{"id":14569,"date":"2021-12-14T22:25:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T20:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/?post_type=case-study&#038;p=14569"},"modified":"2021-12-14T22:25:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T20:25:59","slug":"rapid-flyer-success-story","status":"publish","type":"case-study","link":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/case-study\/rapid-flyer-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"How to fit a custom web2print into an online store?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"wp-block-uagb-section uagb-section__wrap uagb-section__background-undefined uagb-block-859745b4\"><div class=\"uagb-section__overlay\"><\/div><div class=\"uagb-section__inner-wrap\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is Rapid-Flyer?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Originally set up in 2003, Rapid-Flyer.com is the first 100% online printing house in France. <strong>Nowadays, Rapid-Flyer.com is a part of the Techniphoto Group, a leader in offset printing in the north of France with over 50 years of printing experience.<\/strong> They offer from standard formats to fully customized projects and aim to conquer the online printing sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s more, RF needed one technology stack for multiple business units of the Techniphoto Group consisting of 6 printing houses. Each of them has their own back-end system. After a series of consultations with different digital agencies, they came to the conclusion that <strong>the most optimal solution was to go with a headless solution and connect all of the back ends within a single ERP. Additionally, the ERP system should be integrated with one e-commerce platform with a single front end<\/strong>. The fact they were already built on Symfony gave Sylius the obvious advantage to become the one e-commerce platform \u201cto rule them all\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the initial experience with an e-commerce platform built by an agency, <strong>they decided to move towards an in-house team and a transformation to a tech company<\/strong>, which we always support. Currently, the Rapid Flyer team consists of 5 developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two years ago the company was joined by a new CTO &#8211; Eric Geloen who knew exactly what to do about this, and how to lead the true digital transformation that will be efficient for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Sylius e-commerce platform?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>For the last four years, Rapid Flyer based their e-commerce operations on PrestaShop, nevertheless it turned out to be a bit of an unfortunate choice. The particularity of their business solution and offer called for personalisation in elements not foreseen to be customized by the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key elements of every online store: checkout, catalog, product configuration are custom-built and <strong>it would be very complicated-slash-impossible to bend the implemented logic to PrestaShop<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it is never comfortable to wear not your pair of shoes, eventually Rapid Flyer went for a solution providing endless customization options with the composable architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n    <blockquote class=\"quote  \" style=\"\">\n            <div class=\"quote-mark\"><\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"quote-body\">\n                    <div >\n                <!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em>Regarding the platform, our <strong>choice was directed towards Sylius, because we wanted a scalable tool that allows us to choose our weapons.<\/strong> A formatted environment like that of PrestaShop or Magento has advantages (many modules available, a well-developed ecosystem), but with Sylius, we have control over everything, even at the heart of the machine.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em>What seduced us is their technology and their way of working. The technical environment is interesting for developers, it allows us to attract talented profiles and create internal emulation.<\/em> <\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Thomas Redregoo, Rapid Flyer Ecommerce Manager<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n\n    <footer class=\"quote-footer\">\n                <div>\n                        <div >\n                \n            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n    <\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Architecture overview of the ecommerce platform <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><meta charset=\"utf-8\">With high expectations regarding market position, Rapid Flyer needed a platform that was able to ever catch up with the fast-paced world.<\/p>\n\n\n    <blockquote class=\"quote  \" style=\"\">\n            <div class=\"quote-mark\"><\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"quote-body\">\n                    <div >\n                <!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em>We did comparison of various platforms like PrestaShop, Magento, Shopify &#8211; we chose a solution perfectly-fitted for our business size and growing ambitions. <strong>We didn\u2019t need a shining corporate or marketing solution, we needed a strong back-end solution.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p>Nicolas Mathieu, Rapid Flyer CEO<\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n\n    <footer class=\"quote-footer\">\n                <div>\n                        <div >\n                \n            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n    <\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hosting optimizations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s start with hosting as it turns out to be tricky in the printing business. Why? If you have ever printed a professional material, you may get the idea, but just in case you haven\u2019t &#8211;&nbsp; the files prepared for print tend to be \u201cheavy\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this case the RF team had to think the final solution well in order not to underestimate the tera-fying amount of data. They decided to choose a local supplier, <strong>Scalair<\/strong>, that supports their app orchestration with <strong>Kubernetes<\/strong>. What is truly beneficial is that K8s allowed them to go for a fixed hosting price &#8211; again, a must-have for this kind of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apart from the money-saving aspect, K8s provides better performance (let\u2019s cut down those abstraction layers!) by adding HAProxy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>Headless<\/em> in a live implementation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As already mentioned, Rapid Flyer is an example of <strong>a perfect best-of-breed headless implementation<\/strong>. Each application or service in their digital landscape is hosted on a <strong>separate Docker container<\/strong>, further grouped in independent clusters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the frontend, the team decided to use <strong>React and NextJs<\/strong> front-end framework working on Redux-Saga containers to provide best possible performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"621\" src=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/rapid-flyer-1024x621.