The assignment

The existing e-commerce platform, based on Magento 1, had been online since 2014 and due to its End of Life (EOL) status, there was no more support from Adobe.  In terms of security and speed, it was no longer adequate, further development had become inefficient and time-consuming, and few omnichannel capabilities were available.

A key goal of Essentiel Antwerp was to improve the consumer's online experience. Adding more experience through the use of rich content, enabling future services such as Click & Collect and improving the returns process had an important part in this. There was also a desire to be able to continue developing as much as possible without hindering users.

The solution

The basis of the solution is the headless frontend based on open standards including ReactJS. The backend of the platform consists of not one but several, separate systems that together form a single entity.

The main components of the backend are the digital commerce platform Magento 2 Open Source, Algolia Search & Discovery, Content Management System Builder.io and Payment service provider Adyen. The various systems are integrated with each other in a modern way. They communicate directly with the frontend via APIs and are only minimally interconnected in a few cases.

The connection to Business Central's ERP, LS Retail and Microsoft's CRM system run via iPaas integration platform Alumio. This platform allows us to create modern integrations without customised code but instead via a simple Click-and-Configure’ interface. This means that non-developers or even project managers can configure, monitor and manage software integrations from one central dashboard.

Realised solutions

By adopting a Composable Commerce approach, Essentiel Antwerp is now able to choose systems that best suit the brand and the departments that need to work with them. And because combining the best-fit standard systems is easy, there is no longer any need to build bespoke solutions.

A second advantage is that the software development process takes less time. Because all backend systems operate independently, development can take place on a system-by-system basis. This makes the whole process of development, testing and release much more efficient and costs less time and money than before.

The new digital commerce platform also has several advantages for Essentiel Antwerp employees, especially those in the content department. By using a headless CMS, the content department can work independently of other departments and therefore more efficiently.

The team also now has many more options than before to add inspiring content, and the drag-and-drop capabilities ensure that there is much more flexibility in the layout of content pages and content blocks.

The above benefits also mean that the team is now able to update content much faster than before.