The Problem

B&O wanted to meet their customers where they’re at — in their regions and languages, on all their personal devices and in-store displays.

But they didn’t have the tools to get there.

They had one monolithic platform that included both their e-commerce tools and content management system. This setup limited their ability to connect with individual customers and communicate a consistent message across multiple channels. Their product website and digital store were separate sites, and they struggled to connect online and in-store sales systems. Despite the shared platform, nothing ran seamlessly.

Moving faster with microservices

A microservice structure with headless components solved B&O’s problems. This deconstructed architecture gave them the necessary flexibility to design and implement customer experiences both online and in stores.

B&O deployed Contentful as their headless CMS and Commercetools for e-commerce. Contentful’s extensibility, quick response times, and simple ways of creating and supporting a range of content also motivated their decision to rebuild. The two services are built to work with other components. They not only work well together, but they enabled B&O to expand with other microservices whenever needed.

Powered by Contentful and Commercetools, B&O merged their two websites into one. Now customers could learn about and purchase the latest products in one place. They also connected their e-commerce and all in-store IT systems .Contentful powers in-store digital experiences with consistent content, regardless of the store’s presentation technology.

The numbers say it all

Tomas Krag, Director of E-Commerce at B&O, says they’ve been tracking the numbers and they look great:

• LoadTimes decreased from 16-20 seconds to 3-4 seconds

• E-commerce conversion rate has increased by 60%

• Cart-to-checkout rate of progression has more than doubled

• Average order value has increased by 13%

• Conversion rate from online store search is three times higher

B&O isn’t the only enterprise to trust Contentful when moving from a monolithic architecture to microservices stack. Forrester Research Inc. says that our “API-first and cloud-native approach excels," and that "Contentful is a good fit for progressive digital initiatives that want to unify content services across channels and projects." Access the entire report here.