Redesigned megastore webshop for Coppens Warenhuis
Customised webshop with POS integration and fast search function for more than 100k items.
Coppens Warenhuis, based in Volkel, North Brabant, has been a household name in the surrounding area for over 50 years and a WHITE client since 2013. Over the course of three generations, the family business has built up a large and varied product range in the fields of home interiors, furnishings, decoration, garden furniture, toys, party items and much more. With a complete webshop redesign, WHITE recently brought the company's online shop completely up to date.
The start of a strong relationship: the first webshop
“It's hard to believe now, but until about a decade ago, you could only shop with us in our 10,000 m² physical shop. It wasn't until 2012 that we decided to develop a webshop as well,” John Coppens Sr. recalls. “The choice for WHITE was easily made: at the time, we felt an immediate click with them, they offered the most technical options and we were given clear explanations. Since then, our department store has also had an easy-to-find, attractive and user-friendly webshop with a total of 100,000 items divided into all kinds of product categories - from party items to garden furniture and toys.”
Reliable partner
John Sr. appreciates several of WHITE's qualities as a partner for the webshop. “I really like the approachable method of communication. No matter how technical the topic, I understand everything they explain to us. WHITE is also a reliable partner. I know they are always on stand-by and that any problems that arise will be solved. For technical issues or during busy periods like carnival, they bring in extra people if necessary. They have visited us regularly since we first met, more than ten years ago. As a result, they know exactly how we work as a family business and what is important to us.”
Complete redesign
John's son, John Coppens Jr., became co-owner of the family business in 2024 and has mainly been occupied with the webshop since then. “Just when I had come up with a few improvements for our webshop, WHITE came along with the suggestion for a complete redesign combined with a technical update of Craft CMS,” he recounts. “So that was good timing. The goal was a fresher overall look & feel, more attractive product display and even better responsiveness of the webshop. Together with WHITE, we made new sketches for the display on desktop, mobile and tablet - each with the right layout and the search function at the top of the screen. After we gave the green light, WHITE took on the whole job together with our online marketing agency. Since then, we've had almost nothing to worry about. The result is already great: conversion has increased and order values have risen by 37%.”
Warm village feeling
Like his son, John Sr. attaches great importance to retaining a ‘warm village feeling’ for customers in the redesigned webshop. “After all, that's also what people can expect in our physical shop and what they appreciate about shopping at Coppens. People nowadays often look online first when they are looking to make a new purchase. So, in our webshop, they should immediately recognise what we stand for. Coppens wants to be interesting to young and old, offering products at competitive but fair prices for everyone in a 50-kilometre radius of Volkel. WHITE was very successful in matching the experience in the webshop to the atmosphere in our physical shop.”
Improved checkout
The final part of the redesign process is optimising the checkout in the webshop - an essential element for Coppens. “Customers who shop online often cancel their purchase if something goes wrong in the checkout process,” says John Jr. “We don't want that, of course, so everything in our checkout has to work flawlessly. We also work with delivery prices for different distances and we want to entice customers to make one last purchase just before checkout, to get a discount for a set, for example, or buy products from a different category. Sometimes we have special promotions and we work with discount codes. So the checkout is like a precision watch in which all the cogs have to work together perfectly.”
More than 25,000 items
It was quite a challenge: how do you synchronise more than 25,000 different products with the checkout system? And how do you then ensure that all items are displayed properly and clearly in the webshop? We succeeded, even if we say so ourselves! But then comes challenge #2 because quite a few of those 25,000 items can be ordered in different versions. Consider, for instance, different sizes, colours and materials. When you put it all together, you end up with around 75,000 different SKUs that all deserve a place in the webshop.
Innovative search technology
And how do you make that gigantic range easily accessible?
Exactly, we use a smart on-site search engine. For example, if you have an exact bright red Brabantia pedal bin in mind, you can go straight there using the super-smart and fast on-site search engine. Once you arrive at the pedal bin overview pages, you can use facet navigation to filter product characteristics such as colour (red) and brand (Brabantia). And there it is: the pedal bin of your dreams. Other innovative on-site search technologies used by this Craft Commerce webshop include:
Search as you type
Good news for the impatient searchers among us: as you type, you see the search results immediately.
Typo tolerance
Is spelling not your strongest area? No problem! With typo tolerance, you get the right (similar) search results - regardless of typos.
Coppens Warenhuis - WHITE collaboration
