KEY FACTS REFORMHAUS eG 

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TARGET GROUP

B2C  

INDUSTRY

Retail

BUSINESS

Omnichannel

CORE GOAL

Central online shop of the cooperative,
content + commerce

IT TECHNOLOGIES

Shopify, Pagefly, N2 Engine

CENTRAL ONLINE SHOP OF THE COOPERATIVE

Reformhaus - Well over 100,000 website visits per month, over 2,000 pages of content on an originally separate website and thousands of articles from the areas of food, nutritional supplements, natural cosmetics and many others. And a name that is known throughout Germany - since 1887. Reformhaus is a traditional company with a clear vision, namely to provide people in Germany and Austria with access to sustainable and high-quality products. 

Reformhaus was and is an absolute pioneer in the field of sustainable food, having focussed on such products long before it became a general movement. All this in the form of a co-operative with over 300 members operating almost 1,000 bricks-and-mortar shops.

OUR TASK

The task for us was to strengthen the cooperative with a new online presence, create a strong brand and promote bricks-and-mortar retail. Similar to our client session, the clear objective here was to create a perfect symbiosis between the online and offline worlds.

THIS IS A POSSIBLE CUSTOMER JOURNEY FOR A HEALTH FOOD STORE CUSTOMER. AND THIS SHOULD BE MAPPED IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY VIA THE NEW SHOP.

Sandra is a mum of three and lives with her family in southern Germany. She reads a lot about healthy eating and sustainability is particularly important to her, but when she goes to the local supermarket, she is always forced to reach for the unhealthy foods she knows - there is simply a lack of alternatives in this market. After watching a TV report on mindful eating, she googled for recipes and came across a recent blog post from Reformhaus. It goes into the topic in detail and also offers recipes. One with sweet potatoes piques her interest and she writes down all the ingredients. When she reads the name of the company, she remembers that there is a health food store somewhere near her. She uses the store finder on the website and sees that it is only 5 minutes away. The next day, Sandra drives to the shop and buys everything she needs. Impressed by the great selection of food, health products, natural cosmetics and the high-quality ambience, she decides to shop there more often. Sandra was particularly impressed by the expert advice she received when she enquired about a product. The recipe tasted delicious to the whole family and she immediately ordered more ingredients from the reformhaus.de online shop.

THE IDEA

Due to the fact that Reformhaus is a co-operative, many of the co-operative members had their own online shop. This led to a dilution of the Reformhaus brand and its appeal diminished more and more. In addition, there was a Reformhaus website on which only content such as recipes or guides were published - but without a direct link to the shop. These two areas were to be merged and thus strengthen and further sharpen the Reformhaus brand. The very important and well-founded content was to be linked more closely to the products and the cooperative as a whole as well as the individual shops were also to be strengthened in the long term. 

The content in the form of over 2,000 pages had to be migrated from Typo3 to various applications and given a standardised design. In addition, a branch finder had to be developed individually, which, among other things, had to be able to allocate the proportionate online turnover of a branch.

CARSTEN GREVE

Management Board, Reformhaus eG

"We needed a system that was easy & intuitive to use. Shopify is very stable, the customer experience works as the customer expects it to."

THE IMPLEMENTATION

STRATEGIE

STRATEGY

The project started as a major strategy consultancy. Initially, the plan of Reformhaus and us was to set up a large marketplace with connected retailers and their own ERPs for sales and customer data. But after extensive workshops, meetings and strategy sessions, Reformhaus decided that this project would be too large and costly. 

So Shopify came into play. Although it couldn't cover the same marketplace functions as the previous solution, it was possible to combine content and shop, integrate Plentymarkets as a cloud-based e-commerce platform and all at a significantly lower price. This is how our first major Shopify project was launched and at the same time one of the largest Shopify projects in Germany. As always, we work agile and with an MVP to achieve a fast time-to-market.

Eine Frau im Pool schaut in die Kamera.
Nahaufnahme eines Reformhausproduktes und einer Bananen-Bowl.
Desctop und mobile Ansicht von Reformhaus Online Shop.

STRATEGIE

STRATEGY

The project started as a major strategy consultancy. Initially, the plan of Reformhaus and us was to set up a large marketplace with connected retailers and their own ERPs for sales and customer data. But after extensive workshops, meetings and strategy sessions, Reformhaus decided that this project would be too large and costly. 

So Shopify came into play. Although it couldn't cover the same marketplace functions as the previous solution, it was possible to combine content and shop, integrate Plentymarkets as a cloud-based e-commerce platform and all at a significantly lower price. This is how our first major Shopify project was launched and at the same time one of the largest Shopify projects in Germany. As always, we work agile and with an MVP to achieve a fast time-to-market.

