Revolutionising flooring commerce with improved user experience and operational efficiency.

About the Client

Polyflor are renowned flooring manufacturers, providing high-quality floor coverings to commercial and residential clients internationally. 

Since 1915, Polyflor has provided a customer-focused service for healthcare organisations, educational institutions, upmarket retail outlets, and even family homes. 

They pride themselves on taking the time to understand their customers’ requirements to match them with an ideal flooring solution. 

Business Challenge

Polyflor wanted to expand their client base in the UK, whilst building a solid foundation for international expansion. Before embarking on a transformation of their digital platform, they needed to come to a consensus regarding a few major questions:

  • Should we merge the commercial and residential flooring websites?
  • Will international users understand our product offering in their country?
  • Is the existing purchase journey optimised for our customers?
  • Can we improve efficiency across product management and fulfilment? 

Alongside the Polyflor team, we embarked on an in-depth Discovery and Definition project. Through detailed research, we aimed to answer these questions and to define an ideal digital solution.

Discovery

Polyflor’s products are highly specialised and most often sold to industry experts. Because of this, we wanted to dedicate the time to understanding the core of the business so that the finished site would do justice to the specialist product offering.

Our discovery process involved some of the team undertaking onsite training at one of Polyflor’s warehouses. Polyflor’s experts led us through product familiarisation and helped to immerse our digital team in the everyday workings of the flooring manufacturers. We saw firsthand and learned about the product types offered by Polyflor. 

This onsite induction helped us to understand the industry-specific terminology that we needed to incorporate into our research and designs.

We compounded our specific knowledge of Polyflor’s company with a detailed analysis of competitors in the industry. Not only did we want to learn about the products themselves, but we planned to outperform the user experience that customers had learned to expect within this industry.

 

User Research

Before we could merge the two Polyflor sites, we needed to understand the primary users of each domain. 

In combining both commercial and residential user journeys, we needed to meet current users’ expectations and minimise any friction caused by the site migration.

We assessed the level of technical information that each audience type sought before making an informed purchase decision. We analysed users’ interest in news, online case studies and Polyflor product pages. We also reviewed users’ engagement with certain search filters and with sector-specific content. 

We found that commercial users most often opted to read Polyflor news and case studies, but they would defer to telephone contact to place a direct order. 

Comparatively, residential and new users spent more time reading product specifications and informative content about use cases to help them decide between similar products. 

To translate our research and data analysis into a digestible and useful format, we created User Personas for each audience type. These character profiles detail the desires and frustrations of each user group to enable Polyflor to help its customers.

From this, the two websites were migrated into a single site which seamlessly incorporates both the Residential and Commercial aspects of Polyflor’s offerings. The new single site has a clearly defined user journey for each of the different user personas.

Product Information Management (PIM) Integration

Polyflor’s catalogue of products contains a vast quantity of technical specifications and industry terminology. Each product also has multiple augmentations and views. Maintaining this level of variation and specificity required labour-intensive management.

To simplify content management of the product listings, we implemented an industry-leading Product Information Management system (PIM), called Akeneo. 

This PIM system enables Polyflor’s product managers to control pricing, imagery and product specifications from a central system. Using Akeneo, Polyflor’s team only needs to update a product listing once, and the new data will automatically appear across all instances of that product. Not only does this system improve efficiency, but it also ensures accurate product details for those commercial clients who must comply with legal specifications. 

Multisite Setup

The site has been developed with multisite in mind, which allows easy enterprise rollout of the solution across localised sites, creating a consistent look and feel to the sites across the globe. Some configurations have been added to allow for slight variations to the site as required from different countries.

The setup of a multisite allows for many advantages, some of which are:

Cost-Efficiency & Ease of Updating:

With a shared codebase, you only need to maintain and update the site once for changes to be replicated across all sites. Reduction in the overall hosting and maintenance costs compared to managing separate codebases for each site.

Centralised Management:

Administrative tasks, such as user management, content configuration, and theme settings, can be centralised, making it easier to maintain and manage multiple sites from a single location.

Consistency:

Because the sites share the same codebase, it's easier to maintain design and functionality consistency across all sites. You can use the same themes, templates, and modules to ensure a unified user experience.

Seamless Sample Ordering

Polyflor has a diverse customer base, which includes both loyal 'power users' familiar with the existing commercial purchasing process and new residential users with distinct requirements. 

The objective was to enhance the user experience without alienating the loyal customer segment.

Recognising the value of ‘power users’ and their proficiency in the existing commercial purchasing journey, the strategy aimed to maintain their seamless ordering process. However, it was evident that applying this process to residential users, who spent more time exploring product details and carefully selecting samples, would be unsustainable.

To address this, a solution was devised by creating two distinct paths within the consolidated Polyflor platform. Both user groups started their journey on the same homepage but were guided towards different pages using key identifiers. 

Unfamiliar customers, including residential users, were directed along a more comprehensive and contemplative route through the website. In contrast, 'power users' were provided with the option of a shorter, direct path to the familiar 'instant sampling' feature.

The alternative purchasing journey for new and residential users was designed to prioritise product descriptors and simplify the process of finding the right products. 

Importantly, throughout both purchase journeys, strategic signposts were integrated to ensure users always knew whether they were on the correct section of the website for their specific needs. This approach successfully catered to the distinct requirements of Polyflor's customer segments, enhancing the overall user experience and creating a simple and effective sample ordering process which provides the level of detail related to the product that the user persona requires.

eCommerce Integration

Drupal is exceptionally versatile when it comes to integrating with external tools and services. This is due to its robust architecture and extensive ecosystem of modules and APIs we can seamlessly connect with third-party applications, services, and data sources.

In addition to integrating with the Akeneo Product Information Management system (PIM) the site has an integration with another external tool called ‘Roomvo’.

The “Roomvo” visualisation integration allows customers to take an image of their own room or use a templated generic room image and see what different products look like in situ. 

This process is all undertaken in the Polyflor site with an option for an interchangeable side-by-side comparison of products. A call to action to order samples is clearly available, as well as links to save and share.

The ‘Roomvo’ visualisation tool ensures that the customer has everything they need to make an informed choice when using the sample service offered by Polyflor.

Content Sharing

We have implemented content-sharing functionality on the site with the use of Drupal-contributed modules.

Site editors are empowered to easily share content across multiple sites; as a result, content can be consistently and efficiently distributed, enhancing the user experience across all of the Polyflor sites.

Results

Polyflor's digital transformation substantially improved user experience and operational efficiency. Through extensive discovery and user research, we merged commercial and residential websites into a cohesive platform catering to diverse audience needs.

Integration of the Akeneo PIM system streamlined product management, ensuring accuracy and consistency across listings. A multisite setup facilitated cost-effective rollout and centralised management across global markets. Two-tiered sample ordering paths tailored to 'power users' and new customers improved satisfaction.

External integrations, including Roomvo visualisation, enriched the user experience, aiding informed decision-making. Content-sharing functionality enhanced consistency and efficiency across multiple sites. 


Overall, the collaborative effort resulted in a comprehensive digital solution, positioning Polyflor for scalable growth and continued success in the competitive flooring industry.