From the workshop to online trading – How J+A Handel took off with JTL-Wawi 1.6

Like so many success stories, that of “J+A Handel” began in a garage. Founder Andreas Meusel had been selling and repairing motorcycles since 1989. Despite his expertise and passion, the work was hard and not very profitable. Dbecause of this he decided, in the year 2005 the trade with two-wheeler accessories to switch. In his search for new sales opportunities, his son David demonstrated a flair for trends at a young age: “Why don’t we open an online store too? Everyone’s doing it now!” he said in the mid-2000s, when e-commerce was just taking off. The business went so well that he 2007 that he was able to discontinue on-site sales in the workshop.workshop in 2007.

Manage online stores centrally in a merchandise management system

With pazzoracing.eu, the family business from Nümbrecht in North Rhine-Westphalia opened the first online store for brake and clutch levers. But it didn’t stop there. Over the years, the order volume grew continuously. The company needed software that could keep pace in terms of automation and efficiency. Here, too, David had the right instinct. When he was researching various ERP systems in the summer of 2020, he also spoke to customer advisors from JTL. He accepted the offer to use JTL-Wawi 1.6 as a pilot customer.

Today, J+A Handel operates ten online stores with the merchandise management system. The garage has become a company site with a storage area of around 800m². At seasonal peak times, around 800 items per day are dispatched from there. As J+A Handel’s IT representative, David Meusel is well on the way to following in his father’s footsteps. In this interview, he reveals why the latest version of the merchandise management system is accelerating the growth of the family business.

JTL: Hi David, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. Let’s get straight into the topic: How do you manage to run so many online stores with twelve employees?

David: Thanks to JTL-Wawi, but also the use of other JTL solutions, such as the store system JTL-Shop 5 and the warehouse management system JTL-WMS, we process 99 percent of our orders automatically. Of course, there are a few special items with special features here and there. Here, for example, we use JTL workflows that alert an employee to the order so that they can process and send it directly.

JTL: How did you come to JTL-Wawi?

David: I personally have been using JTL for a long time because I earned a bit of money here and there with online stores when I was at school. I created my account for the JTL forum at the age of 15 because I naturally lacked experience in some areas. The forum is really cool for exchanging ideas with like-minded people! When my father wanted to get into the online business, JTL-Wawi was a good place to start and I was already familiar with the software. So I gradually took over the coordination of the IT. Later, we were able to grow well with JTL by adding extensions such as the MultiShop module, to book.

JTL: You only switched to JTL-Wawi with the 1.6 beta version. Why did you do this?

David: The answer is simple: the previous versions didn’t have the range of functions we needed. With JTL-Wawi 1.6, things have changed: thanks to the customer-specific category discounts, we’ve really taken off. As we have a very strong B2B business in wholesale, it is important for us to be able to accurately record negotiated conditions for individual business partners in the ERP system.

I really appreciate the automation functions of JTL-Wawi 1.6. Until now, I only knew this from expensive ERP systems.

I also appreciate the automation functions of JTL-Wawi 1.6. I have always enjoyed thinking about how to make processes more efficient. My business studies with a focus on information and process technologies made me even more aware of this. JTL-Wawi 1.6 is well positioned here. Previously, I only knew this from expensive ERP systems.

JTL: The switch to JTL-Wawi 1.6 seems to have paid off for you. Can this be expressed in figures?

David: It’s difficult to give specific figures here, but from a technical point of view, it feels like we’ve been catapulted from the Stone Age into the year 2022. The error rate is now barely measurable and is perhaps somewhere under half a percent. With our old system, we had to do almost everything manually – from entering shipping addresses to incoming payments, which we kept in an Excel list. There was no interface to DHL or payment providers such as PayPal or Amazon Pay back then either …

JTL: How did the onboarding process work?

David: Basically without any problems, a few employees from the JTL team came by to take a close look at our processes. We developed a concept from this and then started the implementation and configuration quite quickly. Thanks to JTL Ant, we were able to transfer article and customer data to the new system via CSV export. That was done in one weekend. We then carried out an inventory, which took around two to three days. It took about seven working days between setting up the server and the first item dispatch via JTL WMS.

JTL: Although JTL-Wawi 1.6 has only recently been released as a stable version, it has already been in productive use for over a year. Haven’t there been one or two teething troubles?

David: The tireless support of the JTL support team has fully cushioned the blow. My account manager Johannes Jorde is like a guardian angel when something gets stuck here and there. He always gets back to us on the same day and does 200 percent to get everything up and running again – mega! I also really appreciate the personal contact with Product Owner Manuel Pietzsch and JTL founder Thomas Lisson. JTL always has an open ear for customers’ opinions.

JTL: Even though the stable version of JTL-Wawi 1.6 has only recently been released, we are working on new features to continuously improve JTL-Wawi. Are there any that are of particular interest to you?

David: I think the service desk in JTL-Wawi has a lot of potential for our customer communication. And I really like the current beta version of the JTL-Wawi app. Corona has meant that there are no longer as many field service appointments, but I check the app almost every evening to check the current order situation. It’s fast, shows the most important information at a glance and the cool thing is that we can participate in the development as a pilot customer!

JTL: Great, we are excited to see how your new projects will develop. Thank you very much for your time, David!

Do you also want to get started with JTL-Wawi 1.6? Then download the new version right here or find out about the many features of the new version on our release page: