toom
REFERENCES

Cross-channel online shopping that meets the needs of the DIY store’s customers

“Kai Ebenrett and his team enjoy taking new approaches and thinking ‘outside the box.’ They have supported us from the very beginning as we’ve grown to become Germany’s leading cross-channel DIY retailer.”
Torsten Hamper, CTO Cross Channel, toom Baumarkt GmbH

Situation

The toom chain of DIY stores appeals to customers thanks to the wide selection and direct availability of its products. This is a fact of particular importance, as products that purchased from a DIY store are generally also needed at short notice. In addition, these are also items that people prefer to buy locally rather than online due to their size or weight. In order to optimize the DIY store shopping experience for its customers, toom was eager to utilize a cross-channel platform. By doing this, it wanted to move the local DIY store into online world. The company therefore approached us at tarent with the aim of developing a “click & collect” functionality based on a completely new, digital platform.

About toom

With more than 330 stores in its network, a workforce of 15,500, and gross sales of over 2.6 billion euros, toom is one of the leading retailers in the German DIY sector. This company is part of the REWE Group, one of the leading retail and tourism groups in Germany and Europe. On a regular basis, toom is ranked first for customer satisfaction in surveys and has even been awarded the distinction of being the Germany’s most sustainable DIY store. In July 2020, the toom online shop – a key element in this success story – was awarded the title of “best online shop” in the DIY store sector. toom’s digital orientation complements its customer-oriented corporate structure, which represents a significant point of differentiation from the DIY chain’s competitors.

Our solution

toom’s plans involved the collaborative development of a high-performance cross-channel platform. The project road map included three main milestones:

 

1. The online display of product availability in the customer’s local store

2. “Click & collect” functionality, enabling customers to reserve products online and pick them up from their local store

3. Integration of an online shop system into a microservice environment

 

Implementation was based on a microservice architecture, which opened up a variety of decisive benefits for us in the development process. One was that we were able to work on the various modules on a team-by-team basis. Technological discussions could also be greatly simplified thanks to communication via standardized interfaces. In addition, the modular microservice approach allowed us to retain our existing content management system for any existing content and merge it with the newly established Product Information Management (PIM) system. As a result, ongoing operations were neither restricted nor jeopardized, while the new platform received its data directly from the production system.

A particular challenge lay in the need to display correct and up-to-date information on the product portfolio, prices, offers, and inventories for all of the chain’s stores. Only in this way would it be possible for toom’s customers to order products via the online platform and pick them up in store. In order to ensure that the introduction of the click & collect functionality went smoothly, arrangements were made for each branch to roll it out individually at a self-determined time.

In the third phase of development, an online shop based on the Magento platform was integrated into the website so as to enable customers to order goods directly from the site as an alternative to using the click & collect option. The shop component was developed by Inviqa GmbH. The challenge we faced in relation to this was how best to connect the component to the newly developed PIM. Our microservices architecture had to ensure that the orders placed were sent to one of the more than 330 toom stores with the corresponding stock and that inventory levels were adjusted in real time.

Thanks to the excellent working relationship between the teams at tarent solutions and toom Baumarkt GmbH, we were able to implement a customized and flexible cross-channel platform that can at any time – and will – be dynamically developed further. We are proud to be part of this project.

Key Facts

  • Doubling of website users in the first year
  • Availability and inventory levels live for each store in real time
  • 24/7 support for service and maintenance
  • A scaled, agile process for optimized collaboration between the tarent and toom teams
  • Four agile development teams at tarent (including Scrum Masters)
  • Integration of a “click & meet” functionality for shopping by appointment during the Covid-19 pandemic
  • Award Best Online Shop 2020
    in the “Do It Yourself” category

Technologies

  • Java
  • Golang
  • Microservice architecture
  • Magento E-Commerce Software

Methodologies

  • Agile project management
  • Scrum-based development
STATEMENTS

About the project

Torsten Hamper
CTO Cross Channel
toom Baumarkt GmbH

When we initiated our Cross-Channel project in 2016, we became aware of tarent solutions GmbH thanks to the recommendation of our sister company REWE digital. Ever since then, our cooperation with tarent solutions GmbH has been characterized by deep levels of trust, commitment, and quality. Kai Ebenrett and his team enjoy taking new approaches and thinking “outside the box.” They have supported us from the very beginning as we’ve grown to become Germany’s leading cross-channel DIY retailer. My colleagues and I look forward to cooperating with tarent over the coming years and the new, exciting topics that lie ahead of us.

Kai Ebenrett
Chief Business Development Officer
tarent solutions GmbH

By working with toom Baumarkt GmbH as our client, we were quickly able to plan out a complex IT project in a very agile and highly professional environment. We were able to implement all requirements and achieve all of the milestones within the allocated time. Despite strong pressure on the project, we were able to guarantee a highly efficient and goal-oriented mode of cooperation. Significantly, everyone also involved enjoyed working together. For the software developers in particular, the project really stood out, as they were able to use the latest technologies and learned a great deal. In addition to the highly interesting software development process, collaborating with a large number of players was particularly exciting for us. From planning to logistics, product manufacturing and marketing to the enterprise back-end, all of those involved in communicating with one another were very competent and decisive. This gave us a great insight into the process-related structures used by such an impressive company as toom Baumarkt GmbH.

Technology and experience

tarent in figures

26

years of experience

4

office locations

300 +

IT professionals

50

digitization experts

15

partners

27

parallel development projects


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