As mentioned before, the build of the new B2B webshop was split up into several phases – 4, to be exact:

Phase 1: setting up an online product catalogue. We used Shopware as a starting point but left all e-commerce functionalities such as sign-up, check-out and pricing hidden.

Phase 2: activating all e-commerce functionalities. Flamingo Pet Products now has a fully-functioning B2B webshop.

Phase 3: developing additional functionalities for the webshop. This phase is still ongoing at the time of writing.

Phase 4: adding a ‘consumer mode’ to the B2B webshop. This consumer mode will allow Flamingo’s B2C retailers to help customers order Flamingo products that aren’t in stock in their physical shops. Additionally, the consumer mode will also hide all B2B information.

We chose Shopware to build Flamingo’s new B2B webshop because the e-commerce platform allows us to quickly build a new website. Moreover, Shopware’s CMS is very user-friendly.

The new Flamingo Pet Products’ B2B webshop can now be used by existing and new customers. Existing customers can easily log in to the webshop with their customer ID, physical address and email address.

New customers can create an account by filling in a form. Before new customers can place orders, an employee of Flamingo Pet Products has to check and validate their information first.

Incentive to create an account

When webshop visitors aren’t logged in, they can not see the product prices. Ordering is also not an option without an account. This way, B2B visitors are encouraged to create an account.

To make the new B2B webshop even more user-friendly, we are developing several additional functionalities such as:

• Notifications for customers when a product is back in stock.

• Additional filtering for products.

• The possibility for Flamingo Pet Products to track missed sales opportunities within their ERP system.

• Further automation of the flow that validates new customers’ accounts.

Happy customers

Flamingo Pet Products’ customers are happy with the new B2B shop. In just a few weeks, the webshop’s number of registered customers more than doubled – growing from 500 to over 1200 active users (!).

Flamingo Pet Products’ new webshop is another example of how important it is to have a user-friendly platform. At the time of writing, the B2B webshop has been live for almost 8 months and already has more active users than the old webshop ever had. We can’t wait to see what the effects of the next round of UX improvements will be.