Driving international growth with responsive, high-quality e-commerce experiences

Paving the way to international growth

One of the most exciting things about moving into a new home is choosing how to decorate it—and what better place to start than from the ground up?

Enter Iperceramica. For years, this Italian company has been manufacturing and distributing high-quality, low-cost flooring, tiles, and bathroom fittings and furniture.

Michele Neri, takes up the story: “Traditionally, our clients are Italian home-owners who want to redecorate their house, and they used to come to our stores looking for the specific products or tools they needed.

“We recently implemented a more sophisticated logistics system, which enables us to ship goods all over the country as well as abroad. Being able to ship goods outside beyond Italy for the first time gave us the opportunity to expand internationally.”

To appeal to international customers, Iperceramica recognized that a strong online presence was paramount, as Michele Neri comments: “We already had a well-designed website, which functioned as an ‘inspiration guide’ for our customers but had no capability to actually sell any of our products.

“We wanted to give Italian and international customers the chance to order anywhere and anytime and receive their items promptly and reliably. To achieve our goal, we decided to enhance our site with e-commerce capabilities—and we looked for a platform that could support multiple languages and currencies.”

Putting homeowners at the center of the buying journey

Iperceramica teamed up with HCL and HCL partner Var Group Spa to design its new e-store, powered by a B2C e-commerce platform based on HCL Commerce. Fully integrated with Iperceramica’s SAP ERP business systems, the new solution enables the company to fulfill web orders efficiently and with minimal human intervention.

Neri explains: “For many years, we have used SAP ERP to manage our core business processes. For this reason, it was essential that we found a solution that could integrate seamlessly with SAP. Of all the e-commerce solutions we considered, only HCL Commerce offered the tight integration we were looking for. We also have a long-standing relationship with HCL, and our positive experience with the company gave us the peace of mind that we were making the best decision for our business.”

Iperceramica’s new e-store includes the company’s full product offering, enabling customers to browse, compare, and buy products anywhere, anytime. The ability to support different languages and currencies means that Iperceramica can start making its products available to global markets, helping the company to expand its reach and win new customers.

To uncover opportunities to enhance the digital customer experience, Iperceramica has also deployed an analytics tool. By capturing data on real-world customers journeys, the company can identify and resolve potential sticking points—making it easier for customers to find products and check out their baskets.

Neri elaborates: “We increasingly see that customers jump between the online and in-store channels as they move along their purchasing journey. For example, a customer might see a tile they like while browsing our site on their tablet, come into a store to look at the product in person and talk through their questions with our staff, and then complete the order online back at home.

“We now have a more complete picture the customer journey, which enables us to reach out with relevant, compelling content to encourage conversion. For example, if a customer requests a quote online or in store but doesn’t go on to place the order, we can proactively send them an incentive such as a pricing promotion to encourage them to complete the purchase.

“Similarly, if a customer with an open quote re-visits us at one of our bricks-and-mortar locations, our team can quickly and easily retrieve it—regardless of whether the customer requested the quote online or in store. The more information we have about each customer’s unique preferences and past interactions with us, the better we can serve them, and we’re very pleased with the improvements we’re making to the customer experience.”

Stepping forward to grow the business

Iperceramica is already reaping the rewards of its new e-commerce store. Neri continues: “The previous version of our website was already quite popular among customers, who used it to find ideas and inspiration. Our new e-store is proving to be even more of a hit. Traffic has increased by 50 percent just a few weeks since the re-launch—an exceptional result!

“Crucially, the increase in traffic has contributed to a significant increase in orders, which helps us to boost our revenues. In fact, our sales on the digital channel are five times larger than the average revenue at one of our bricks-and-mortar stores, and we experienced a return on investment in less than one year of our e-commerce launch.”

Whether customers visit in-store and online, Iperceramica can help them complete their purchase quickly and easily, offering a smooth journey that encourages loyalty. Better still, the company predicts that it will be able to use data from the digital channel to identify the optimal locations for new physical stores.

By overlaying the geographical location of our website visitors with a map of our stores across Italy, we will be able to identify hotspots of customer demand that don’t have a physical store nearby,” adds Neri. “Without a doubt, this kind information will be valuable in our decision-making process.”

Iperceramica is in a strong position to pursue its ambitious international growth plans. The company is currently working to implement different language versions–but it’s not only a matter of languages for its e-commerce site, it hopes to grow its customer base across Europe.

Michele Neri concludes: “We are very happy with the outcome of our work with HCL and Var Group Spa. Looking to the future, we plan to extend our reach to serve customers across Europe—and our digital channel will be a highly effective way to realize our vision.”