Petals.com (OfficeScapesDirect, LLC) Case Study
BigCommerce custom migration, design and integration resulting in reduced costs, reduced risks and impoved YoY eCommerce KPIs across the board.
Background
With over 30 years of experience, Petals (formerly Silkflowers.com) is your complete source for decorating and lasting gift ideas - offering a superior selection of designer-quality silk flower arrangements, natural looking artificial trees, lifelike silk plants, coordinating containers, all shipped factory direct to your door.
Handcrafted in the USA by Petals silk floral artisans in our Cincinnati, Ohio facility, our beautiful silk flower arrangements, plants, and trees are designed using only the finest silk flowers and artificial foliages available. Petals products arrive expertly packaged, ready to display right out of the box, hold their natural beauty for years with little to no maintenance, and are a cost-effective and allergy-free alternative to live botanicals.
Project overview
Petals needed a fast, visually-oriented, flexible website that reduced overhead, was easily manageable and provided an intuitive and simple process to purchase complex products. Tens-of-thousands of customers, orders, products, categories and pages needed to be migrated. The resulting solution needed to seamlessly integrate with the existing order management system
Challenges
Manageable Promotions
Banner/promotions that could be easily adjusted throughout the website without programming
Complex Products
Complex and configurable product bundles presented in an intuitive fashion
OMS Integration
Integration with their order management system to avoid having to reenter orders
Freight Delivery
Order process adjustments capable of simultaneously handling standard methods of delivery and oversized freight items
Custom Migration
Petals would be migrating from a custom platform. Tens of thousands of orders, customers, products, categories and page content would need to be moved. The unique presentation and behavior of the products posed a particular challenge.
Process
We began by researching existing solutions to each of Petals.com unique challenges. We considered existing apps/extensions that attempted to address the issues as well as best-of-breed solutions custom implemented on other websites tackling the same issues. After organizing and demonstrating the results to the client, we worked together to refine and define what the solutions we would provide to Petals.com's customers.
Ultimately we identified solutions containing a mix of off-the-shelf apps and custom development. BigCommerce was the chosen platform due to it's flexibility around the PDP and checkout processes. Additionally, the BigCommerce Management API provided the means to build an automated migration from the custom datasource. Wireframes and designs were produced and refined before the first line of code was written. Measure twice, cut once!
Solution
Interface
A rich and intuitive customer experience which included targeted, visually stimulating promotional imagery across the entire catalog.
Promotion Management
Via the BigCommerce marketing toolset, Petals.com is able to add, modify and reorganize custom promotional banners on the home page, in collections, product and static pages via a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Configurable Products
Using BigCommerce product configurability, specifically Pick List items, complex and configurable products are presented to customers in an intuitive format that addresses both the customer that simply wants to buy what they see in the promotional image and the customer that wants to micromanage every detail of the product configuration and bundle (and all customers in between)
OMS API
Working with 3rd party resources, we identified and customized BC/MOM API integration tool to push order and customer information from the website to Petal's order management system, and send shipping / orderst status and updates back to the website, eliminating the need to re-enter order information
Freight Management
Using BC's integration with ShipperHQ, products could be categorized as freight items which automatically impacted product presentation, shipping information, order delivery options, cart presentation and the checkout process.
Migration API
Using the BigCommerce Management API, Whirlwind was able to develop custom data import tools to populate the new website with the tens-of-thousands of orders, customers, products, categories and pages. Unique approaches to product bundling and merchandising were all maintained during the transition.
Results
YoY KPI improvements across the board.
Additionally, Petals.com benefited from reduced content management costs, streamlined order fulfillment (across two order management systems), and significant cost/risk savings during the data migration.
Client feedback
For over 10 years Whirlwind has managed both our B2C and B2B on-line properties. They have managed all levels of our internet presence from idea conception to design, development and support. They have executed several redesigns/rebuilds, catalog order management system integration, vendor integrations and custom functionality helping us gain and maintain a competitive edge in our industry. I have yet to volley a problem or challenge that they are not able to address -- they have continually exceeded our expectations
Chris C, OfficeScapesDirect LLC