How the Dutch Post re-platformed their store from Shopware 6 to Magento + Hyvä in just 12 weeks
Merchant and Magento 2 project snapshot
- verpakkingen.postnl.nl
- Netherlands
- Industry Vertical: Selling parcels, boxes and packaging materials
- Business model: B2B. Selling to: Online retailers, Industrial clients and PostNL Priority Clients.
Hyvä project scope and key results
- 1300 SKUs
- New website launch with Hyvä: 27 July 2023
- Page speed mobile: Homepage 97,PLP 97, PDP 98
- New frontend developed within 12 weeks
We already knew the direction of the project, and therefore it was very easy to expect what was coming. Feedback was consistently implemented within a week. The team communication could not have been better”
About PostNL, the Official Dutch Post Service
PostNL N.V. is a publicly traded company (AMS: PNL) with a turnover of €3.2 billion in 2023, two-thirds of which is related to eCommerce.
PostNL’s ambition is to be the favourite delivery person in the Benelux, and to build the future of delivery, they offer simple, smart and sustainable logistics solutions including eCommerce and Cross Border. On an average weekday, they deliver 1.1 million parcels and 6.9 million letters in the region.
With 37,000 employees, they are part of society (30 million inhabitants in the Benelux) and work hard every day to deliver special moments, thinking ahead and continually developing new services, to ultimately make sending and receiving as easy as possible for everyone.
PostNL Packaging mission
PostNL Packaging’s objective is to help people and businesses find the right packaging to ship their products safely, efficiently and sustainably.
That's why they offer a wide range of boxes, tape and other supplies at a reduced rate.
You can order various packaging sizes and easily adjust the amount of air in your packages. That is even better for the environment!
Why did PostNL migrate from Shopware 6 to Magento and Hyvä?
PostNL used Magento back in the day. They decided to migrate to Shopware 6 to improve the customer experience on their website. Shopware did not meet their expectations. With the rise of Hyvä it was decided to migrate back to Magento.
Reasons not to continue on Shopware were:
- Shopware User Experience tailored to B2C
- Lack of B2B features
- Branding was not aligned with their requirement
- Scalability issues within that specific installation
- Homesickness to Magento
PostNL had pressure from the business to re-platform within 12 weeks following the acceptance of the task, that timeline being set and driven by commercial external deadlines.
How did PostNL re-platform from Shopware 6 to Hyvä in just 12 weeks?
PostNL contacted Vendic and met them for a quick discovery session. The agency understood how the timeframe was not negotiable so they worked on tightening the scope of what could be achieved with those 12 weeks.
The key challenge was about how rigorously the PostNL team had to adhere to the brand guidelines. The MVP was very strict design-wise and the PostNL product owner was very diligent in making sure the new website would meet the requirements.
Hyvä made it all a lot easier though to meet those expectations. Since Vendic had to create some customisations for the checkout, it was a no-brainer to use Hyvä Checkout.
The Hyvä Checkout product enabled the agency to build checkout customizations way faster and in a more reliable manner. Gone are the days of Javascript heavy checkouts and time-consuming checkout implementations!
Results of migrating from Shopware 6 to Hyvä
The PostNL packaging store on Hyvä now scores extremely well on pagespeed, passes Core Web Vitals even on Mobile devices, which means the website offers better customer experience, will rank higher in Google SERPs, and will convert better.
Additional benefits experienced by the PostNL team are:
- Ease of Customization
- Improved Developer Experience
- Better shopper experience: performance, page loading speed, stability
- Increase in sales with all uplift across all metrics including traffic and conversion
- Faster time to market <12 weeks
As a sign of the client’s satisfaction, PostNL decided to expand this project to Belgium.
In addition to that, they agreed to spend time and effort sharing this success story on stage at Meet Magento Netherlands 2023.
Look back and learnings from the implementation agency about the project
-
How to handle strict timelines
Don’t be afraid of strict timelines if you know what to do. Deadlines can be stressful unless you know your plan is solid. -
The power of design consistency
Using a powerful and well-defined brand book gives the frontend team so much clarity. In this project, we did not waste any time discussing design changes after the wireframing phase. Applying the existing brandbook to the wireframes gave us everything we needed, without questions and revisions. -
Iterative Development
Even though the styling process was extremely smooth we could not avoid layout and / or backend scope changes because of the amount of stakeholders involved in this project.
A key tip is to accept that you might not know everything you would like to know before starting a project. Define what you can deliver in terms of commitment and production capability.
Keep assessing the situation with your clients to safeguard scope and timeline. -
Flexibility and Open Mindset
Because time was tight, and many stakeholders were involved, we got into situations where we needed to expand on certain functionalities or decrease on others. The Vendic and PostNL teams worked together very well on keeping a balance between all the changes of scope.
Watch the video
Client’s word of advice
Embrace performance and simplicity. Don’t make things more complicated than they are.
Agency’s quote:
We really enjoyed working with the PostNL team. The committed teams and way of working produced a very satisfactory result within a short timeline”
About Vendic
Imagine a team of experienced Magento 2 specialists based in the Netherlands. A team that is always committed to a fast, problem-free webshop, without too much hassle.
That's Vendic. Vendic is a Hyvä Platinum Agency Partner and Mage-OS Silver Partner.
