Digitalization of the entire business idea for Newbody
A digitalization of the entire sales process to create a more modern and simpler way for Newbody's staff, association administrators, sellers, and of course all customers to work.
Results
Digitalized the entire sales process
Tens of thousands of unique shops for classes and associations are created annually
Streamlined flow for staff, customers, and sellers
Background
Newbody noticed that it was becoming more difficult to get both students and parents involved in sales and needed to find a more modern and digital way to sell. They also wanted to streamline the way their in-house sellers worked to ease follow-up and the start-up of new sales. As a sales period only lasts for a few weeks, there was also a challenge in quickly setting up a digital catalog for each team/school class. Newbody needed to digitalize and get an e‑commerce platform they can grow with.
The challenge
Newbody faced problems solving the technically very advanced complexity of having a shop-in-shop solution for tens of thousands of different teams and classes and integrating this with other systems that need to be interconnected to solve the entire logistics. They had previously tried to digitalize sales with other providers but failed.
Solution
Over the years, significant development has occurred for Newbody's e‑commerce. All associations have received their own shop where they share a link to sell the products in their shop. Thus, a shop-in-shop architecture has been built with the capacity to handle tens of thousands of active shops simultaneously.
We have integrated Magento with several of Newbody's other systems, including their ERP system Business Central and their internal systems for product and catalog management.
Several customizations in admin have been made to aid Newbody's sales staff, enabling them to find the right information more efficiently and quickly to assist customers. Parts of the admin are built with an Elm app.
We have also developed direct sales on the website. You don't need to log into any association to access the products. As a customer, you can find an association near you and choose to support it by purchasing from their range. You can see which clubs/classes/associations are active near you on a map.
To manage the complex data structure based on relationships between, for example, different associations, teams, members, orders, end customers, products, brands, and various roles that exist (a member can, for example, have several roles in different teams), we have based the system on the graph database management system Neo4J. This led to data loading faster than they ever could have if it was based on a typical relational database. The system became even more dynamic, and future development will be much faster and facilitate further development. Additionally, this resulted in time efficiency for Newbody's staff.
During 2020, Newbody worked on several development projects to reach more people, improve customer experience, and user-friendliness. Newbody has an incredibly robust and advanced e‑commerce platform that we are proud to have developed and refined together with Newbody.
The result
The step to build up a digital operation is the major result for Newbody, which has an incredibly customized e‑commerce solution. Digital sales have greatly increased with all the further development occurring and features built to ease the sellers/associations and also the internal sellers at Newbody. The speed and efficiency in the sellers' work have increased significantly. The digitalization of Newbody's business has made it future-proof and easily able to grow in the future.
They have also expanded with new brands, such as Spicydream, which are built on the same platform. Newbody has also expanded to Finland, where there is a franchise of the concept, and there we have also started direct sales on the website to avoid door-to-door sales with a tablet or sharing a link to an existing shop.
