The Challenge
First Choice Catering came to Yoma to create a new transactional website that provided their customers with full access to their catalogue of spares and catering equipment products.
Their site needed to make more than 750,000 products from thousands of manufacturers easily accessible. The company had also recently improved their warehouse logistics, aimed at reducing kitchen downtime and the new eCommerce solution had to be able to integrate with this.
In the foodservice industry, having functional equipment is business-critical and being able to order quickly and efficiently is vital.
That’s why it was imperative that First Choice Catering could provide their trade customers with a slick, intuitive experience on any new platform.
This meant offering real-time available inventory visibility, reduced search, a frictionless ordering process and enhanced order tracking.
First Choice needed a B2B online platform that was fully future-proof and could keep up with market demand. The solution had to make customer functionality paramount and deliver exceptional self-service features and enhanced personalisation to meet the exceptional demands of their customers.
The Business
First Choice Catering is the UK’s leading provider of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) commercial catering equipment, spare parts and accessories.
For over 20 years, the company has provided parts solutions for commercial catering, bakery, refrigeration and laundry equipment. Even though they are the number one parts supplier in the commercial catering industry, the company is not content to rest on its laurels. It is continually looking to drive innovation and enhance its digital platforms.
When it was acquired by PT Holdings LLC (the parent company of Parts Town) in 2017, First Choice Group was able to expand its offering and realise their digital ambitions with the support of Yoma.
Building a Magento 2 store tightly integrated with Epicor ERP
Our Approach
Yoma worked with First Choice Catering to create a comprehensive strategy for the project, one that ensured we had a complete understanding of their multiple user journeys.
To ensure seamless integration between their back-end operations and the store, we recommended an Epicor ERP integration with Epicor eCommerce Connect (ECC).
ECC offers feature-rich functionality and advanced commerce capabilities, and also works in partnership with Magento – the world’s leading eCommerce platform. We’ve been delivering ECC since 2016 and are Epicor’s only UK partner, so we were well placed to lead this project.
By using Magento 2, First Choice Catering would benefit from a powerful, customisable platform with limitless scalability. As Magento experts, our team were able to create custom elements that directly matched their trade customers’ behaviours and demands.
We delivered the Magento 2 site with functionality that transformed the customer’s experience and delivered better interaction, increased accessibility and personalisation features that delivered the ‘slick experience’ that First Choice Catering wanted for its customers.
Interaction
A key requirement for their customers was developing a UX strategy that enabled users to search First Choice Catering’s massive inventory in ways that were intuitive to them.
Our solution was to enhance their current inventory with detailed part information, 360° part photos, manuals and equipment diagrams. We complemented that with advanced search and filter functionality. We even enabled links to associated parts to speed up the ordering process further.
Accessibility
Another important requirement for their customers was in providing total order transparency.
With Magento and ECC, customers are able to get full visibility on order statuses and order tracking. We also added a full view of their account history, order archive and invoice management, which meant First Choice Customers were provided with a completely comprehensive view of their account.
Personalisation
We further enhanced the user’s journey with personalisation features such as the ability to create favourite products and see orders made by other employees in a dedicated Customer Connect area.
Our solution also factored in multi-level customer credit limits and discount groups that were updated in real-time.
The Results
Yoma successfully delivered the full end to end management of First Choice Catering’s B2B eCommerce operations.
The smooth transition was carefully managed and supported throughout to ensure that both the client and their customers embraced the new transactional website.
“Over the last two years, we have been working collaboratively with Yoma to achieve our vision – to create an intuitive website, that not only enables our existing customers to find parts efficiently and easily, but also open us up to potential new customers.
Since the launch of our new website, we have already started to realise the benefits and seen an increase in our B2C market share. ”
“Over the last two years, we have been working collaboratively with Yoma to achieve our vision – to create an intuitive website, that not only enables our existing customers to find parts efficiently and easily, but also open us up to potential new customers.
Since the launch of our new website, we have already started to realise the benefits and seen an increase in our B2C market share. ”
James Rostron – Head of Technology First Choice Catering
