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Virtocommerce

Standaard Boekhandel’s Replatforming Story

Discover how Standaard Boekhandel replatformed its high-load ecommerce project into a marketplace with Virto Commerce, managing 15M+ products and 207 operations centers.
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Standaard Boekhandel x Virto Commerce in Numbers

25M
product SKUs
1000
daily orders
200+
offline POS store integrations
207
offline operational centers

Customer Story

 
Founded in 1919, Standaard Boekhandel is one of Belgium's largest and oldest bookstore chains, with over 150 stores and a catalog of 25M+ products. The company generates €200M in annual sales, serving individuals, schools, libraries, and more.
 
In 2011, it launched an online bookstore to grow its digital presence. By 2014, the acquisition of French-Walloon retailer Club added 50 stores. Later, Standaard Boekhandel transformed its online store into a marketplace, allowing external sellers to join.

Growing Pains: Challenges of Scaling an Online Marketplace

 
As the online marketplace grew, Standaard Boekhandel faced significant challenges:

 

  • Rapid Catalog Expansion: The product catalog surged from 4 million to over 15 million SKUs in just months.
  • System Performance Issues: Their existing platform, Hybris (now SAP Commerce Cloud), struggled to handle the load, resulting in performance bottlenecks.
  • Inventory Discrepancies: The lack of seamless integration with the ERP system led to inventory inaccuracies, causing customer dissatisfaction.
  • Operational Inefficiencies: High-maintenance costs and system outages disrupted marketplace operations.

Uncover Standaard Boekhandel’s Replatforming Success and Game-Changing Results

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THE SOLUTION

Building a Reliable Solution for Scalability and High Performance

To overcome these challenges, Standaard Boekhandel partnered with Delaware, an IT consulting firm, to migrate to Virto Commerce’s Commerce Innovation Platform. This platform offered:

Scalability

The modular, database-agnostic design supported the rapid growth of the catalog.

Seamless Integration

Virto’s headless, API-first architecture connected offline POS systems and ERP solutions effortlessly.

Customization

The composable commerce setup enabled flexibility to meet evolving business needs.

THE RESULT

From Online Store to High-Performance Marketplace in Just 11 Months

 
With Delaware managing the implementation, the migration to Virto Commerce was completed in just 11 months, seamlessly integrating 207 offline stores into a unified digital ecosystem. Key improvements included:

1. Scalability

Effortless management of 25 million SKUs without performance dips, supporting rapid growth.

2. Efficiency

Smooth processing of thousands of daily orders with real-time inventory and metadata updates.

3. Flexibility

Modular architecture enabling quick adaptation to new sellers, buyers, and product categories.

4. Reliability

A stable platform capable of handling millions of updates daily, ensuring uninterrupted operations and customer satisfaction.

A Few Words From The Client

With Virto Commerce, we have easily extended the product offering and improved the search functionality for their two brands. In short, we found a .NET eCommerce platform that is capable of processing a product catalog of over 15 million products and customer orders in 207 fulfillment centers without any hurdle.
Stijn De Vos
Stijn De Vos, Lead Expert
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