ONLINE UND OFFLINE VERBINDEN

CONNECTING ONLINE AND OFFLINE

Strengthen the shops and still position the online shop strongly. Both were to be realised and both were to contribute to the Reformhaus brand. To achieve this, in addition to migrating all content to the new shop page, we also linked many products directly in the guides so that they can be placed in the shopping basket directly after reading or during the process.  Thousands of content pieces with different designs, including CSS, had to be migrated and standardised for the brand. A complex filtering logic was integrated to make the recipes and other content easy to find. For example, content can be sorted and filtered by occasion, effort, health or cookery school. 
We have also developed our own store app, which uses the postcode to display all shops within a given radius on a map. The special feature: As soon as a user is assigned to a shop, this is communicated to the ERP in the background and future online sales are allocated to this shop on a pro rata basis. However, this is also possible via UTM parameters or adverts if the user does not select a shop. As a transparent feature for the customer, the price per kg/litre is displayed in the shop frontend to make it easier to compare individual products with different content quantities. The lowest price of the last 30 days is also displayed there. 
All of this was developed for the cooperative members, because they make Reformhaus what it is - a major brand known throughout Germany.

To support the needs of the members, a complex logic with regional location offers was developed in the background. This means that every customer can be guaranteed an individualised shopping experience even without a marketplace model. At the same time, the brand experience is standardised across the entire site and pays tribute to the Reformhaus brand. An existing Shopify theme was used as the basis and then customised and further developed to meet the needs of Reformhaus.

Lächelnde Mutter und Tochter gießen das Olivenöl auf den Salat.
Darstellung eines Reformhausproduktes und einer Bowl mit Haferflocken und Obst.
Desctop und mobile Ansicht von Reformhaus Online Shop.

ONLINE UND OFFLINE VERBINDEN

CONNECTING ONLINE AND OFFLINE

Strengthen the shops and still position the online shop strongly. Both were to be realised and both were to contribute to the Reformhaus brand. To achieve this, in addition to migrating all content to the new shop page, we also linked many products directly in the guides so that they can be placed in the shopping basket directly after reading or during the process.  Thousands of content pieces with different designs, including CSS, had to be migrated and standardised for the brand. A complex filtering logic was integrated to make the recipes and other content easy to find. For example, content can be sorted and filtered by occasion, effort, health or cookery school. 
We have also developed our own store app, which uses the postcode to display all shops within a given radius on a map. The special feature: As soon as a user is assigned to a shop, this is communicated to the ERP in the background and future online sales are allocated to this shop on a pro rata basis. However, this is also possible via UTM parameters or adverts if the user does not select a shop. As a transparent feature for the customer, the price per kg/litre is displayed in the shop frontend to make it easier to compare individual products with different content quantities. The lowest price of the last 30 days is also displayed there. 
All of this was developed for the cooperative members, because they make Reformhaus what it is - a major brand known throughout Germany.

To support the needs of the members, a complex logic with regional location offers was developed in the background. This means that every customer can be guaranteed an individualised shopping experience even without a marketplace model. At the same time, the brand experience is standardised across the entire site and pays tribute to the Reformhaus brand. An existing Shopify theme was used as the basis and then customised and further developed to meet the needs of Reformhaus.

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CONCLUSION

CARSTEN GREVE

Management Board, Reformhaus eG

"NETFORMIC got involved in the project at a very early stage. They brought in a lot of visionary ideas on how to realise our expectations and challenges from a network group. It took just one year from placing the order to final implementation, which really impressed me.

THE RESULT

We are very satisfied with the project, as it was challenging and demanding and at the same time we were able to play to our strengths - namely to develop the best for our customers in an agile and customised way and to completely change direction at times. We relied on the highly customisable Shopify solution, but also on individually developed solutions and our in-house middleware N2 to connect the ERP and warehouse with the shop, including CMS and payment. 

In the end, we achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve: 
Position a strong co-operative brand online and offline while offering customers the same simple shopping experience they are used to from online shops. 


TO THE REFORMHAUS ONLINE SHOP

GET IN TOUCH WITH US - WE DEVELOP FUTURE-ORIENTED DIGITAL SOLUTIONS AND CUSTOMISED DEVELOPMENTS FOR YOU.

OTHER CUSTOMERS CASES OF THE CO-OPERATIVE BUSINESS FORM

ROOFER

REDESIGN: B2B E-COMMERCE RETHOUGHT

ZEDACH eG relies on strategy consulting and UX design for its SAP in-house development. With the shop redesign, we are creating a powerful platform for roofers.

GET IN CONTACT

TALK TO US ABOUT YOUR PROJECT
GEORG SCHMÜCK

Senior Sales & Partner Manager

E-mail: info@netformic.com

+49 711 826521

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