travelite is to present its store in other languages and to enable shipping to the relevant countries in order to expand its international customer base.

The start of internationalization was the transfer of the domain from travelite.de to travelite.com. It was important to ensure that SEO rankings already gained were not lost. In cooperation with the SOM department, the necessary precautions were taken to ensure a smooth move.

Subsequently, the first language, English, was to be launched. A language switch was integrated to give users the option of switching between languages. Here, as with other topics concerning the userFlow, the UX/UI department was consulted in order to integrate a language switch that also meets the requirements from a UX/UI perspective and enables intuitive handling. It was important to ensure that the language switch could be operated intuitively on all viewports.

In addition to the option of changing the language and displaying the store in another language, it was also necessary to create the option of activating shipping to other countries. The requirement here was that shipping to the relevant countries should be activated, but that shipping to islands should be excluded. As Shopware does not offer such an option by default, an alternative solution had to be found. With the help of the Rule Builder, this requirement could be met by excluding the relevant zip codes for shipping.

We look forward to continuing our cooperation and to further upcoming projects!