E-Food in Times of Corona: The bofrost* Online Shop Is Booming [Success Story]

It does not happen all that often these days that the doorbell rings. No one comes around spontaneously anymore, and anyone doing so would make himself liable to prosecution – or at least look suspicious: the coronavirus (COVID-19) has a tight grip on the world. Habits are changing: we buy more toilet paper and less clothes. Those who can, work from home, not from the office. We eat home-cooked food instead of eating in the bistro of our choice.

Or we opt for ready-made meals. They can even be healthy and delicious, and this allows us to tell success stories from the business world, even in times of the coronavirus. One of these stories is about bofrost*, Europe’s largest direct distributor of frozen foods, whose business is currently booming.

Find out in our »dotSource Relaunches bofrost* Online Shop with Inclusive Design« success story what this has to do with dotSource and why particularly older people and people with impairments benefit from new technologies during the Corona crisis.

E-Food Revisited: Relaunch with SAP Commerce

Founded in 1966 in the Lower Rhine region, bofrost* has already been delivering frozen foods directly to people’s homes for more than half a century. Those who grew up in rural areas of West Germany before 1989 may remember how grandma used to choose products from the catalogue with pen and paper: »Fürst Pückler Eistorte« (Neapolitan ice cream cake) with strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream; duchess potatoes – the names alone conveyed the message of treating yourself royally. At a fixed date that was noted in the kitchen calendar, the good-humoured bofrost* home delivery driver came around and delivered the goods that had previously been ordered via telephone.

Even today, customers of bofrost* can still order products via catalogue and telephone. However, they can also place their orders via an online shop. bofrost* approached dotSource with the request to modernise this online shop. Besides modernising the shop’s technical infrastructure based on SAP Commerce, bofrost* primarily wanted to reduce page load times and thus make the shop more mobile-friendly. Furthermore, bofrost* planned to optimise and expand existing features. During the Corona crisis, this is really paying off.

Thanks to optimised search filters, certain ingredients and allergens can be excluded. This way, customers can make absolutely sure that they can eat the ordered products without any problems. In addition to many other features, both the »Rezeptwelt« (recipe world) and the page flip catalogues were integrated into the online shop using modern content management solutions.

E-Food and Inclusive Design for Special Customers

With the relaunch of the online shop and the corresponding redesign, bofrost* offers its customers a modern shopping experience. It is a special feature of the online shop that its design is exceptionally inclusive. This means that as many users as possible can experience a perfect customer journey and – even in difficult times – do not have to forgo healthy culinary pleasure.

The online shop’s inclusive design is reflected in texts that are deliberately written in easy-to-understand language and in specific instructions in the code for screen readers, a tool for visually impaired and blind people. They can also navigate through the online shop with ease and order their favourite dishes.

dotSource took over both the concept creation and implementation of the new design. bofrost* tested the prototype via eye tracking and usability tests before the new design was launched across all channels to ensure a uniform brand presence.

Another important aspect was the optimisation of the online shop for mobile devices. Thanks to the measures carried out by dotSource, bofrost* can now be found more easily by search engines and records significantly more traffic than before the relaunch.

E-Food with Payment upon Delivery

If the Corona crisis and the associated restrictions continue into the warm season, frozen foods will play a significant rule in the supply of people, especially in rural areas where it sometimes takes half an hour to drive to the nearest supermarket.

As part of the relaunch, bofrost* decided to stick to the payment method that today’s heavy online shoppers still know from when they were young: payment is only made upon delivery by the bofrost* driver. This distinguishes the bofrost* shop and had to be taken account in terms of user guidance.

However, today’s heavy online shoppers also remember the advantages of this payment method: it is easy to add something else to your order. And who would be able to resist the temptation of buying »Eiskonfekt« (ice cups) in memory of grandma, especially in times of bad news and social distancing?

Find out in our success story how bofrost* has set up its online shop in a modern and crisis-proof way.