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An Online Grocery E-Commerce Storefront Launched in Just 8 Days

When the corona pandemic struck in February 2020, the Norwegian government urged Coop to start selling food online. Coop asked Avensia, who were already working with Coop’s digital infrastructure, if it was possible to build an e-commerce storefront or storefront theme with home delivery capabilities in a week.

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Type of project

E-commerce, Product Information Management

Core products & technology:

Avensia Nitro on Optimizely Commerce Cloud (Episerver), inRiver PIM, Apptus eSales

Strategy for e-commerce solutions

Leveraging the work they had done with Avensia in other business units, Coop Norway used Avensia's packaged e-commerce framework Avensia Nitro to  build an e-commerce storefront for grocery shopping experiences in just a few days. 

Goal

Get a reliable and fast e-commerce storefront with home delivery capabilities up and running as fast as possible, to be able to deliver groceries to the homes of the elderly and those quarantined during the pandemic. 

The project

A pre-packed e-commerce solution and a dream team

Avensia has completed e-commerce website projects with a quick turnaround in the past, but none as demanding as this 8 day request. The first step was to assemble an expert team to investigate the feasibility of this request.

The scope of the project was very well-defined, focusing on finding an e-commerce platform that could bring their physical grocery store online.  After further investigation, our team found that Avensia's comprehensive e-commerce framework would be more than capable to take on the software demands of the project. 

Coop's first order came in through the shopping cart on the e-commerce site eight days after the start of the project. The site was completely finished after 14 days, and there were even some new features added in addition to the original scope. 

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Avensia customized Avensia Nitro for Coop overnight. The next morning, our team was able to share a proof of concept, a new website featuring Coop's colors and log, and all products from the PIM already in there."
Tor Eivind Aurdal, Country Manager, Avensia Norway
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How to manage really fast e-commerce projects without taking shortcuts

To manage a really quick project, everyone needed to focus on the key basic needs only.

- There was no time for long specification meetings. The specification was basically written on a napkin: Make groceries available online, with home delivery, says Tor Eivind Aurdahl.

The project manager put together a team of developers who were dedicated to work around the clock to get the e-commerce solution up and running with no time to waste. The project manager's job was to make sure that everyone on the team was in sync and had what they needed to complete their tasks. The team was focused and constantly pushing forward. Everyone knew which direction to take

  

 
Summary

The key success factors

Avensia’s pre-packaged e-commerce solution, Avensia Nitro, was ready to be customized

Coop's product data already structured and onboarded in inriver PIM

Avensia’s standard connection between inriver and Optimizely Commerce Cloud (Episerver)

Coop's trust in Avensia's expertise and complete confidence in Avensia Nitro's e-commerce capabilities

Avensia's focused and very experienced commerce development team working around the clock

 The Avensia and Coop teams' dedication to work hard towards the joint goal

Quote
We had an amazing customer, Coop. They understood that there was no time to discuss every minor detail, they trusted us completely and didn’t spend time questioning what we did.
Christian Andersson, Solution Architect, Avensia

How did Avensia build an e-commerce storefront in seven days?

- That is actually one of the things I am most proud of with this e-commerce solution. We were able to build it quickly and in only a few days. We already had a solid infrastructure to start from and we didn’t need to take any shortcuts to be able to deliver on time, says Christian Andersson.

Avensia Nitro is fully fledged e-com website site built on top of Optimizely Commerce Cloud (Episerver) and a couple of other components, the result of tens of thousands development hours. It kickstarted the Coop project, by having so much functionality and commerce logic included. Coop got a complete infrastructure for an e-commerce website and solid ground that they can continue to build upon.

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We already had a solid infrastructure to start from, so we didn't take any shortcuts to be able to deliver on time. We just used our pre-packaged e-commerce solution and focused on working together with Coop to customize it into what they needed.
Christian Andersson, Solution Architect, Avensia
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What assets did Coop have in place that helped get the new e-commerce up and running in such short time?

- From a technical point of view, the number one thing that made it possible was that Coop already had their product information in inriver PIM. They had their data in order. If there is no product model and product data in place, you will have to spend weeks, if not months, before you are ready to sell the products on a website, says Christian Andersson.

- As a customer, Coop had both the willingness to work hard and a pragmatic approach. The trust they put in us to use our best practices and to take quick decisions without their involvement was necessary for us to be fast, says Tor Eivind Aurdal.

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