January 08, 2019

Step by step from online showroom to online furniture shop

Friedhelm Schaffrath GmbH & Co. KG has successfully taken the next step into the online furniture trade. In the summer of 2018, the Rhenish furniture store opened a real online shop with a transaction-oriented e-commerce platform after two years of online presence in a showroom format.

about furniture schaffrath

The name Schaffrath is closely linked to the city of Mönchengladbach – because 60 years ago Friedhelm Schaffrath opened his first store – a lamp and lighting shop. Today, Schaffrath is number 1 in the Rhineland, one of the top ten furniture stores nationwide and a member of the Begros furniture purchasing association. Due to the diverse range and excellent quality, the furniture stores, kitchen mega stores and kitchen markets are now known far beyond the borders. Customers from neighboring countries are also among the regular customers of the furniture retailer. Year after year, Schaffrath invests several million euros in conversions and new buildings in order to continue to be the undisputed market leader on the Lower Rhine. In a nationwide comparison of furnishing giants, the Rhinelanders have been able to hold their own in the top ten for years.

Schaffrath Managing Director Marc Fahrig

challenge

Even a top dog in the stationary furniture trade is not left untouched by the effects of increasing online consumption. In order to increase presence in the store, Schaffrath looked online for new ways to reach its target groups and motivate them to visit the furniture store.

Implementation

The functions have been continuously optimized over a period of two years. The loading times were accelerated by 50 percent and new functions were tested. These include:

The next logical step will follow in June 2018. Schaffrath entered furniture e-commerce with an online shop with a shopping cart, checkout, payment and order processing for a selected range of take-away items that could be shipped without a freight forwarder.

SHOPMACHER also developed an online showroom for the Knuffmann chain, which has belonged to Schaffrath since 2003, on the same technical basis. Here, too, customers can obtain information online and query the availability of their favorite furniture in the Knuffmann branches.

The platform was designed and developed as part of a monthly updated product backlog, which was implemented in sprints with secured developer resources from SHOPMACHER, and the continuous expansion was driven forward. It was important that the Schaffrath employees could make changes to the shop front end themselves and did not have to consult the agency every time. This applies not only to images and texts, but also to many other areas such as campaigns or sales promotion measures.

In the further development of the shop, retailers and agency are strongly data-driven. The following key figures are constantly analyzed:

• Which pages are interesting?
• Where do visitors disembark?
• Where are purchases canceled?
• Does the search work?
• Are there stumbling blocks in the checkout?
• Do item detail pages lead to purchase or abandonment?

Result

With the launch of the sales function, Schaffrath increased the number of unique visitors in the shop by 25 percent. The conversion rate increased by 25 percent monthly after the shop was launched. Sales increased very significantly.

CHARACTERISTICS