Built by: Country: Poland Categories: Hardware & Appliances Industrial & Commercial
Sylius-based B2B and B2C online store for the HVAC industry
Sylius-based B2B and B2C online store for the HVAC industry

What is Kombinat Instalacyjny?

Kombinat Instalacyjny is a Polish company from Wrocław that sells HVAC systems and products like air conditioners and cooling devices. In order to expand sales throughout the country, Kombinat Instalacyjny needed an e-commerce solution to reach its business goals:

  • diversify sales by creating an online store
  • offer products to two types of clients: B2B and B2C
  • keep clients through a loyalty program·   maintain professional image of the store

Starting from the basics – why Sylius?

When the company approached our partner Webmakers, Kombinat Instalacyjny didn’t have an online store. Webmaker’s team helped the client create a detailed scope of functionalities, taking into account all the business targets. Choosing the right platform was a crucial step – Kombinat Instalacyjny needed an optimal and budget-friendly solution, open to further development and expansion in the future. Sylius turned out to be a great fit as an open source headless platform that allows for high flexibility.

Together with WebMakers, we chose Sylius to build our kombinat.pl store as the most optimal solution. From the beginning we were focused on building a dedicated eCommerce system tailored to our needs. We wanted to maintain a high degree of flexibility and tailor the system to our processes and business goals. Sylius allowed us to fully achieve this goal. At the same time, instead of implementing basic eCommerce functionality from scratch, we were able to spend more budget on building additional solutions, branding and analyzing and refining the UX of our store.
Piotr Rydzewski, CEO at Kombinat Instalacyjny Sp. z o.o.

Main challenges

Webmakers tackled the following challenges:

  • customizing the product display to industry requirements (the difference in the VAT price depending on whether the product assembly option has been selected and the availability of options depending on the buyer profile – B2B or B2C)
  • creating the possibility of changing the technological features of the product during the purchase, which led to a change in the appearance of the product and the price
  • introducing an algorithm that automates and facilitates the combination of product sets (e.g. complete air conditioning system)
  • creating advanced product filters
  • putting the project in a stable position in a production environment

Technology stack

To build the store, Webmakers used Sylius (1.9), based on PHP version 7.4 and the Symfony framework version 5.3. In addition, they used the MariaDB (10.6) and Redis (6.2) databases and used technologies such as RabbitMQ (3.1). Front-end was based on the Twig template system, coding responsive views using HTML5 and CSS3 (using SCSS) and using JavaScript.

VAT rate and product display

Kombinat Instalacyjny sells its products with two different VAT rates. If a product is purchased together with the assembly service, the VAT rate is 8%. The tax goes up to 23% when the customer chooses only the product itself. Webmakers implemented a functionality that automatically changes the displayed price to include either 8% or 23% VAT rate, depending on whether the product is ordered with or without the assembly service.

Two types of user accounts

The store offers two types of user accounts: individual client and installer. Each user type has its own parameters and functionalities, with an extensive discount system that allows Kombinat to grant special offers for the product or customer type level, or an individual discount for a selected user.

UI and branding

The scope of the project also included consulting, support and work in the field of store branding. Webmakers designed an intuitive UI and a modern design of the entire store. The home page consists of modules, along with a slider promoting various products or other business activities conducted by Kombinat Instalacyjny. 

The product offer page contains all the most important elements such as detailed information about the product, specification or important parameters, which is also a functionality that allows you to configure the technical parameters of the product before adding it to the basket. Visitors to the store also have an easy opportunity to contact the store and ask questions about the product they are viewing.

Results

In just 7 months Webmakers delivered a dedicated online store full of custom features. Using Sylius as a framework allowed Webmakers to reduce costs and accelerate the implementation time, while maintaining high flexibility of development. 

Key store functionalities

  • two types of user accounts (installer and individual client), affecting various parameters and adjusting the store to a given type of an account
  • verification of the installer’s account based on the submitted application and attached documents
  • the possibility of purchasing the product together with assembly
  • an extensive rebate system that allows us to grant rebates for the product or customer type level, or an individual rebate for a selected user
  • the possibility of partial order fulfillment, depending on the availability of the assortment
  • built-in loyalty system
  • integration with the online payment system (operator: Przelewy24.pl)
  • integration with the ERP system – Comarch ERP Optima with the use of Sellintegro
  • the ability to adjust technical parameters at the stage of adding a product to the basket
  • blog with industry articles
  • the possibility of rating and reviewing products and brands by experts working in the store