Online store development www.plexiglas-shop.com for Evonik Röhm

Creation of a combined B2B-B2C store based on the OXID eShop Enterprise B2B Edition

Darmstadt-based PLEXIGLAS® inventor Evonik Röhm GmbH - then still Evonik, since 2019 Röhm GmbH - commissioned eWorks as a certified Shopware and OXID partner to recreate the online store www.plexiglas-shop.com. The large-scale project based on the OXID eShop Enterprise B2B Edition consisted of three project phases, which were completed in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The objective of project phase 1 (launch: 2018) was to migrate the existing B2C store at www.plexiglas-shop.com from "Xsite" to the (then current) OXID eShop Enterprise Edition 5, combined with a completely new store development including a web design facelift and functionality upgrade. The store operator wanted to have numerous OXID modules created for the online store, such as an article configurator for customized PLEXIGLAS® cuts or an ERP connection via SAP interface (SAP Business One). In addition, as a special highlight, an automatic package calculation was developed that automatically calculates the type and number of packaging units based on filled shopping baskets including individual PLEXIGLAS® blanks, material master data (with specific weights etc.), logistics requirements (such as the belt size) and the so-called LAFF algorithm ("Large Area Fit First"), requests their shipping costs from UPS and DSV via a real-time interface and finally calculates individual, minimum shipping costs - fair for store operators and buyers. The internationalization for approx. 30 countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Italy, almost all of Europe, China...) turned out to be a particular challenge, which for cost reasons could only be implemented through OXID programming and without OXID clients - namely through appropriately programmed case differentiation of measurement units (metric vs. imperial) as well as conversions of currencies, lengths and weights. In the end, the "one-client-per-country" mantra could be dispensed with, thus saving considerable license costs. In September 2018, the redesigned and newly developed PLEXIGLAS® B2C store based on the OXID eShop Enterprise Edition saw the light of day at www.plexiglas-shop.com, so that the XSite store could be shut down as planned.

Project phase 2 (launch: 2019) involved merging the newly developed B2C store from phase 1 with a second, existing B2B store to create a combined B2B/B2C store, in future based on the OXID eShop Enterprise B2B Edition. The task was to compare both OXID stores in terms of their functionalities and to incorporate the best of both worlds into the new, merged B2B/B2C store. This merger involved merging the functionality and content of the previously separate OXID stores, including all categories, articles, variants, images, customer accounts, orders, reviews, discounts and histories - while fully respecting all B2B/B2C differences and country-specific differences in terms of functionality, product range and pricing. The store migration included both a PHP source code migration and a MySQL data migration: two OXID eShops of the Enterprise Edition became one merged OXID store, which benefited the license costs. In addition, both webshops followed a different concept with regard to OXID clients ("1-client-per-country" vs. "1-client-for-all"), which was merged into the latter and again benefited the license costs. Last but not least, the ERP interface had to be expanded because B2C and B2B orders are processed differently in SAP ERP. The search engine optimization concept developed in parallel by an SEO specialist was then implemented on top, et voilà! In 2019, the merged B2B/B2C PLEXIGLAS® store for all countries and target groups went online at www.plexiglas-shop.com and replaced the dedicated B2B store so that only a single, central OXID store needs to be operated, administered, maintained and further developed for all target groups and countries.

Project phase 3 (launch: 2020) was not originally planned and was due to the fact that the Evonik PLEXIGLAS® division was outsourced to the newly founded Röhm GmbH - combined with a change of logo, company name, corporate design, etc. As a result, the new B2B/B2C store underwent another graphic redesign to reflect the new Röhm corporate design. This project phase came suddenly and unexpectedly, but was easily integrated into the agile development process thanks to a change request (CR). At the beginning of 2020, the PLEXIGLAS® store, which had since been redeveloped, redesigned, expanded, merged, updated several times and redesigned again, went online at www.plexiglas-shop.com - for the third and (so far) last time.

Parallel to these three project phases, smaller and larger OXID updates were necessary in order to install security patches and take account of technical progress. In particular, we migrated from OXID 5 to OXID 6, from the standard OXID Enterprise Edition to the OXID Enterprise B2B Edition, from the FLOW theme to the WAVE theme and from PHP 5 to PHP 7. These store updates were due to the timing of the project and were not originally planned, but were integrated smoothly into the agile eWorks software development process (ESP).

As a long-standing OXID programmer, eWorks accompanied Evonik and later Röhm from the first preliminary meeting (2014) through the intensive planning phase (2015-2016) and Xsite-OXID migration (2017-2018), the B2B-B2C merger (2019) and the rebranding (2020) to the present day in all matters relating to OXID programming, customizing and web design. Since going live in 2018, eWorks has been supporting its client not only with store creation but also with store support in all matters relating to the operation, administration, maintenance and further development of www.plexiglas-shop.com and is available day in, day out as a reliable OXID agency.