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14677\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/rapid-flyer-1024x621.png 1024w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/rapid-flyer-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/rapid-flyer-768x466.png 768w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/rapid-flyer.png 1127w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The front part of the store communicates with the Sylius-based back end via classic HTTPS API calls, whereas <strong>RabbitMQ<\/strong> &#8211; the most popular open source message broker and the default protocol for Sylius, &#8222;talks&#8220; to the custom-built ERP and a few middleware Symfony-based applications that facilitate external services necessary to manage the online printing logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for CMS, Rapid Flyer decided to use the <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/monsieurbiz\/SyliusRichEditorPlugin\">SyliusRichEditor plugin<\/a> within the e-commerce part of the website and implemented <strong>WordPress<\/strong> for the blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The famous customer service software <strong>Zendesk<\/strong> and <strong>Verified Reviews<\/strong> ensures full customer satisfaction by displaying honest opinions and scores from customers. They get their packages via <strong>Chronopost<\/strong> &#8211; the French market standard shipping provider, but more carriers will come for sure.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n            <div class=\"bg bg--center-top p-5 text-center rounded\" style=\"z-index: 1\">\n            <div class=\"section-group my-3\">\n                                    <div class=\"section--sm\">\n                        <div class=\"h1 mb-0 text-inv-lead\">Would you like to go headless?<\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n                \n                \n                                    <div class=\"section--sm\">\n                                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/contact\" target=\"\" id=\"\" class=\"btn btn-light mx-2 mb-2\">Give us a call!<\/a>\n                                                                    <\/div>\n                            <\/div>\n                        \n        <svg class=\" bg-svg\" style=\"background: linear-gradient(28.6deg, #1F776D -10.33%, #22B99A 89.35%);top: -300px; width: 1920px; height: 1807px\">\n        <use xlink:href=\"#bg--bg-green-blob\"><\/use>\n    <\/svg>\n\n\n        <\/div>\n    \n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">OK, but where does the money flow?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Time for the most crucial part of every online business &#8211; the money flow. When evaluating available Payment Service Provider (PSP) integrations in the Sylius Store, <strong>the RF team knew that 95% of their clients finalize their transactions with a bank card. Then they discovered the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.sylius.com\/products\/payplug-payments-by-payplug\">PayPlug plugin<\/a> and decided to become its first early adopter due to PayPlug\u2019s attractive rates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sylius and PayPlug announced signing a partnership earlier in 2021 and what followed was a modern integration delivery by our Leading French Solution Partner &#8211; Synolia. You can read the whole story and why it\u2019s worth giving it a try <a href=\"https:\/\/www.payplug.com\/fr\/blog\/plateforme-ecommerce\/sylius-avis\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.payplug.com\/fr\/blog\/rapid-flyer-experience-utilisateur-sylius-payplug\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<br>RF has also added another payment option from our Technology Partners portfolio, a very powerful and well-known player &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/partner\/paypal\/\"><strong>PayPal<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Flawless UX<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>From the very beginning, user experience has been at the top of their platform\u2019s must-haves, just have a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avis-verifies.com\/avis-clients\/rapid-flyer.com\">the customer reviews<\/a> they receive:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"999\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-6-o-09.16.33.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14570\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-6-o-09.16.33.png 999w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-6-o-09.16.33-300x112.png 300w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-6-o-09.16.33-768x288.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px\" \/><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.avis-verifies.com\/avis-clients\/rapid-flyer.com\">via Avis V\u00e9rifi\u00e9s<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With this in mind, they knew the competition was not sleeping and in order to keep thriving in the market they needed a robust refresh of their platform.It required a lot of personalized components to smoothly lead the customer through the ordering process to allow them to get a product perfectly tailored to their needs within seconds, not minutes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"527\" src=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.17.06-1-1024x527.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14616\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.17.06-1-1024x527.png 1024w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.17.06-1-300x154.png 300w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.17.06-1-768x395.png 768w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.17.06-1.png 1439w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>Step-by-step, clear customer journey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.18.17-1024x391.