POP Marketing: userwerk puts the "confectionery shelf at the checkout" online
Summary:
Challenge: An IaaS public cloud solution for userwerk's POP marketing tool - the timing: three weeks
Solution: Hosting of the Spryker solution based on Kubernetes and the Google Cloud Platform
Result: Planned live launch of the tool with newly developed codes for automation and maximum integration of the platform
userwerk
Founded in 2017, userwerk GmbH from Ulm is revolutionising point-of-purchase (POP) in online shops with its ideas. The company, which specialises in POP marketing, offers address generation, new customer acquisition, data mining and evaluation tools that can be easily integrated into websites as smart modules with multiple benefits. The centrepiece of the product portfolio is the "Smart Revenue Booster" - a value-added tool for customers and shop operators.
userwerk adapts and integrates successful offline processes for e-commerce. The online pioneers are constantly developing new modules for online shops, comparison portals and entertainment websites. This is why the Spryker Commerce OS was chosen as the right technology platform. The modular structure makes the solutions secure and maximally flexible, while userwerk also integrates scientific research results as well as UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) trends.
Into the future: revolutionary online marketing
"Young companies simply work faster," laughs Dr Kalb, Managing Director at userwerk, and talks about revolutionary online marketing, container technologies and a quick start on a greenfield site.
Founded in 2017, userwerk launched a new type of POP marketing solution on the German market in March 2018. The idea: a shop within a shop that customers don't even notice - with added value for users and shop operators. The prerequisite: full integration, maximum security, automation and agility as well as individuality, close to the customer. "We are digitising the confectionery shelf at the checkout, so to speak," says Kalb.
Sounds simple, but is actually a highly complex technical matter. Every online shop that is to be integrated into the POP shop system from userwerk retains the "look and feel" of its own shop for the customer. They are essentially redirected to another shop that offers them added value but does not lose them - neither in terms of content nor technically.
In order to integrate customers into its POP marketing, userwerk needed a digital agency to develop the shop and a hosting partner to provide the right platform with a high level of integration capability. It was clear from the outset that traditional "out of the box solutions" would not work for such a highly automated project. So DevOps was the order of the day and the use of state-of-the-art technologies.
Only Claranet was an option for the combination of a Spryker shop based on Kubernetes and the Google Cloud Platform that we wanted. While we took online shopping to a new level at the front end with our POP marketing, Claranet further developed the container technology with its creative upfront engineering."
Revolution must be dared
userwerk decided to work with the digital agency Turbine Kreuzberg, a successful partner of Spryker Systems, which supplied the chosen technology solution. The only thing missing was an IT infrastructure partner to set up the sophisticated platform.
"We didn't have to search long to find the perfect partner for us and our agency," explains Kalb, "Claranet was and is the only experienced managed hosting partner that offers Spryker based on container technology."
Recommended by Spryker, Turbine Kreuzberg, which was already working on the project, turned to Claranet for hosting. The task: an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) public cloud solution for userwerk's POP marketing tool. The parameters: A hosting of the Spryker solution based on Kubernetes and the Google Cloud Platform. The timing: three weeks. The challenge: maximum integration and automation.
"The project was innovative, exciting and could only be realised with container technology due to the high integration requirements," explains Mickael Zewde, Business Development Manager at Claranet. "The timing was tight, but Turbine Kreuzberg had already prepared a lot and we already had experience with this very young technology." A fully automated integration of the POP tool into the respective domain was to be prepared for at least 300-500 end customers. The aim was to create a perfect UI that, despite the transfer, would not differ from the provider's own online shop and would offer an ideal UX.
At this point, userwerk's customers were already waiting for the tool to go live. The time window was non-negotiable. So the technicians from Claranet, Turbine Kreuzberg and userwerk got to work immediately. Components that had already been developed were to be used to build the desired platform. However, after a week it became clear that the existing components could not be used so easily due to the security, stability, scalability and availability requirements. And there were only two weeks left! Creativity, experience and teamwork were now required.
IT development for userwerk and the world
Fabian Dörk, Director Cloud Native Practice at Claranet, and his team programmed codes that solved the problem of high individualisation and automation. "It was a great challenge and a fantastic project. Upfront engineering for a real IT innovation! It was only thanks to our almost two years of experience with Kubernetes and Spryker that we were able to develop the codes for automation and maximum integration together and with the help of the open source community, for example. We worked on so-called Helm charts and were able to realise some new developments."
"The development of codes for the automation and maximum integration of the platform was not only an added value for us, but for the entire open source community," confirms Dr Kalb.
After just two weeks, it was finally done. "This project could only be realised with extremely competent and experienced partners," Kalb is pleased to say, adding: "If Claranet hadn't been able to apply so much experience and modules and building blocks from its own development, it certainly wouldn't have worked in such a short time. Claranet dares to try new things and is just as enthusiastic about innovative technology as we are!"
