Modern digital strategy for fair fashion pioneer hessnatur

Jena/Butzbach – Together with its long-standing digitalisation partner dotSource, hessnatur implemented a new content management system (CMS) and can now provide information on its sustainable fashion even faster and more accurately. In conjunction with a powerful e-commerce solution from SAP, this progressive digitalisation strategy provides the long-established company with excellent prospects for the future.

hessnatur is not just a pioneer in the field of sustainable fashion. The long-established company's digitalisation strategy is also impressive: The migration of its online shop in combination with the increased demand for e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a record-breaking 45 per cent increase in online sales in the 2020/2021 financial year. Furthermore, this online shop was recognised with the German Brand Award 2022.

CMS Migration for Content Commerce in the Fair Fashion Industry

The next step on hessnatur's digitalisation roadmap was the implementation of a new CMS. In the fair fashion industry, the close interlinking of products and content is particularly important, as customers are prepared to pay a higher price if they know where a product comes from and how it was produced. This combination of shopping and informative content as part of an online landscape is often referred to as »content commerce«. A CMS offers greater flexibility for structuring a website's content and can therefore ideally support the presentation of products – especially if these products have a story to tell, as is the case with hessnatur.

The sustainable fashion brand opted for Storyblok as its modern CMS – a headless solution that can easily be integrated with existing systems and quickly distributes content across various channels. Thanks to the close collaboration between dotSource and hessnatur, it was possible to swiftly integrate Storyblok with the e-commerce system from SAP and the intelligent search tool from Algolia.

Improved Results in the Back and Front End Thanks to Storyblok's CMS

This means that hessnatur can now offer its customers an even better online shopping experience. »The mobile-optimised pages and the system's headless approach will make our e-commerce division even more future-proof and enable us to respond to our customers' requirements even better,« Kathrin Schneider, Product Owner at hessnatur, explains.

In addition to the high-quality content that is displayed across all channels, the performance of the shop pages was significantly improved. Even in areas with poor reception, there are hardly any waiting times. In the back end, the new system offers a convenient author experience and features the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) provided by the translation service DeepL. This way, content can be managed much more efficiently, reducing the workload of hessnatur employees.

In the further course of this project, dotSource will support hessnatur in optimising its product detail pages and the checkout process.