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14621\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.18.17-1024x391.png 1024w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.18.17-300x115.png 300w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.18.17-768x293.png 768w, https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-11-1-o-16.18.17.png 1435w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>Checkout<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What are the benefits of having Sylius<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Rapid Flyer\u2019s team confirms <strong>all the e-commerce KPIs have gotten better than before, with almost 16% bounce rate decrease and nearly 28% conversion rate rise<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Comparing post-MVP (since May 2021) period to 2019, the basic metrics from Google Analytics do look promising:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n    <div class=\"row no-gutters bg-primary rounded\">\n                    <div class=\"col-12 col-md-6 col-lg-4\">\n                <div class=\"text-center p-5 text-white\" 1>\n                    <div class=\"h1 mb-2 text-white\">-15,94%<\/div>\n                    <div class=\"\">Bounce Rate<\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"col-12 col-md-6 col-lg-4\">\n                <div class=\"text-center p-5 text-white\" style=\"background:rgba(255,255,255,0.1)\">\n                    <div class=\"h1 mb-2 text-white\">+29,66%<\/div>\n                    <div class=\"\">Avg. Time on Page<\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"col-12 col-md-6 col-lg-4\">\n                <div class=\"text-center p-5 text-white\" 1>\n                    <div class=\"h1 mb-2 text-white\">+27,75%<\/div>\n                    <div class=\"\">Ecommerce conversion<\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>However, <\/strong>Sylius&#8216; benefits are usually not obvious at first glance for business stakeholders. The ones who truly appreciate our platform are tech people &#8211; because i<strong>t\u2019s all about the developer experience, clean codebase, and providing software that is pleasant to work with. This leads to better business results, i.e. &#8211; faster time2market, reliability and the general happiness of your employees<\/strong> that can work with a tool they enjoy and that simply works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But let\u2019s give voice to Rapid Flyer\u2019s CTO &#8211; Eric Geloen. What does the mastermind behind this tough digital transformation process say?<\/p>\n\n\n    <blockquote class=\"quote  \" style=\"\">\n            <div class=\"quote-mark\"><\/div>\n    \n    <div class=\"quote-body\">\n                    <div >\n                <!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em><strong>Adoption of Sylius in my team was super easy.<\/strong> We knew Symfony and that made Sylius extremely easy to learn, which eventually transferred to the faster time2market.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em>I especially like the modularity and customizability &#8211; <strong>our development team can change literally ANYTHING.<\/strong> Thanks to the Single Responsibility Principle, every feature in the system is not tightened to the other. What is more, <strong>a strong test-suite (TDD) makes the system extremely reliable<\/strong>. When something is broken, you know where it is and can fix it quickly without breaking other parts of the platform.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --> \r\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\r\n<p><em>Overall, <strong>code quality was one of the biggest factors of our next e-commerce platform choice and time has proven it was right.<\/strong> From the first moment it was a long-term strategy, so I knew I was betting on something that would work for years.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\r\n\n            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n\n    <footer class=\"quote-footer\">\n                <div>\n                        <div >\n                \n            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n    <\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Afterword <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As you may see, the more custom challenges, the better for Sylius. And web2print is all about that &#8211; advanced product configurators, dynamic price calculators, personalised buyer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you like this story and would like to experience the same &#8211; contact us and let\u2019s discuss how Sylius could help your business.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":14672,"menu_order":0,"template":"","case-studies-category":[18],"case-studies-product":[314],"case-studies-tag":[221,222,20],"country":[8],"class_list":["post-14569","case-study","type-case-study","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","case-studies-category-print","case-studies-product-standard","case-studies-tag-b2b","case-studies-tag-b2c","case-studies-tag-headless","country-france"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54.png",1436,729,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54-300x152.png",300,152,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54-768x390.png",768,390,true],"large":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54-1024x520.png",1024,520,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54.png",1436,729,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/sylius.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Zrzut-ekranu-2021-12-14-o-20.26.54.png",1436,729,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"sylius","author_link":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/author\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case-study\/14569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case-study"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/case-study"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"case-studies-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case-studies-category?post=14569"},{"taxonomy":"case-studies-product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case-studies-product?post=14569"},{"taxonomy":"case-studies-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/case-studies-tag?post=14569"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sylius.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=14569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}