Lüning 24 trusts in B2B Suite

Lüning 24: One of Germany’s biggest and best-established food businesses

The Lüning Group (Lüning 24) is a food wholesaler based in Rietberg, Germany. It has a workforce of over 1,600, with logistics centers in Gütersloh and Magdeburg. It supplies independent retailers such as filling stations, kiosks, bakeries, and produce markets. The company also owns 36 markets, including supermarkets and hypermarkets, and the large EDEKA Center Lüning. According to Nielsen TradeDimensions, Lüning 24 ranked as the 22nd biggest food retailer in Germany in 2020.

The problem: B2B trader with complex business requirements

Lüning 24 supplies at least 9,000 customers with up to 40,000 food and non-food items. Each of them enjoys unique prices, discounts, and promotions. In the past, orders were placed in the custom-developed store or in an app designed for ordering at the point of sale. To improve the customer experience, add further features, and modernize the store, Lüning 24 needed a robust and future-oriented store system such as Shopware 6.

The business gave several reasons for choosing Shopware 6:

• It is the leading ecommerce system in Germany

• It offers a range of features and processes, as well as a separate plugin store

• Shopware allows straightforward connections to third-party systems such as PIM, DAM, and ERP

• It offers maximum flexibility through its API-first approach

• Sustainable project development and setup options

Shopware 6 with B2B Suite: For a high-performance B2B website

Together with Shopware Gold Partner burgdigital, Lüning 24 implemented the project with the Shopware 6 B2B Suite. This enabled the company to show each customer individual prices, products, and promotions (a total of more than 60 million calculations). The store system also enabled Lüning to assign user permissions and roles via the customer login. It is simple for customers to bulk order and return products here via CSV/xsls import. Mass edit tools offer a quick way to edit large orders. Important documents such as invoices are saved in a protected area. sSales reps can also log into the store and leave product recommendations for their customers.

Despite all these features, the large quantity of orders, and packed shopping carts, the online store performs exceptionally well. Shopware 6 saves staff a lot of time and resources in their day-to-day work. Promotions are easy to distinguish from regular items, for example, and error logging and product recommendations for customers are both automatic.

Thanks to Shopware B2B Suite, the following functions could be implemented:

• Quick registration of items by item number and quantity via CSV/xsls import

• Extension now allows items to be imported into the form via (cell phone) camera too

• Extension allows items to be imported into the form via text field

• Order lists from the B2B Suite are handled as an attribute of the product, allowing them to be used to filter the item list

• Login via a sales rep

Mobile ordering made possible by Shopware 6

In addition to importing CSV files into the system, customers also have the option to order by scanning EAN barcodes with their smartphone in the store. They can also generate and compile price lists and labels in the store system using remote publishing, and instantly import these as PDF files if necessary. Lüning has set up a special storefront for trade fairs, allowing both online participants and on-site trade fair visitors to place orders using the iPads provided.

In addition to mobile ordering, Lüning and burgdigital have also developed a special feature for processing pre-orders. This is pivotal, as encouraging pre-orders of promoted items is one of the company’s key sales strategies. Customers can now order promoted items and place them in the shopping cart – irrespective of promotions and special offers.

A bright future with Shopware

Lüning 24 is very satisfied with the smooth cooperation between Lüning 24, burgdigital, and Shopware, and met all expectations.

With the partner agency burgdigital, every conceivable requirement of Lüning24 could be efficiently planned in direct discussions. There was always a perfect technical solution from the development department. The communication in the project and the later support was very transparent and trustworthy from burgdigital. In case of problems, burgdigital reacted quickly to keep the store running smoothly. Thus says the project manager of Max Lüning GmbH& Co. KG, Thomas Marke: "We felt very well advised by burgdigital on all issues relating to e-commerce and business processes. Right at the project's beginning, the project manager made the right decisions. With the help of Shopware 6, special functions could be implemented".

But that was just the beginning. Using Shopware, Lüning has opened a new chapter for its online store. And the new features and contemporary design are far from the end of the road. The company is planning to implement headless connections and PWA features, and to use a newsletter marketing tool to communicate with customers. Lüning 24 will also concentrate on monitoring statistics and evaluating shopping carts to achieve as high a contribution margin as possible.