Magento

Because Magento is open source and has a clean and extensible software design, it fit the bill perfectly. Additionally, many of the features we were looking to implement were already included out of the box, or we could customize existing functionality to meet our needs.

Thieß Rathjen, E-Commerce Manager, Globetrotter Ausrüstung

Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Globetrotter Ausrüstung is a retailer for outdoor products. Our dedication and passion for the product have brought us to the top of the European market, and we now employ more than 1000 employees from over 35 nations. At the same time, we strive to maintain the family spirit that has characterised Globetrotter since it was founded over 30 years ago.

We operate brick-and-mortar stores throughout the German market and have won numerous retailing awards. Increasingly, these stores are complemented by our online services including our web TV station, 4-Seasons.TV.

Globetrotter is the exclusive online retailer for Jack Wolfskin products in Germany and Austria. Jack Wolfskin products are available in approximately 180 franchise stores and 2400 sales points within Europe and Asia. We relaunched this shop on Magento in late January.

Why did you choose Magento for the project?

Our previous shop was completely developed in-house, which meant that it suited our requirements very well but was also becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and extend. We were looking for a new solution that allowed us the same flexibility but with lower overhead.

Because Magento is open source and has a clean and extensible software design, it fit the bill perfectly. Additionally, many of the features we were looking to implement were already included out of the box, or we could customize existing functionality to meet our needs.

What technologies are currently implemented / integrated in the frontend and behind-the-scenes?

On the frontend side, we use mostly JavaScript to provide the best possible user experience, coupled with a little bit of Flash.

Our backend systems – including product administration, stock levels and fulfillment systems – are connected to Magento using Visions Magnamics Integration Engine. Magnamics is a fast Magento module that continuously keeps the systems synchronized.

Moreover, a custom developed connector lets our customers use their existing Globetrotter IDs on the new shop so that the transition to the new system does not inconvenience our customers either.

Can you talk about the scaling and performance challenges associated with the project (and how you overcame them)?

Jack Wolfskin has heavy traffic, especially at peak load. So one priority was to ensure right from the start of the project that the solution would be able to scale well in this environment.

Visions, our e-commerce agency, assured us that we would not have problems in this area. The shop is deployed on their high-performance cluster, providing the required hardware resources as needed. Furthermore, they found some bottlenecks related to our catalogue data and extended the core models to eliminate them.

We are very pleased with the performance and scalability of the shop. The system went live with the Jack Wolfskin summer 2009 collection and immediately faced peak load – but it was still very responsive.

What are your future plans with Magento and the site?

The Jack Wolfskin site will see further enhancements as time progresses. We are also preparing to re-launch our Globetrotter Ausrüstung shop at www.globetrotter.de on Magento next year.