Customer case - Engelsons

Engelsons gained more control over its e-commerce and a stable foundation for expansion.

Background

Engelsons has been selling practical, affordable and durable clothing, footwear and equipment for active outdoor living since 1974. What started in a hobby room in the basement has grown steadily and is now a business employing more than 100 people, with a large store and a new logistics centre in Falkenberg. E-commerce is a major and important part of Engelsons’ business.

Challenges

Engelsons started with a self-built e-commerce solution in the late 1990s. After that, they used various off-the-shelf platforms for many years until 2021, when they once again invested in an in-house solution. But as the business kept growing and demands increased, it became clear they needed a more flexible and future-proof platform, which led to the move to the Viskan E-commerce Platform in 2024.

Opportunities

Engelsons had clear requirements when they started looking for a new solution for their e-commerce. The platform needed to be easy to work in, so they could make changes themselves without bringing in outside help. The solution needed to make day-to-day e-commerce work easier, while also making future expansion straightforward. Just as importantly, Engelsons wanted to work with a simple, stable supplier with solid e-commerce experience and a genuine ability to build things together. The supplier’s personality and experience mattered just as much as the platform’s capabilities.

Solution

Today, Engelsons uses the Viskan E-commerce Platform and gets major value from its easy-to-use CMS. They can now change and update information in their e-commerce independently and without friction. It has also become easier to track and log errors in the system data, which makes day-to-day e-commerce work significantly smoother and more efficient. In Viskan, Engelsons has also found a strong partner that contributes deep e-commerce experience, helping both parties find new ways to keep developing Engelsons’ e-commerce.

Engelsons has gained full control of its e-commerce with the Viskan E-commerce Platform.

When Engelsons started in 1974, the business began in the family basement, with the whole family involved in selling outdoor clothing.

Today, the business has grown to include a store, e-commerce, more than 100 employees and a large in-house logistics centre. Engelsons began its e-commerce journey in the late 1990s with an in-house platform. For many years after that, they used various ready-made e-commerce solutions, but in 2021 they once again chose to build their own platform to better adapt it to the needs of the business. That solution worked well at first, but as e-commerce grew, the system became increasingly difficult to manage and develop further. Adding new features and adapting content often required technical expertise, which made the platform both complex and heavy to maintain. The need for a more flexible and future-proof solution became clear, which led to the move to the Viskan E-commerce Platform in 2024.

After reviewing different e-commerce platforms and suppliers, Engelsons chose Viskan. One of the factors that has helped Engelsons create an easier-to-manage e-commerce operation is Viskan CMS. Here, Engelsons has gained a flexible and user-friendly content management system where they can make the changes they want themselves.

Here’s what Philip Utagawa, who is responsible for e-commerce at Engelsons, says about working in Viskan’s solution:

”With Viskan CMS, we can shape how a product page, homepage or footer looks ourselves, without having to involve loads of developers. It’s easy to bring information in from other sources into Viskan’s system, so we now have the power to influence both the look and the functionality the way we want. We’ve only just started working actively in the system and developing the site, but we can already see that we have much better control over what we do on the site. In other systems, adding and changing functions and layout can be tricky. We’ve learnt more about how to do things ourselves with the right tools, and we don’t need outside help to get things done. The power of Viskan CMS is our winning ticket in this platform change.” he says.

It’s not just the day-to-day work that has become easier. Philip also sees that Engelsons now has an e-commerce solution that makes expansion into new markets much easier:

”We now have a solution with the right tools for growth, making it easier to expand going forward.”

An easier day-to-day with the right tools for smooth e-commerce.

When it comes to the complex systems behind modern e-commerce, a lot of ongoing work can go into finding problems and fixing them. According to Philip Utagawa, all e-commerce businesses spend a lot of time on straightforward troubleshooting in their day-to-day work. Why isn’t this working? Why does this customer have duplicate address information? Because this is part of the daily routine, making it easier to find and fix those issues can make a huge difference over time.

Philip says the move to the Viskan E-commerce Platform has saved them a great deal of time and hassle in this area:

”Viskan’s back office has made things much easier for us, especially being able to quickly pull out information about what happened and when. It’s now much easier to track and log errors in the system data. For example, seeing when a customer changed their address and whether they entered the wrong one. This work is part of our everyday reality. Previously, we could only see a limited part of it and had to bring in developers to dig deeper and pull data from the database. Now we have the tools to do this ourselves. It makes everyday work much easier and helps us solve the issues that always come up.”

Choosing the right supplier matters just as much as choosing the right e-commerce platform.

Engelsons may have grown into a large company, but the values from its early days in the basement are still there. They jokingly compare the business to a Volvo - simple and stable - and prefer to work with suppliers that share the same mindset. When it was time to procure a new e-commerce solution, finding the right supplier mattered just as much as choosing the right technology:

”We worked from a few important watchwords: simple, positive and together.” says Philip Utagawa. ”We wanted to work with a supplier that matched us in size so we could build a personal relationship and share the same mindset. It was also important that they were 100% focused on e-commerce. Not a consultancy that does a bit of everything.”

The reason Engelsons chose to work with Viskan was precisely that there was such a strong fit on a more personal level:

”Viskan is like us. A bit more personal, responsive, they spoke our language and the personal contact felt right.” says Philip. ”It has also been valuable to work with someone who has long experience of both e-commerce and what is possible to do with the platform. That makes things much easier for me as the buyer. Viskan is our external technical e-commerce department, and together we work towards a consistent Engelsons experience. It’s also a very transparent partnership. We don’t just have one account manager at Viskan, we have a network at Viskan where different people are good at different things. It’s easier to explain things when you can speak to the person the matter actually concerns. We really appreciate that.”