B2B On The Digital Rise – SLV Wins Shop Usability Award 2019

In mid-October, one of the most important awards in e-commerce, the Shop Usability Award, was presented in Munich. We are incredibly proud that our client SLV has prevailed in the category »B2B« and warmly congratulate them on this well-deserved success. It shows once again that an outstanding user experience is not a question of industry and that the investment in the design of digital customer relationships pays off.

B2B Pioneer SLV Impresses With User Experience

Besides SLV, more than 500 shops in 29 categories applied for the award for the perfect user experience. For the first time in the history of the award ceremony, only shops which had previously faced the judgement of more than 2000 neutral UX experts, web designers and e-commerce experts from the UX design community platform »UXme.io« were nominated for the twelfth edition of the Shop Usability Award.

This innovation shows that designing an ideal user experience is far more than just the mere product range or the best price. It’s the whole package that has to impress. Following the preselection, a high-profile jury, consisting of the best-known e-commerce experts and representatives of the most important shop systems, decided which company possesses this whole package.

» The industry of lighting manufacturers is only at the beginning of its digital journey. B2C players and large corporations currently lead the industry while numerous small and medium-sized manufacturers often have not yet recognised the necessity of an online shop. Therefore, we are particularly delighted that SLV sets a good example and was presented with the Shop Usability Award. The award also encourages us as an agency that our user-oriented strategy is very well received and motivates us to develop it further. «

remarks Christian Grötsch, founder and managing director at dotSource.

B2B between tradition and modernity

SLV is among the market leaders in the field of innovative lighting systems. For 40 years, the company from North Rhine-Westphalia has developed lighting solutions for living and exterior spaces, for offices, for trade fair construction and shop fitting as well as for restaurants.
Like many of its industry colleagues, SLV relied on print media for a long time to sell products to (potential) customers. It is no secret that purchasing behaviour, demands, channels and touchpoints have changed considerably over the past years. SLV therefore decided to invest in its web presence – investments in the expansion of user experience in terms of content and design to be exact. In close cooperation with SLV, dotSource quickly managed to implement both criteria on central pages of the web presence.

This is literally a win-win for SLV GmbH and its customers because the optimisation of the customer journey is not only an enormously important benefit for users, but was now also officially presented with the award for the best shop usability.

B2B shines bright in digital commerce

For the expansion of its web presence, SLV expected a modern Look & Feel which should be used to display personalised content and to increase the brand awareness.

In preparation of the design relaunch, a modern interaction and screen design, UI elements as well as recommendations for a modern typography were on the agenda. In close cooperation, dotSource and SLV redesigned central elements of the shop and elements such as product tiles, topic teasers as well as the button concept.

The result is something to be proud of because the new web presence not only reflects the warmth and positivity of light, but also displays via high-resolution product presentations that the products are high-quality with timeless design and will fulfil their function for many years to come.

In the SLV case study, we show how the lighting manufacturer managed to meet the demands regarding a first-class user experience in the long term by using a modern content commerce strategy and the conception of a design that is fit for the future.

Learn more about how the B2B online shop turned into a performant protoype including a target-group-oriented content concept and how this set the course for a user-oriented content commerce platform that is fit for the future. Exclusively for retailers, manufacturers and publishers, the case study can be downloaded for free here.