Agro-Service 2000: The progressive digitalization of the group with a first ecommerce site on OroCommerce
Agro-Service 2000 is a company established forty years ago (in 1982). Based in Auvergne, it operates twenty-four stores of agricultural and rural equipment, primarily serving outdoor livestock farmers. When the CEO met Olivier Bernasson, founder of the ecommerce site pecheur.com and ecommerce expert, he had a grand digitalization project for his company. He wanted to develop three ecommerce sites to meet all the needs of the agricultural sector: both professional and personal. The first of these three sites – montracteur.fr – offers tractor spare parts for a B2B and B2C audience. Synolia, with the OroCommerce solution, was chosen for the deployment of this scalable platform.
Agro-Service 2000: A step-by-step digitalization
Since the 1980s, Agro-Service 2000 has specialized in selling agricultural equipment to both professionals and individuals. It distributes nearly eight hundred thousand references from its manufacturers and partner brands in its twenty-four stores located in rural areas. But today, to support the growth of its market share and adapt to new purchasing behaviors, the CEO wants to take a new turn and begin the company’s digitalization process.
Furthermore, he wants to create three ecommerce sites ranging from selling equipment for professionals to equipment for artisanal creations by individual customers. The goal for Agro-Service 2000? To cover all the needs of its customers from the agricultural world and offer them new services in line with new practices.
The first site is called montracteur.fr It is dedicated to selling spare parts for tractors and agricultural machinery to professional farmers and vintage tractor collectors (yes, really!).
The offer of montracteur.fr is technical and positions the company in a niche market. For this, Agro-Service 2000 must engage in the project with a partner and a platform that meets its ambitions.
The expectations of Agro-Service 2000
A platform to meet the specific needs of the B2B and B2C ecommerce project montracteur.fr, as well as future B2C sites.
For its ambitious digitalization project (of which montracteur.fr is only the first step), Agro-Service 2000 seeks the support of an experienced ecommerce partner and a solution that is well-suited to the specifics of B2B online sales and the development of future B2C sites.
Synolia x OroCommerce
Understanding the ambition of the project, Synolia stood out in its support proposal. And the involvement of Olivier Bernasson, founder of pecheur.com, as an external consultant allowed us to jointly determine the most appropriate ecommerce solution to meet Agro-Service 2000’s objectives. The solution in question: OroCommerce.
Our services for Agro-Service 2000 included needs assessment workshops, project scope definition, organizational and functional framing, OroCommerce technical architecture, agile development, and user training.
Features Adapted to B2B and B2C
montracteur.fr serves professional farmers, but also individuals (collectors). And sometimes even, farmers who buy as individuals… Between B2B and B2C, OroCommerce addresses this complexity of customer profiles.
The solution offers all the basic functionalities for B2B. For example, it allows for proposing prices adapted to clients. With the creation of customer groups in the ERP, OroCommerce can provide pricing conditions tailored to each group. OroCommerce also offers significant deployment potential with complex functionalities for Agro-Service 2000’s future sites. For instance: a single cart for all future sites, an integrated CRM (OroCRM)…
A complex and omnichannel project!
At Agro-Service 2000, not everything is managed internally. The company relies on a partner for product catalog management and logistics. And another partner for the ERP. The project’s connections were therefore complex, and our teams had to take into account the constraints of all stakeholders. Additionally, it was necessary to integrate the omnichannel dimension of the project and reconcile digital transformation with the network of sales points. The ecommerce platform aims to generate revenue, of course, but also to create in-store traffic (with free in-store delivery, for example).
For Agro-Service 2000, this means training store employees, accommodating click & collect, using new tools to manage order handovers… The goal being to maintain the same level of advice and service quality, regardless of the channel or sales point chosen by the customer.
Key features and integrations of the project!
For Agro-Service 2000, the main challenge of the montracteur.fr site lies in its ability to offer the right part, compatible with the customer’s tractor model, thus limiting returns. For this, the OroCommerce platform allows creating entities by manufacturer, brand, model, year… With the ability to make them interact in the integrated search engine. Additionally, each part can be searched using the manufacturer’s reference.
The montracteur.fr project also includes an anti-bot solution to address a strong need to protect the catalog and data. Other integrations for payment or invoicing were also part of this project.
Agility and meeting needs: Keys to success
The project was carried out using agile methodology. Synolia’s teams began by interviewing key people at the start of the project (the president, the CFO, the purchasing manager, and two product-oriented store managers) to understand the needs and gather each person’s vision. This allows for a clear project vision and scope from the beginning.
Our method met the company’s strong desire to include all stakeholders in the project and consider each person’s vision. Additionally, the vision of the business teams was essential to this project because only they can validate the accuracy of the technical information highlighted on the ecommerce platform. When targeting an expert audience, mistakes are not forgiven!
Conclusion
montracteur.fr is a very ambitious first project for Agro-Service 2000. But it is only the beginning of its ecommerce adventure! Today, the company is developing its own internal ecommerce team and digitizing its customer service by implementing Zendesk to improve service quality. And, for this project… Synolia will be there!
Malika Ait El Mouden , Ecommerce Project Manager, Agro-Service 2000
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