Press Release
Together with the digital agency dotSource, myAGRAR is working on the implementation of a future-proof and powerful online shop. Not only was the old shop software replaced with the latest Magento Commerce version, but the existing system landscape was also connected via newly developed interfaces. In addition, consulting and support in the areas of digital marketing and UX design ensure a high level of user-friendliness and customer satisfaction.
For a long time, it was a question of region where farmers got their supplies from: large, formerly cooperative associations used to split up the German-speaking market between them. Digitisation in general and the success of e-commerce in particular have changed this. Nowadays, anyone can order (almost) anything online. myAGRAR is part of AgrarOnline GmbH and thus a subsidiary of the tradition-steeped ATR Landhandel group. Since 2017, the company from Northern Germany has been offering an e-commerce platform where customers can choose and order from a wide range of crop protection products, agricultural technology and animal feed as well as fertilisers, seeds and workwear. ATR Landhandel has been supplying farmers in Northern Germany, Denmark and Poland for around 100 years.
Due to the increasing requirements, myAGRAR’s existing e-commerce system quickly reached its limits. For this reason, the company commissioned the digital agency dotSource to conduct a system evaluation to find out which e-commerce solution offers the most suitable features for the online shop’s requirements.
Future-Proof Online Shop with Powerful E-Commerce Software
With Magento Commerce, myAGRAR opted for a modern and flexible e-commerce platform so that it would also be possible to create a separate online shop for the parent company ATR Landhandel in the future.
The architecture of the shop is unique: the e-commerce solution Magento with multi-client capability was set up with a uniform source codebase but is actually operated via separate systems for the different online shops. The architecture offers synergies in development while remaining independent of the other systems.
However, myAGRAR did not just opt for Magento Commerce as its e-commerce system, but specifically for version 2.4 – the latest version available on the market, thus reducing future migration effort. It was also certain that Microsoft Azure would be the cloud service provider, as myAGRAR had already worked successfully with Microsoft as a provider and values the full customer control that the Azure environment offers as a private cloud.
Connection of the System Landscape via Newly Developed Interfaces
However, an online shop is only as efficient as its integration into the existing system landscape. This is why it was also necessary to connect the existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as the main reference system to the new e-commerce software. The hierarchies of the data flow were to be considered separately during the development. dotSource developed the interfaces in such a way that allows the systems to communicate with each other in the desired way. Moreover, the digital agency managed to overcome the challenge of connecting two different product data structures with each other while taking role and authorisation management into account. Besides the ERP solution, the customer relationship management (CRM) system and Salesforce Pardot as the marketing automation tool were also connected to the new Magento Commerce version via interfaces in line with the requirements of myAGRAR.
An extensive system migration like this one inevitably involves changes to SEO-relevant structures as well. In order to ensure that the shop continues to be highly visible, achieve optimal rankings and offer a high level of user-friendliness, the development team worked closely with the digital marketing team of dotSource. This meant that the implementation of the new e-commerce system was accompanied professionally and myAGRAR was ideally supported when it came to connecting Google Tag Manager. The user experience design team of dotSource was also involved in the project and advises the company on experience and conversion rate optimisation.
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