Modernize E-Commerce Experiences

Founded in 1898, Svenssons is one of Sweden's oldest and most successful furniture companies. It is known for its comprehensive range of furniture, homewares, lighting, and textiles, as well as its interior design expertise. The company operates five stores across Sweden and an e-commerce website.

Svenssons was acquired by Nordic Nest in early 2021, and it quickly became apparent that its website was not built for the demands of modern consumers. Since Avensia had previously supported the redevelopment of Nordic Nest’s own website, the company came back to Avensia when it was time to re-build and redesign Svenssons’ website from the ground up.

The existing website was outdated with insufficient performance and overreliance on manual processes. It was also lacking in functionality which meant Svenssons was often missing opportunities to make sales due to a poor customer experience.

Key to overcoming this was moving Svenssons away from its existing monolith platform to adopt the Avensia Excite composable solution. This modular architecture brings together best-of-breed systems for maximum performance and flexibility, while saving development time and resources.

It was also apparent that the site needed a redesign, enhancing visuals and functionalities to meet the high expectations of today’s online consumers. Avensia’s UX design team were engaged to bring the Svenssons brand identity into the digital future.

The solution

A Composable Commerce Solution with a Super-Fast Go-Live

Following the acquisition, Svenssons and Nordic Nest became operationally integrated. A priority for the new website was to use Avensia Excite, the same composable infrastructure, and backend as Nordic Nest’s e-commerce site, to improve efficiency and flexibility.

To set the stage, Svenssons had to undergo a complete change of systems across the business over a period of 12 months. However, using the known infrastructure of Avensia Excite meant that the new website was able to go live super-fast. And key supporting systems – including ERP, warehouse management, backend, and in-store POS – were all replaced in parallel within a few weeks’ time, without affecting e-commerce sales.

Tailor-Made E-Commerce Functionality

Because every composable commerce platform is unique, Svenssons was able to design the new site to meet their customers’ specific demands. Avensia developed a completely new frontend layer and UX design for Svenssons that was tailored to its audience. This included adding new, customer-first functionality, such as the ability to give customers real-time quotes.

In addition, customers can choose between different colour and material options for products and instantly see images of how the product will look with their choices. The new website offers an enhanced omnichannel experience with the ability to see immediately if a product is in stock in one of Svenssons’ stores and the store contact details. You’ll also clearly see the stock status – whether a product is in stock, low stock, being restocked, or made to order – for an improved customer journey.

Accelerating into the Future with New Design Concept

As part of the new e-commerce project, it was apparent to the Svenssons team that the web design needed an uplift. The previous site felt outdated and did not reflect the high-quality values of the Svenssons’ brand.

Avensia’s UX design team suggested an updated visual design for the new website. The new look and feel brought a premium touch to the site while leveraging UX best practices for smooth user experiences. Because Avensia’s designers are experts in e-commerce they built a visual identity for Svenssons that is both optimized for the customer’s experience as well as for conversion and sales.

Driven Continuous Improvements

Following the new website go-live, Avensia and Svenssons are working in partnership to continually develop and maximize Svenssons’ e-commerce strategy through updates and new platform features.

The new composable solution gives the company the ability to change one thing at a time without requiring huge investment or site downtime. This puts it in a very strong position to adapt to future customer requirements.

Svenssons

A Modern Commerce Website for a 125-Year-Old Furniture Business

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The challenge