Plutosport.nl
Plutosport.nl in pole position thanks to Magento 2
Thanks to the transfer to Magento 2, Plutosport.nl is ready for the future. The Dutch e-commerce company laid the technical foundation to offer its customers new shopping possibilities, like buying tracksuits in different sizes for top and bottom parts. Several other functionalities will be added and developed as part of the strategic partnership with Youwe. The foundation is there.
Plutosport.nl has been working hard since 2005 as an online sports shop, both nationally and internationally. Besides the webshop, the Dutch company, also had physical megastores for a while. Since 2010, however, they fully focus on e-commerce. With a range of tens of thousands of products, Plutosport.nl positions itself as ‘the largest online sports shop’. Their selection includes sport articles and clothing from brands like adidas, Asics, Nike, and Puma. Customers can also find lifestyle products like poloshirts and flip-flops at Plutosport.nl and its international sister sites Plutosport.de, Plutosport.fr, and Plutosport.com. The company also sells through various marketplaces. Besides the consumer market, Plutosport.nl also aims for the business market.
Plutosport.nl was a happy user of Magento 1, but the company realized that they needed a new foundation for technical stability and further online growth. In order to keep up technically and be able to add new functionalities for customers, a migration to another platform became essential. Magento 2 (now known as Adobe Commerce) was the preferred option. A challenge during the transfer however was to continue operationally whilst having both platforms online for a limited period of time. Plutosport.nl considered it important to make a soft landing during a 'peek traffic period'' as a result of COVID, and to create a clear roadmap together for further development of the site.
Our solution
A new technical as well as strategic partnership with Youwe is helping Plutosport.nl to realize its ambitions.
The team members of both companies know each other well since the implementation of Magento 1 years ago. Last year, Plutosport.nl and Youwe started on a new journey together to Magento 2 (now known as Adobe Commerce), after strategic sessions about the right course and timing. It was decided to keep the functionality as much as possible the same as the existing website and to develop it further later on; growth from stability.
To prevent having to maintain two platforms during the transition phase, we only had one Plutosport production site online during development. This way, we could prevent together that Plutosports' customer service team could be confused about customer questions and the content team would need to spend more time to provide new content on both platforms. Plutosport's other production environments were not publicly shared or indexed by Google. This way, there was no traffic on these platforms until we went live in September 2021 with the first Magento 2 (now known as Adobe Commerce) production environment for Plutosport.com.
Afterwards, in the fall of 2021, the various domains went live in intervals of a week, from small to big in terms of reach, while Youwe kept a close eye on the performance and orderflows. The advantage of this phased approach is that imperfections could be fixed before large groups of visitors could be impacted by them. This way, a problem with a WMS interface was fixed right on time.
Youwe used integration platform Alumio to transfer active customer data from the old to the new situation, something that worked quite smoothly without needing a lot of customization. Alumio read the data from Magento 1, transformed them to the Magento 2 (now known as Adobe Commerce) format and entered them nicely through the API. Online shoppers who recently or repeatedly bought items at Plutosport, could simply keep logging in and introduce their new purchase on the new platform. Thanks to the synchronization of customer data, Alumio helped to manage risks during the period that Magento 1 and Magento 2 (now known as Adobe Commerce) were both live at Plutosport.nl.
For the average user, the website Plutosport.nl maybe hasn't changed a lot. For the company however, the migration has created the opportunity to, together with Youwe, introduce new features in the coming period, which customers will certainly notice. All this from the existing foundation.
Something that Plutosport.nl has already been using since the migration, are Configurable Products in Bundles, an option that Magento 1 didn't offer yet. This way, it is now possible for clients, for example, to buy a track suit with pants in size M and a jacket in size L. In order to present this feature in a user-friendly and clear way, Youwe has removed the complexity from the very comprehensive Magento 2 extension, at the request of Plutosport.nl. This way, the feature is clear and customers won't lose overview. Less is more.
The results
During a busy period, Plutosport.nl has successfully migrated to another platform, offering stability and plenty of new possibilities.
The introduction of bundled products is the first, but certainly not the last example; various new features will be coming soon. Youwe has built a solid, reliable webshop that is ready for the future. Youwe will keep monitoring and optimizing all Plutosport.nl websites, including regarding their performance. As a trusted strategic partner, Youwe will also keep thinking together with the client about a roadmap for the company, which is modified every quarter in consultation. Together towards the dot on the horizon.
