Case Study: Vespa Configurator For The Italian Lifestyle Icon
The digital agency Cando has developed a configurator for Vespa Switzerland that brings the beauty of the Italian lifestyle icon from the street to the screen. Thereby a digital shopping experience has been created based on Pimcore in which Vespas with equipment and accessories can be put together online, in an intuitive and easy way.
Business Challenge
Like in real life but digital
Vespas, equipment, and accessories have primarily been marketed through printed catalogs at the dealers on site so far. This often made the purchase cumbersome and confusing for customers. That's why it was necessary to create a shopping experience for the customer that enables him to experience the Vespa lifestyle in an inspiring way online.
Pimcore Solution
Shopping as if you were on site
In order to meet the design and lifestyle demands of Vespa, but also the customer experience, no artificial 3D renderings were made. Instead, professional photo shootings were used, in which high-quality images were developed for the configurator. And in such high quality that the customer can now see his Vespa with all details and its specific configuration as if he were at the dealer's premises.
The latest generation of headless e-commerce
The configurator was developed with a «headless» approach of the latest generation where the Pimcore backend communicates through an interface with the frontend. This approach enables the state of the art client experience, such as barely noticeable reloading of individual content areas while using the application. With the DataHub, Pimcore provides a powerful interface to communicate with modern content-as-a-service (CAAS) frontend frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular. The DataHub supports various output channels like GraphQL, REST, CSV/XLS, and much more. For the data exchange with the Angular frontend, which was used for the configurator, Cando chose GraphQL as an output channel. In this project, Cando has actively collaborated on the Pimcore DataHub interface and contributed to the Pimcore open source project.
Product configurator with Pimcore
Although the new Vespa configurator appears very simple at first glance, it conceals a sophisticated configuration logic: seven Vespa models with different colors and equipment result in 21,606 possible combinations. For this purpose, dedicated product configurators integrated into Pimcore were evaluated at the beginning of the project. To simplify the configuration of the product manager's rules, Cando decided to develop the entire configuration logic directly in Pimcore.
Here you can discover the Vespa configurator.
Integrated customer experience platform
The new customer experience platform, based on Pimcore and Cando’s products, forms the technical foundation. It is a fully integrated solution that includes a wide range of applications such as product information management (PIM), content management (CMS), digital asset management (DAM), e-commerce (B2C and B2B), marketing automation as well as print.
Flexibility for content managers
The landing pages were developed in a standard way through the Pimcore CMS functionality and templates. However, Vespa specific content blocks are used, which can be flexibly arranged by the content managers on different pages. With that, content like pictures, videos, and text can be combined with dynamically generated product views. It is precisely this mixture of inspiring content and products from the web store that distinguishes modern content commerce solutions today.
"Pimcore is the platform we have been looking for a long time to digitize our business models. The simplicity and flexibility of the system, paired with the right partner, opens up completely new possibilities for us and enables us to considerably shorten the time-to-market for new ideas."
- David Roethlin, Group CIO OFFAG Management Services AG
Business Results
Success during turbulent times
Together with the new online experience, the latest offering hit the nail on its head. Within a short time, many Vespas were ordered online without ever having seen them «for real» - at a time when one carefully considers spending money on a premium scooter. During the peak of the corona crisis, Vespa Switzerland was able to offset, within a few months, a considerable part of the usual on-site with the online sales.
With just a few clicks to the Vespa of your dreams
Thanks to the configurator, Vespas can now be put together with just a few clicks online, including suitable equipment like top cases and accessories. After the configuration, the dream Vespa can either be delivered directly to your home or be collected at an official Vespa dealer, registered, and ready to drive.
Customer Details
