Bravobike and Shopmacher launch a commercetools shop in just eight weeks

Anyone wanting to move their online shop to a modern composable commerce tech stack is quickly unsettled by stories of uncontrollable project complexity and sprawling project timelines. Bravobike and the e-commerce agency SHOPMACHER launched a new online shop MVP based on commercetools in eight weeks. That shows: anything is possible when you stay focused.

The Munich-based company Bravobike wants to professionalize and digitize the used-bike market with digital services. Since its founding in September 2018, the company ran the online shop Gebrauchtradstudio, which sold high-quality used bikes. Most of the assortment came from leasing returns. In addition to the online shop, Bravobike ran a separate purchasing page online.

Four years after its founding, the old platform had aged. Founder Axel Donath and his team therefore decided to replace Gebrauchtradstudio.de with a new, unified brand: revelo.de. It was meant to cover the sale of used bikes and serve as a flexible platform for future extensions of the business model. The agency Shopmacher was chosen as the implementation partner.

To avoid losing focus and to keep itself disciplined, the team set an extremely short deadline for the implementation: in just eight weeks a minimal solution (MVP) covering the most important business processes was to be in place. This proof of concept (POC) was meant to lay the basis for replacing the main shop. "With this timing it was clear: we have to prioritize cleanly, concentrate on the most important business processes and define the frontend features that offer real added value", says Carsten Dütschke, Head of Development at Shopmacher. "In projects like this, the technology becomes a side matter. What matters is who decides what, and when."

The heart of the new platform is commercetools Composable Commerce and commercetools Frontend. The setup is complemented by the cloud ERP solution Nekom for business processes and Mollie as payment service provider. One special feature of the project was that Bravobike took over project and requirements management itself. SHOPMACHER provided two developers and supported with consulting on the system architecture. "This approach gave Bravobike a high degree of flexibility and control over the development process", says Dütschke.

After revelo.de initially ran in parallel with the existing Gebrauchtradstudio shop, the necessary next development steps could be identified and carried out. By now the further-developed MVP has successfully replaced Gebrauchtradstudio.de. The new platform revelo.de now positions itself as the central destination for buying professionally refurbished used bikes. Customers can use an intuitive bike finder to work out which bike from the current assortment of around 500 brands and 30 categories best matches their own needs.