idee.Creativmarkt

Massive selection for creative minds

Whether DIY, painting, sewing, decorating ... there are many hobbies where you can let your creativity run wild. idee. Creativmarkt offers both inspiration and the materials needed for creative projects. The online shop has an even larger selection than its brick-and-mortar shops. Site visitors can browse through 500 categories with up to 25,000 different items. They’ll also find many craft, decoration and gift ideas illustrated with pictures along with free instructions on how to make them.

Complete responsiveness and flexibility with Shopware

The first idee. online shop was launched in 2009. By 2017, it was time for a relaunch. The choice of shop system ultimately fell on the Shopware Enterprise Edition. According to Matthias Wolf, E-Commerce and Business Development Manager at idee. Creativmarkt, the ultimate goal was to have a “high performing, fully responsive shop that offered flexible options for presenting content”. The price-performance ratio and the centralised organisation of the CMS in the backend was also a plus in choosing Shopware.

Implementation of the project was done in collaboration with Shopware Enterprise Partner hmmh multimediahaus AG. After 12 months, the online shop was ready to go live and, since then, https://www.idee-shop.com/ has been open for business in its new look.

Link to the POS

Since the retail outlets remain an important sales channel, the online shop also refers to the brick-and-mortar stores. And over the course of a few years, idee. Creativmarkt has continued to expand its retail outlets – and with no signs of slowing down. There are currently 42 retail outlets across Germany, all of which have been integrated into the online shop’s store locator. Here, customers can find information on opening hours, locations and special local sales.

Two subshops for subsidiaries

In addition to the primary online shop, two subshops are maintained using Shopware: https://www.wolle-roedel.com and https://www.kreuzstich-kreativ.de. Similar to the idee. shop, Wolle Rödel also works closely with their brick-and-mortar business. In fact, there are many separate Wolle Rödel departments inside the idee. stores where customers can buy wool and accessories.

REWE is another important cooperation partner. Since September 2019, idee. Creativmarkt has also had an online presence on the food chain’s website. When exporting items, the Shopware export function is used automatically. Since the cooperation with REWE was already in place during the relaunch project, the product master data was enriched with attributes so that it could be used in the new shop and made available to REWE.

Integration with Facebook and Instagram

Products are also exported to Facebook and Instagram. idee. has built up a considerable community on social media. For instance, Creativmarkt has over 50,000 followers on Instagram, which is why a shop integration was clearly beneficial. When fans see a product they like on Instagram, they can now be redirected to the shop from the app.

On the left: Product view on Insta via Smartphone, on the right: Product view in the online shop.

Important interfaces and practical features

idee. turned to several Premium Plugins for the new online shop. This includes the plugin Advanced Promotion Suite, which allows the implementation of special promotional sales and additional purchasing incentives. The Advanced Cart plugin, by contrast, assures that shop visitors can create their own wish lists and share them on social media.

Furthermore, essential features were connected during project realisation. For example, the ERP system proMO and the CRM-Relate gift card system were included. The latter is also connected to the branch stores, enabling an online and offline solution.

The integration of the gift card system was “challenging, but not an obstacle,” explains Matthias Wolf. Connecting to the payments system Klarna and representing the variants based on a shell product was also very complex. “But we were able to meet these special challenges with Shopware and hmmh multimediahaus AG,” adds Michael Töws, E-Commerce Project Manager and Product Owner at idee. Creativmarkt.

Reliable technology

idee. decided on OEDIV as its hosting partner. Here, a load balancer refers to two frontend servers, providing protection against outages in extremely high load situations. In addition, the frontend servers are supported by a database server.

When traffic loads gets high, idee. is well prepared. And that is definitely a good thing because, since its relaunch, conversion rates and dwell times have risen.

Summary and outlook

The figures prove: the relaunch was a complete success. Michael Töws praises the great collaboration: “Shopware offers fast and uncomplicated help in all cases, and usually with a pragmatic solution.” The new shop system also has a compelling, responsive design and a multiplicity of options for displaying content.

idee. has set more goals for the future: “We want to accelerate the expansion of brand shops,” explains Töws, “and continue significantly expanding our market share.