Van Loock & Co is a popular family-run business in Belgium, offering various types of consumer electronic products and home appliances. It sells products through two physical retail stores based in Heist-op-den-Berg and Booischot.
Further, Van Loock Electro also operates its digital sales channel via an online web store. Van Loock & Co provides a wide range of products including installation, delivery, and repair services as well.
Consumer electronics products and appliances are needed in every home. As human beings, we are totally dependent upon them.
Understanding this necessity, a lot of retailers started their consumer electronic businesses in Belgium. Some of the popular Belgian e-commerce stores are Alternate, Bol, Coolblue, MediaMarkt, Vanden Borre and more.
According to Statista, the consumer electronics market comprises electronic and digital devices used privately either for entertainment, communication, or home office.
Household appliances (such as washing machines and refrigerators) are also sold by the same retailers.
Big brands in this category are Samsung, LG, and Sony. The consumer electronics market is driven by innovation – a constant improvement of existing products and their blend in the creation of new commodities.
Odoo is a suite of business management software that covers all operational needs. It includes ERP, CRM, e-commerce, accounting, billing, inventory, and POS components.
The Odoo software is available in two versions- Community (open-source) and Enterprise (licensed). Van Loock & Co uses the Odoo Enterprise Edition as it offers:
Also, to further enhance the Odoo platform and organise the data, the client turned to Webkul. Being an official Odoo development company and Odoo Ready Partner.
The client entrusted our team to add more features to their existing system and build custom solutions for day-to-day business processes.
Import Inventory Datasheets – To import and update advanced stock inventory data with CSV / XLS files.
Display Stock Count – In the Odoo POS system, inventory quantity is visible for every product.
“Extension for the Odoo POS which is very simple but really handy to have feedback is fast as always”, Kristof
Product Category Sync – A custom feature was added to map the Odoo product category with the Magento product category at both ends.
Barcode Field Sync – The Odoo barcode field is synced with the Magento EAN attribute.
Odoo Brand Field – While importing Odoo products, an extra brand field was missing. It was added as it’s required to synchronize with the web store with a bidirectional update.
Odoo POS Return – A very important feature for retail store staff to manage product returns and refund easily.
“This webkul makes product returns from the POS screen a breeze Awesome support and feedback from webkul in case there are any issues or questions Excellent as always”, Kristof.
MSRP Field – The manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) field was added to Odoo product pricing and mapped with the online store.
Advance Stock Inventory Import – Allowing us to update the inventory of multiple products through a single CSV/XLS file.
“This module makes importing or updating stock from xls files a breeze We had one little hiccup during the first test, but Webkul fixed the problem ASAP”, Kristof.
As the client upgraded from Odoo 13 to 15, we made sure that all Webkul Odoo apps were also compatible and support the new platform release.
Although Odoo does provide the ability to create an e-commerce website, the client looked for another appropriate alternative.
Magento (Adobe Commerce) is a dedicated eCommerce platform choice for major household retailers around the world. Van Loock & Co currently running their Belgian e-commerce store sales channel on the Magento Community Edition.
It is an open-source variant with limited features but allows developers to customize the code freely and make custom changes to add more features and functionalities.
On the Van Loock Electro online store, there are multiple custom developments to extend the Magento capabilities and get the most out of this e-commerce platform.
Search suggestions or autocomplete predict the search terms as soon as the user starts typing anything. This saves a lot of time and delivers faster results to the customers.
“Very nice and fast ajax search auto suggestion. works out of the box. Fast stable and no nonsense as it should be”, Kristof.
In shopping cart software or any e-commerce platform, search suggestion is not provided. But now, with Magento 2 Search Suggestion.
If any customer searches with only the beginning word of the product then they’ll get a similar product result in the search box.
The client also uses Advanced Layered Navigation for Magento 2, which further improves the user experience for online shoppers.
So, whenever customers want to narrow down the search results, they can now do it without reloading the web page again.
“Very good no-nonsense ajax layered navigation extension We needed a small customization which has handled instantly and very professional by Webkul 5 out of 5 !”, Kristof.
Van Loock Electro uses Odoo Bridge for Magento 2, which allows you to import, export and synchronize your data between the ERP system and the online store platform.
“Amazing fast and stable connection bridge between Odoo and Magento. This is really helping our company move forward on the e-commerce field on another level. The customization they provide is very good and excellent feedback or support” – Kristof.
Further, the client wanted to sync the brand information along with products bi-directionally between Odoo and Magento.
In order to achieve the same, Webkul created a brand field in product form at the Odoo end to enable the synchronization of brand information.
Bi-directionally between Odoo and Magento along with product synchronization and information covers the brand values too.
For managing product information, the client initially executed some test runs and then finally began using the Akeneo PIM platform.
Akeneo is a popular product information management system that provides a single place to collect, organise, and enrich product data.
Merchants can upload product data, and distribute it to multiple sales channels such as – e-commerce, pos, mobile, and print catalogues.
However, in the case of Van Loock Electro, they sell 18 thousand electronic products with detailed specifications.
So it becomes difficult to manage product information across online and offline channels and information on a real-time basis.
They wanted to use the PIM platform to import product data from multiple sources, improve it and then export it back from Akeneo into the Magento-based online store and Odoo ERP system.
Further, the client was syncing Odoo data with Magento while using Akeneo to enrich product information from Icecat and other sources.
After understanding this client’s requirements Webkul offered and customized Akeneo multichannel connectors for Magento, Odoo, and Icecat.
With these powerful integration solutions, the client is able to centrally manage and synchronize complete product information across different platforms.
“Mandatory module for akeneo Really an amazing module with a lot of features. mandatory in our book if you are working with Akeneo and Magento Excellent feedback and support to We ran into some problems with the configuration that might have been due to ourselves but still they helped us out instantly.”, Kristof.
Icecat is an open content project where we can import e-commerce product information. It’s an eCommerce business tool where business owners can fetch their product content such as text descriptions, product images, and product specifications.
At first, all the basic product information comes from the ERP system into the e-commerce platform with Webkul integrations.
Then, the client imports products into PIM, enriches them with Icecat and pushes the full product with extra content back into the web store.
With these unified integrations, what you get is a well-structured product content page having high-quality images, detailed specifications, and impressive descriptions that help you convert your customers into sales.
Van Loock Electro is presently running its business for a very long time. They continue to sell consumer electronics and home appliances in Belgian with two retail stores and plan to expand more.
Moreover, with their Belgian e-commerce store built on the Magento platform, they also cater to their customers in other regions.
Besides that, they are managing their sales, inventory, and product data through different open-source platforms. Our team helped the client to centralise and sync all the information accurately across their ERP, PIM and e-commerce systems.
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