With an impressive track record of delivering choice gifts and traditional Christmas gifts, Feelingz has provided memorable gifts to more than half a million employees in recent years. The company works with vouchers and codes that employees can redeem for gifts throughout the year with the possibility to earn points for more expensive gifts. The company wanted to upgrade the personalized gift experience with all the features of a modern webshop to bring the customer experience to a higher level.

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Feelingz was looking for a replacement for their current custom software that no longer met the modern requirements of the online retail world. “We use a fully customized application, developed to seamlessly integrate with our business processes,” says Arjan Lagerwaard, commercial manager and co-owner of Feelingz. “The application is not out of date, but we were looking for a reliable platform that would allow us to continue to grow over the next seven years. For example, the limited possibilities to generate and modify reports quickly and flexibly were a bottleneck. It is essential to be able to quickly see which knife set is running well. That's useful to me as a retailer, but especially to the customer. In addition, the new platform also had to be flexible, because Feelingz does not have a standard webshop. Even though customers can't spend the codes on their vouchers anywhere else, we at Feelingz want to provide an optimal experience when selecting something nice as a gift. This includes simple filtering, creating a wish list, getting relevant gift suggestions and being able to choose delivery options.”

Selection process

BCE helped Feelingz draw up a shortlist of potential software vendors and the advisor weighed the pros and cons of various methods and solutions. On the one hand, the development of a new high-code application was one of the choices. This option failed to prevent existing issues related to custom software in the future. On the other hand, a standard SaaS solution was also considered. Given the size of Feelingz and the absence of an extensive IT department, the company was looking for a middle ground between package software and customized solutions.

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The choice ultimately fell on Novulo's application composition platform, in collaboration with Retailstars, for the implementation, mainly because of the flexibility that the composable commerce method offers. “There is an optimal balance between standard components and the ability to supplement them with configuration and modeling of company-specific processes,” Lagerwaard continues. “The realization of our new application is like explaining a stack of rails that are already ready. All we have to do is tick the required retail components, even though we work with customer vouchers. We have the freedom to decide only here and there whether to go left or right. That makes the realization of the new application an efficient and pleasant process.”

Composable commerce objectives

Another important factor in the choice was that Retailstars was able to start implementing the new application immediately in the second week of January in order to be ready in time for the seasonal peak at the end of the year. The process started with intensive development sprints to set up the backend in the form of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), so that company-specific processes such as working with customer vouchers, a separate portal per company so that employees see a welcome text relevant to them, and gift packaging are supported. In the project, Retailstars and Feelingz are now working out the front end in two weekly sprints. The aim is to go live with the new application in July, so that Feelingz is fully prepared in time for the busy peak season of the holiday season.

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With the implementation of the new system, Feelingz strives for an improved user experience, measured by Google Reviews. The goal is to achieve at least a 4.5 score for customer satisfaction. In addition, the company wants to reduce the number of customer interactions via chat, phone and email below 1% by improving the customer experience and better supporting self-service in the webshop. In a next step, Feelingz also wants to include the financial administration and the CRM system in the Novulo application. Because Novulo is an integrated system, extensions such as the accounting system and CRM fall under the same license. It is a good example of how Feelingz combines the ambition to innovate and grow with the help of the Novulo platform with the switch to a more efficient way of working.

Conclusion

Feelingz's choice for Novulo's composable commerce shows a strategic vision for growth and innovation that takes optimal account of the dynamic requirements of the B2B corporate gift market. The new Novulo application not only offers an improved experience to 100,000 employees, but also positions Feelingz as a forerunner in the adoption of technology that takes adaptability, efficiency and customer satisfaction to a higher level.

Discover the secret behind Feelingz's explosive growth and take the step towards a future-proof retail strategy with composable commerce today.