Nathalie Rau initially opts for an “out-of-the-box” store solution. However, with its pronounced quality and growth strategy, Kivanta quickly reaches its limits.
The name Kivanta stands for “healthy living”. The specialist mail order company for quality-tested drinking bottles and lunch boxes made of pure stainless steel has made it its mission to offer reliable, non-toxic food storage for the whole family.
The business has long been a niche market, but the customer base continues to grow day by day. Healthy, conscious eating and non-toxic products are still very much in demand in Germany. Founder Nathalie Rau is firmly convinced of her mission to bring BPA-free products to German families.
BPA stands for bisphenol A and is present as a component in many plastics in many household items. Her statement “We don’t sell anything that we haven’t tested ourselves and that we don’t like to use ourselves regularly” shows that she stands behind what she does.
The cloud-based store solution chosen for the start-up soon proved to be an obstacle to growth. Only the switch to JTL software and a merchandise management and store software from a single source put Kivanta on the road to success.
For Nathalie Rau, health-friendly
products are a matter of course
JTL service partner since 2014, multiple certified for JTL-Wawi & JTL-Shop. Specialized in the development of sophisticated templates.
Shine with excellence and the best product quality
The story of Kivanta began when Nathalie Rau and her husband came across Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottles, which were only available in the USA, while searching for the perfect children’s bottle for their son. The bottles not only won over the Rau family, but also many friends and acquaintances, so that over time ever larger quantities were imported from overseas.
The online store kivanta.de was created in 2011 from this rather private commitment. Today, Kivanta offers non-toxic products from the leading brands Klean Kanteen, LunchBots, Ecococoon, Mizu, MiiR and Pura Kiki, as well as its own brand “Kivanta”, and has already served around 30,000 customers from all over Europe.
Right from the start, Nathalie Rau wanted to excel in her initially small niche business with proven product and service quality and opted for one of the leading international providers of online stores in the cloud. What initially proved to be a good decision eventually became a problem.
Important store functions were missing
“The fact that the original store system was an “out-of-the-box” store solution became more and more of a hindrance to our growth plans. We were missing more and more central functions and features in the store and back end. Our order processing and order management became increasingly inefficient. “At some point, I put these desired functions on a list of around 90 items and presented them to the old store provider,” reports Nathalie Rau.
I really wanted more customized functions to further improve the customer experience in the store.
It quickly became clear that a large number of the wishes could not be implemented with the store version used. “So I started looking for another, more suitable solution. At the same time, the need for a merchandise management system for better order processing grew – with integration into the new store solution, of course,” continues Nathalie Rau. “I was looking for a more flexible and future-proof system that would give me more control over the software in the project planning phase.”
Images dominate the homepage of the Kivanta store in October 2017
JTL software - flexible, adaptable and reliable
Nathalie Rau found what she was looking for at JTL-Software, which scored points with the free merchandise management system JTL-Wawi in combination with the shop solution JTL-Shop.
“For me, JTL-Wawi in combination with JTL-Shop is unrivaled in terms of value for money”. She had been keeping an eye on the small software company for some time and was aware of its proximity to users and the community.
Nathalie Rau and her husband looked for an eCommerce and store expert for the project planning and technical implementation of their plans and found what they were looking for in Henryk Lippert from Solution 360 GmbH. Together with the Dresden agency Kreativkonzentrat, the experienced eCommerce consultant realized the new online presence based on JTL-Shop and the introduction of the JTL merchandise management system.
I knew that JTL’s Wawi and shop would run robustly. We could rely on that, even if one or two functions were still missing at first.
Specific store new sellers with dropper
“I was very impressed by the droplet architecture developed by Kreativkonzentrat with the Dropper plugin. It allows me to change all the content in the store myself without much programming knowledge. All content is completely customizable and easy to adapt and can be positioned anywhere in the store. This concept really suits my desire for more creative freedom,” enthuses the entrepreneur.
Customers can find the right new sellers for them via the theme worlds at Kivanta
In addition to the redesign of the template and the data migration from the previous system to JTL, there is another challenge: Kivanta works with a fulfillment service provider that takes over the complete shipping tasks.
In order to ensure a smooth process from ordering to shipping, a fully automated interface to the service provider is now being developed. “This means that orders are automatically transmitted from JTL-Wawi to the service provider after successful receipt of payment and stock confirmations and shipment tracking are stored in the ERP system,” reports Henryk Lippert from Solution 360.
Bottle configurator and lexicon at Kivanta
After just eight months, the merchandise management system and store are ready for launch, which took place in March 2014. In the same year, the JTL-Shop was among the top 5 winners of the Shop Usability Award 2014 in the Household, DIY & Garden category. Not without reason, as numerous filters by manufacturer, color, shape, weight, bottle type or target group make shopping on the website a real experience.
Customize your drinking bottle according to your own wishes!
The “Mix and Match Bottle Configurator” from Kivanta, based on the configurator module for JTL-Shop, has become a special highlight and is used frequently and with pleasure by customers.
Another special feature for visitors to the website is a small encyclopaedia on the subject of “healthy living”, which is constantly being expanded. From A for aluminum to V for “vegan cosmetics” (Z is not yet included), visitors can find comprehensive information here. At the same time, the encyclopedia provides valuable, topic-related content for search engines.
Nathalie Rau is proud of her store, which combines a fresh, nature-loving design with a high level of user-friendliness to suit the target group.
Many selection options for your own composition
Tasks
System decision software
Create a targeted template
Realize drinking bottle configurator
Solutions with JTL
Software solutions from a single source for all professional eCommerce requirements.
Excellently designable, responsive store template for your own website
JTL-Shop configurator for individually configurable products
Achievements
Affordable new sellers with flexible, needs-based body variants
More high-quality customer contacts
Higher customer satisfaction through better usability
