Transforming the Customer Experience Across 100 Stores with Magento
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Rural King implemented Magento Commerce Cloud, Order Management, and other solutions like Akeneo and LogicBroker across their 100+ stores to transform their customer experience and support omnichannel fulfillment. This provided customers with more frequent order updates, easier store pickup and delivery options, and improved product data quality. It also streamlined Rural King's operations by automating previously manual processes and providing analytics on metrics like seasonal best sellers. Implementing these solutions together cost less than other enterprise ecommerce platforms and helped position Rural King for continued growth.
Transforming the Customer Experience Across 100 Stores with Magento
- 2. Transforming the Customer Experience Across 100 Stores with Magento
- 3. Andrew Figgins Director of Development, Rural King Supply @andrewfiggins / @ruralkingsupply
- 4. Joshua Warren CEO, Creatuity @JoshuaSWarren / @Creatuity
- 5. Why We’re Here Today
- 6. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. –Steve Jobs
- 7. How Apple, Rural King & Creatuity Relate • Innovation • First Magento Order Management implementation using US- based store fulfillment omnichannel • First to combine Magento Order Management with LogicBroker for automated omnichannel fulfillment
- 9. Our Agenda This Afternoon • An Intro to Rural King • Decisions • Solutions • Recommendations from our Experience • No sales pitches, just honest, actionable details
- 10. Rural King
- 11. History of Rural King • Founded by two farmers in Mattoon, Illinois in 1960 to serve the rural customer
- 12. Rural King Today • 110 stores across 13 states and growing • Over $1 billion in sales • 8,000 associates • Focused on the rural customer
- 13. Rural King Tomorrow • Continued laser-focus on serving the rural customer through omnichannel technologies • Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) – 250 Store Locations – 15,000 Associates – Employer of Choice in the communities we’re in
- 15. History of RuralKing.com • RuralKing.com was started by two associates who saw a need to better serve the rural customer • Used Magento Enterprise v1 for over six years
- 16. Rural King and Creatuity • Worked together for three years, building a deep foundation of knowledge of systems, processes and collaboration. • Common vision of serving the rural customer and improving the day to day experience for customers and associates
- 17. Decisions The Need for Change to Address Rising Challenges
- 18. Challenges • Change is constant at Rural King • Rural King challenged Creatuity to propose the best solution for a number of priorities
- 19. Rapid Growth • What started as two associates launching an ecommerce website quickly became a major component of Rural King’s business • Extensions, systems and solutions were implemented quickly to address the rapid growth
- 20. Addressing Rural King’s Rapid Growth • Needed a flexible platform • Something we could implement quickly • Guidelines to enforce better policies, procedures and workflows • Magento Commerce Cloud
- 21. Customer Experience • Rural King’s customers often live an hour from their nearest store • Mobile-savvy • Trip to store is planned based on In Stock quantities and ability to special order products to their store • Simple, convenient, user-friendly
- 22. Addressing the Customer Experience • Upgrade from Magento 1 to Magento 2 • Implement Magento Order Management • Design a process for displaying live inventory on the web
- 23. Inventory & Fulfillment • Many products are large or heavy and require freight shipping • Things like gates & tractor implements come in many colors • It should be easy and inexpensive for the customer to purchase the product they need when they need it • Some stores are very large and have space to ship orders, others are small and lack the facilities for omnichannel fulfillment
- 24. Addressing Inventory & Fulfillment • Extreme Chicken Barn • Weighs 599 pounds • 9’ x 12’ • Ships freight
- 25. Addressing Inventory & Fulfillment • Rural King should be able to utilize their existing fleet of trucks to move large items from manufacturers to the store • We need a constantly updated single source of truth for inventory • Ability to intelligently route sourcing requests to the stores that have the best capabilities to fulfill the customer’s order
- 26. Product Information • Many Rural King stores have over 100,000 unique products • Vendors can provide many, many more • Maintaining product data requires logging in to many different systems, and processes often allow corrupt data to be introduced
- 27. Addressing Product Information • Need a single source of truth for product information management • That system should be supported and enforced by policies that restrict workarounds by editing product data in unrelated systems
- 28. Performance • Site performance impacts conversion rates and revenue • Magento 1 performance was good considering all of the features involved • Let’s add new features, more Javascript and simultaneously improve performance
- 29. Addressing Performance • Magento Commerce Cloud, with Blackfire to identify performance bottlenecks • Cloud performance was proven out on our previous projects
- 30. Scale • Everything built today must also serve Rural King well after doubling the number of stores • We also must support a product assortment that’s 10X the current size
- 31. Addressing Scale • Deployed everything via cloud solutions that have autoscaling capabilities – Commerce Cloud, Order Management and Akeneo • Held the line on processes & code quality to ensure the site is built in a way that can scale greatly without future rework
- 32. Solutions What We Did & How it Went
- 33. Systems: Before • Custom scripts pull inventory data from various sources and inject them into the Magento 1 database • Several other scripts and systems work around missing features in a legacy OMS concerning store pickup • Most data is moving through manual or at best semi-automated processes
- 34. Systems: After • Product data is created and enriched in Akeneo and sent to Magento Commerce Cloud automatically, which forwards it to Magento Order Management • Inventory is loaded into Magento Order Management through API integrations as well as LogicBroker • Orders information flows seamlessly between Commerce Cloud and Order Management
- 35. Solution: Integrations • Everything is built around queues to provide scalability • Utilized Magento modules and object oriented programming to enforce a common, easy to debug interface between all data sources and the omnichannel technology stack
- 36. Systems & Integrations: Customer Impact • Customers now have a clear insight into exactly where their order is in the process • Customer service can easily see orders that have been delayed and quickly take action on them • More time can be spent assisting customers and enriching product data and less on just moving data from system A to system B
- 37. Solution: Commerce Cloud • Building on Commerce Cloud provided a common workflow for both Creatuity and Rural King team members to write code for the site • Strong set of out of the box features and proven performance and scalability
- 38. Commerce Cloud: Customer Impact • Moving from Magento 1 to Magento Commerce Cloud provided some quick wins such as responsive design • Also allows for zero-downtime scaling as the business grows
- 39. Solution: Magento Order Management • Considered custom modules for sourcing and routing as well as other OMS platforms • Magento Order Management provided a familiar environment and a solid starting point for an OMS/commerce platform integration • Built around much newer technologies such as a service bus and queuing system than other OMS platforms
- 40. Magento Order Management: Customer Impact • Customers now receive much more frequent updates on their order status • Feedback from the Order Management exception queue is driving process and buying improvements
- 41. Solution: Magento Business Intelligence • Thanks to its prebuilt integrations for Magento Commerce and Order Management, Business Intelligence was a seamless launch • Allows analysts and managers to define their own reports
- 42. Business Intelligence: Customer Impact • Capturing and monitoring key metrics that previously weren’t captured or were recorded by hand • Driving further investments into process and staffing efficiencies • Giving immediate feedback on seasonal best sellers, driving better buying decisions
- 43. Solution: Akeneo • Needed a solution for product data, with a preference for PHP- based systems with an open-source background and a Cloud offering • Wanted something that could allow Rural King to add more process enforcement as processes matured • Needed a scalable solution to help move quite a bit of product data
- 44. Akeneo: Customer Impact • Products with incomplete product data can be identified and improved much more quickly • Merchandisers can focus on a product data based system instead of a multipurpose commerce platform, making them more efficient
- 45. Other Technologies Leveraged • ShipperHQ • ShipStation • Signifyd • PayPal
- 46. Recommendations & Results Learn from Our Experience
- 47. Results • See more in the Keynote at 11AM on Wednesday • Timeframe – 10 months. Start to soft-launch was 9 months. • Implementation Cost – all of this cost less than the average implementation cost for competing enterprise-grade ecommerce platforms
- 48. Magento Commerce Cloud • Magento Cloud Deployments – So Easy a CEO Can Do It • Single point of contact that knows the Magento platform inside and out for server and infrastructure issues
- 49. Magento Order Management • Store pickup order routing – customers can pick up orders as quickly as 30 minutes after ordering • Home delivery routing – hundreds of orders per hour route to the ideal fulfillment source, automatically • Customers are receiving their orders faster, at a lower cost to Rural King
- 50. Magento Business Intelligence • Migrating historical data provides historical reports in MBI • Prebuilt dashboards for tracking shipping efficiencies per inventory source • Provides a true omnichannel view as it brings together data from Commerce Cloud and Business Intelligence
- 51. Recommendations for Merchants • Omnichannel is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s a requirement • Meet the customer on their terms – provide your products when, where and how the customer wants them
- 52. Changing Many Systems at Once • Carefully weigh the pros and cons of changing your ecommerce platform and order management platform at the same time • Switching both at once is disruptive, but often costs less than switching one at a time
- 53. Recommendations for Developers • Integrations add risk. Test integrations early and often. • Follow the workflow, processes and design decisions of the platforms. • Order management requires a different way of thinking. Solutions that worked in pure Magento Commerce implementations may not work with Order Management • Think big – 100,000 products doesn’t seem like much until you multiply it by 500 inventory sources.
- 54. Recommendations for Agencies • Know your client • Plan on at least a week of on-site discovery • Take an omnichannel view of all of your projects
- 55. Questions?