Auping

Auping's Shift to Headless eCommerce

In 2018 Youwe was one of the digital agencies to pitch a project for Royal Auping. The Royal Auping is a Dutch manufacturer and market leader retailer of beds, mattresses, and sleep-related products. The company chose Youwe to help them with a full-service digital transformation.

Johannes Albertus Auping started what now is the Royal Auping in 1888 and he would never have imagined that the first mesh-based bed bases, which he supplied to hospitals in the Netherlands would grow in a business that is one of the leading companies in the field of beds and matrasses. Today the company is still a family-owned company and for the past 125 years, Auping has been the specialist of choice for people who appreciate a good night's sleep and guaranteed comfort in over 27 countries.

Due to the rise of the internet Auping needed to focus on its online presence. The ambitious plans of Auping for a large-scale digital transformation program led them to Youwe. Together with our strategists and software architects, we shaped a multi-year project to upgrade their architectural landscape whilst supporting the business case with strategic roll-outs during the course of the project.

Auping has benefited from the full-service capabilities of Youwe, from strategy to design and digital marketing to development. As a result, Youwe realized a future-proof, state-of-the-art platform built with Drupal that gives Auping the flexibility it needs for future endeavors. And that's not all, the designs of the Dutch, Danish, Belgian, British, and German websites got updated and Youwe's Digital Marketing team helped with setting up the SEO, CRO, and a campaign project.

+480%

E-commerce revenue

+300%

Increased Google position

+105%

Organic Traffic

Auping has benefited from the full-service capabilities of Youwe, from strategy to design and digital marketing to development.

Our solution

A future-proof Drupal platform

After the pitch, the Youwe Drupal team took over the current Drupal CMS of Auping. Auping already had a Drupal 7, Drupal 8- and Single-Page Application, so Youwe started with a migration project. Later, Youwe added Drupal 8 applications and native REACT applications such as the store locator, Mattress advisor, Appointment tool, and Google (My Business) Reviews) to the architecture. Drupal 8's API-first approach makes it possible to plug and play different applications to the CMS. The APIs can always be used in the future or be integrated on a different platform. The entire platform is built in a way that it's not just the perfect e-commerce solution, but also to offer the visitors of the Royal Auping website a real experience. The final step is to upgrade completely to Drupal 9, which will give Auping a stable Drupal platform for many years to come.

Drupal integrated with Magento for a custom e-commerce experience

Auping expressed the wish to expand its e-commerce capabilities, both in the assortment that can be offered online as well as international expansion. Their initial platform did not suffice in terms of capabilities and performance. Auping products are highly customizable to cater to specific customer needs, which resulted in its own challenges to overcome. Youwe implemented a Magento 2 shop (now known as Adobe Commerce), integrated within the Drupal CMS. International expansion was made possible, and more and more products from Auping's portfolio could be sold online. The ultimate milestone: the first (configured!) bed sold online.

Headless front-end application

Auping's ambitions for a cutting-edge customer experience fitted perfectly with a headless approach to the front-end of the platform. This enables Auping to benefit from the best-in-class CMS, e-commerce, and a variety of other solutions whilst maintaining a unified and seamless brand experience.

Drupal 8 integrated API’s

Appointment planner: the existing appointment planner was made with SuperSaaS. Our team made their own version of a disconnected SuperSaas planner with its own frontend React application.
Google reviews: Auping wanted to show Google reviews and ratings on the Plaza page. Youwe made a connection between Drupal 8 and Google My Business. Because of the fact that the API is implemented and guaranteed with Drupal, the data will always be shown up-to-date.

UX friendly design

Moving towards a more e-commerce-driven platform meant the need for a revised design that is consistent with corporate brand guidelines. Youwe's UX and visual designers translated the outcomes of different quantitative and qualitative research efforts towards a consistent, brand-new, design.

The design team redesigned the current design of the Auping website. This was done for all the Auping international websites. So the new responsive designs went live on the Dutch, Danish, British, Belgium en German websites. The assessment of Auping was to optimize the current designs and to improve UX design and communication. The design team optimized the pages for the store locator and plaza, but also improved the navigation, search option and made liquid content banners and communication items such as e-mails.

Digital Marketing Growth

Youwe's digital marketing team was asked to help with the online presence of Royal Auping. Auping wanted more traffic and optimize their SEO. To increase this, the team made a keyword analysis, technical analysis, and content analysis. This gave Auping a lot of insight. With the help of Youwe new online pages were created and SEO-minded content was published. This led to an increased Google position by more than 300%. On top of that, Youwe started optimizing the website to convert visitors into leads for the Auping stores offline or into buying customers online.

Higher conversions with the help of CRO

Aupings website was also optimized using CRO. Data analysis showed that Auping could make the most profit by focusing on making a shopping appointment. So, the store locator and the Auping Plaza pages could be further improved with the help of CRO. To discover what could be improved, the chat was analyzed, user tests were carried out and recordings of website visits were reviewed. This showed, among other things, that the store locator is often a dead-end for users who are looking for a suitable product. Visitors also found it difficult to compare products and it was not clear to every user how Aupings mix-and-match system works. Many adjustments have been made to improve this. This ultimately resulted in 47% more store visits and 66% more sales. A single A/B test on the Auping Plaza page also showed that a small adjustment increases the conversion rate by 41%.

Experience design

Youwe's design team worked with Auping to rebrand and redesign their platform, ensuring a seamless user experience. They conducted user research and a five-day design sprint to identify and address design challenges. The team provided ongoing UX support to Auping, ensuring that the website remained user-friendly and up-to-date. Additionally, they created a bed and boxspring configurator, which allowed users to personalize their products. Overall, Youwe's design team played a key role in creating a visually appealing and user-friendly platform for Auping.

The results

From strategy to implementation

Youwe strives to engage in long-term partnerships with its customers. Working together from strategy to implementation is what we believe provides the most added value. With Auping we have developed a multi-year project, determining the appropriate sequence of work. By working Agile, we secure business value is delivered continuously and maintain the flexibility to adjust when needed. Together we have pioneered by using brand new technologies, innovating hand-in-hand. A full digital transformation is not a big bang, but a continuous process. Youwe's experience helped Auping in making choices that set them up with a future-proof, long-lasting Drupal platform.