1-800-Flowers is the most popular online shop for fresh flowers, fruits, gourmet food, gift baskets, cookies, baked goods, popcorn, specialty treats, premium chocolates, and top-quality steaks and chops based in New York, United States
It was established in 1976 by Jim McCann (founder and CEO). The company's mission and vision is to Deliver Smiles and to inspire more human expression, connection, and celebration.
The 1800-Flowers deliver all across the world. They deliver flowers and goods to over 195 countries. According to Forbes magazine, they are named as Internet Retailer's the best web top 50 retail site.
eCommerce + Flowers and Fruit Shop
With the growth of eCommerce technology, the online shop has been becoming increasingly popular and buying goods like flowers, fruits, and for special days like Christmas, Valentine's day is also slightly becoming a trend.
The online flowers and fruit industries have been bloom over nowadays. The merchants are now trending towards the online shop for selling the flowers and fruits products.
According to the survey, now 87% of shoppers started searching for products online instead of going to the retail shops. Using an online shop, it is easier to manage the flowers for various events like Birthdays, Sympathy, and Occasions.
What problems occur without Product Information Management for a large scale online business?
Products Information Management (PIM) is a process of creating and managing the large scale of products information and centralizing it at a single place.
For an eCommerce Business Person, increasing the customers is not always the best approach to increase the sell. It is also based on the quality of the product, refined product information, and better appearance.
Managing millions of products using eCommerce frameworks is always a challenging task. There might be a chance to publish the product with the wrong product information without using any validation in the eCommerce backend.
Product Information Management tool helps the merchants in various scenarios as discussed below:
Multi-Channel Selling
Multi-channel selling is the key factor for any Product Information Management solution. With this option, a merchant can spread the product information among various sales channels.
In PIM, the merchant can create a channel for each of the stores. For example, if a merchant has multiple stores, store views, POS (Point of Sale) System, print catalog, and mobile application then he can export the same product information at these channels.
This multi-channel selling feature makes the spreading of product information efficiently and cost-effectively.
Reduce Manual Data Entry
Using PIM, the merchants can reduce the manual data entry process. It will help the merchants to avoid errors, remove the duplicates, data entry costs, and time.
For example, if a merchant has two channels eCommerce and ERP in PIM and he/she wants to have common product information for the two channels then he can create the attributes and save the product information.
The product information will automatically be saved to another channel. This way, a seller/merchant can reduce manual data entry.
Bulk Data Edit
With the PIM, the user can perform the action on Bulk data. The user can change multiple product information.
- Edit attribute values
- Add attribute values
- Change Family
- Change product status
- Add product to categories
- Move product among categories
- Change the product model
- Add association
Multiple Login and Permissions
With the PIM, the admin can create multiple logins for different users. The user can also provide different permissions to different users and user groups. The admin can create different roles, user groups, and users.
Products and Product Variants
With PIM, the user can create multiple products and product variants. The user can create multiple attributes, attribute groups, and families. The user can create different types of products in PIM using different families. The user can create the Group and Bundle products.
Synchronize Thousand Products
PIM provides the feature to export the products in CSV and XLSX. The user can also export the product information using API. With using API, the user can export the product information to eCommerce, ERP system, and POS.
Multilingual Data
Nowadays, we can see that every eCommerce website wants to sell products all over the Globe. To present your product information in multiple languages, you can make the information easier for the end-users, improve accessibility, and gain more trust.
How 1-800-Flowers found the solution with Webkul Akeneo Connectors?
1-800-Flowers are managing the product information using Magento 2 for different stores and store views. They are dealing with the millions of SKUs but they don’t have a proper PIM for managing the product information.
They had the requirement to manage the product information in a stable PIM and also wanted to export the product information to their stores based on Magento 2.
Matthew McHale from 1-800-Flowers contacted Webkul for Magento 2 Akeneo Connector. With this connector, they are able to export products, product variants, categories, and associations from Akeneo to Magento 2 to multiple stores and store views.
How Webkul helps 1-800-Flowers to manage the Product Information?
Webkul is the largest Akeneo solution provider in the World. Webkul has created the Akeneo modules for multiple domains like eCommerce, ERP system, POS, and Cloud storage.
Hariharan Thirumalaisamy from 1-800-Flowers contacted Webkul. He was missing the configuration to export the configurable products from Akeneo to Magento 2. Webkul support team helped the 1-800-Flowers over UVdesk support system.
They were also facing some configuration issues with family, attribute, attribute groups, and custom attributes. Webkul support agent replied in a responsive manner. Now they are managing and synchronizing product information from Akeneo to Magento 2 and vice-versa without any hassle.
Some features of Webkul's Magento 2 Akeneo Connector:
Manage Multiple Stores
With our Magento 2 Akeneo Connector, the merchants can save multiple Magento 2 stores credentials in Akeneo. Once the merchant will save the Magento 2 store credential all the store and store view will be visible in the grid.
The user can select the credential in the export process to export the products to multiple Magento 2 instances.
Manage Multiple locales and Currencies
In Akeneo, the user can create multilingual products and configure the currencies according to the selected locale. The user can find separate mapping option of currencies and locale in our Magento 2 Akeneo Connector.
Manage Products Quantity
Akeneo PIM is the Product Information Management tool. It’s not an Inventory management tool. But with this Module, they can easily export the product quantity and stock status from Akeneo to Magento 2.
Manage Multiple Images with Products
With this module, the user can easily import and export images from Akeneo to Magento and vice-versa. This module provides a separate section for exporting the images. The merchants can select multiple images in this to export the products.
The user can also manage the alt text of the images for better SEO management.
Manage Custom Attributes
With this connector, the user can also export the custom attributes like Brand and Color in Magento 2. For this, the user can create custom attributes in Akeneo and select them in the custom attributes section.
From that first flower shop more than 40 years ago, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. has grown to become the innovative gifting leader it is today, featuring an all-star family of brands. With the vast selection of gifts, fresh flowers, fruits, gourmet foods, gift baskets, cookies, baked goods, and much more.
References
- https://www.1800flowersinc.com/about-us
- https://www.1800flowers.com/
- https://www.akeneo.com/what-is-a-pim/
- https://store.webkul.com/Akeneo.html
- https://webkul.com/akeneo/
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