Optaros at SugarCON 2008
Posted 12 Feb 2008 by Thomas Lundqvist
I spent the Wednesday - Friday last week at the SugarCON conference in San Jose. Overall, I...
Wonderbox, a French company based in Paris, sells a unique gift idea called (naturally) the “Wonderbox”. The box contains a voucher for about 2000 activities and services from which the recipient can choose. Wonderbox offerings are based on a theme, such as “Adrenaline,” offering exciting activities like skydiving, or “Wellness,” offering a relaxing massage. The company interacts with a network of partners to bring together all these services and activities, and provide memorable experiences for gift recipients.
Assembly Highlights
- New online retail shopping experience
- Web 2.0 user experience
- Complete ecommerce replatforming in under 6 months including CRM/SFA
- 100% open source software
The Challenge
Since its launch in 2004, the company has enjoyed rapid growth and its Wonderbox has become a widely-popular gift idea. With such growth the network of service providers and distributors has also grown. Consequently, an efficient, flexible online platform to manage these partners and provide quality customer support was essential. Wonderbox asked Optaros to assemble a comprehensive e-commerce solution able to support the distributors who sell the Wonderbox gift and the partners that provide the activities and services. The project would involve redesigning the company's web presence (www.wonderbox.fr), its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, and its Sales Force Automation (SFA) system, all integrated with back-end logistics and finance systems. This would require major upgrades in nearly all areas of IT operations.
The Assembly
A global Optaros delivery team from Bucharest, Geneva, Boston, and Zurich assembled a complete multi-channel e-commerce solution. The solution includes the web site front end, CRM to support partners and distributors, and call center capability to serve customers by phone. Optaros also built a merchant tool to allow the marketing department to create new products, manage the product catalog, set prices, animate the web site, and make other changes. The assembly is based entirely on proven open source software using well-established components. The ability to freely modify the software was a huge advantage for Wonderbox, allowing Optaros to rebuild the customer interface to give the site a distinctive look. Optaros used its Optaros Assembly Methodology (OptAM) to deliver the solution in only six months by accelerating development through real-time interaction with the client.
The Results
The new ecommerce solution for Wonderbox provides essential improvements to business operations, from real-time order tracking to voucher activation, account management, and customer care. Optaros deployed a complete ecommerce solution to support this unique retail enterprise. Since the launch of the new web presence in October 2007 traffic has been increasing constantly. "Optaros delivered our online multi-channel ecommerce platform in six months from the initial blueprint to the production roll-out," notes Alfredo Bacin, Director of Operations, Wonderbox. "This complete re-platforming has been a key success factor in sustaining our rapid growth."