VTEX IO solution was chosen by the South Korean giant Samsung Electronics to reconcile its complex ecommerce architecture, enabling sophisticated functions and making its sales more agile in Latin America.
Samsung manufactures and sells smartphones, TVs, laptops, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, among other consumer goods and electronics. With such a vast and diverse portfolio, the solution offered by the VTEX platform delivered the speed and flexibility needed, accelerating the delivery of headless commerce experiences, expanding the brand’s presence to different marketplaces, and even allowing the company to add other sellers to its sales structure.
The technology developed by VTEX enabled a scalable platform, facilitating the implementation of changes and customizations on Samsung’s ecommerce website — an important channel for the company, both for offering products to the end customer and for strengthening the brand in the various markets in which it operates.
Samsung has an intricate partner network in Brazil and Latin America. Its sales are made through indirect channels and also through its own ecommerce website. The implementation of the VTEX solution was therefore complex. Depending on the product category in a given country, one partner is responsible for selling mobile phones, while a different partner handles white goods, and so on.
The solution? Using the VTEX IO technology, a low-code development platform that enables headless commerce, combining application components that were pre-built by VTEX with customized elements of each business.
Accelerated implementation with VTEX IO
The first Samsung operation in Latin America to adopt the VTEX IO platform was Argentina. After some adjustments on this first implementation, the project was replicated to other operations of the company in the region, such as Peru, Chile and Colombia.
Samsung’s operation in Brazil was the first to migrate from the previous structure, which required redesigning the processes and the fulfillment, as well as integrating suppliers, and testing and validating with VTEX the adopted business models. With the new solution, Samsung expanded its presence to more distribution channels in Brazil, and started to sell in the marketplaces of the retail giant B2W: Submarino, Americanas, and Shoptime.
The project also included Synapcom, the partner that took over Samsung’s fulfillment activities in Latin America, as well as Samsung SDS, the brand’s information technology division, which is responsible for the maintenance of the company’s IT infrastructure in the region.
An important benefit that VTEX implemented for Samsung is Smart Checkout, a feature that “reserves” the product internally until the consumer completes the purchase process, which reduces checkout abandonment and ensures more sales. Another advantage of VTEX IO is the greater promotional agility, with easy-to-use tools and templates that provide Samsung’s internal teams with flexibility when it comes to drawing up new campaigns.
Samsung’s migration to VTEX IO was also monitored by the VTEX Pro Guidance service, VTEX’s Professional Services team, which offers and provides tailor-made services to the platform clients and partners. The VTEX Pro team, which has VTEX platform architecture and digital commerce experts, worked closely with Samsung’s internal departments to implement the solution while maintaining services and sales stability in all markets in which the brand operates, reaching 10 Latin American countries by the end of the project.
Regional adjustments
VTEX technology also suited Samsung’s expansion projects in Latin America, since it provides flexibility to reconcile, in each country, the specifics of the business rules with the legacy IT structure of each fulfillment partner, including the integration of tax solutions, ERPs and other suppliers, such as carriers, in each market.
With VTEX IO, it is possible to store information and business policies confidentially: each supplier has access to a separate environment, according to its activity field, and can only access information corresponding to its operation. This was made possible by adopting the franchise account model for the fulfillment partners in each market, creating a standardized product catalog that is appropriate to each context, and centralizing management at Samsung.
The high level of customization of the VTEX platform allowed the same visual layout in the virtual stores, enabling a homogeneous design, following the standard established by Samsung, and aligning language and experience in all markets of the region. This resource was made possible thanks to the VTEX IO customization engines.
“VTEX IO is the most advanced solution to create replicable standardized layouts environments, thus ensuring visual identity integrity, while also standardizing management. These elements were very valuable to Samsung. Now, when there is a new improvement in one market or region, it can be easily scaled to other countries.”
Suzane Vieira, Solution Architect Leader at VTEX
¿Hablas Español?
Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world, with an estimated 538 million speakers, and is the official language in 21 countries. Although the Spanish spoken in Spain, for example, allows the speaker to communicate in any country in Latin America, there are many linguistic specificities that are vital for a successful ecommerce platform. Therefore, using one standard Spanish for all markets would not be the best way to engage with consumers.
This is where another particularity of the VTEX platform and its performance in Latin America comes in. VTEX IO’s multi-language engine allows automated localization of website content into each market’s language variants. The result is a more agile deployment of content and other information.
The same process applies to EPPs, the Employee Product Promotion portals, which are dedicated to discounts for brand partners and suppliers. Samsung offers its employees, sellers, and partners special conditions to commercialize its products. As each EPP has different discount rules, the conditions need to be applied differently across the region, and managed by Samsung. This was made possible by VTEX IO.
Additional benefits
Samsung’s end-consumer has also benefited from the more and better offers of the brand’s products, new promotions, and payment methods, such as:
- Product trade-in—offering a used Samsung smartphone as part of the payment for a new one;
- Installation services—for products such as washing machines or air conditioners—which are made available by VTEX’s service module;
- Insurance—in the form of extended warranty and protection against theft and robbery;
- Split payment between two different sources, including Mercado Pago as a partner in Brazil, or payment with two different credit cards;
- Samsung Pay (electronic payment method available to customers of the brand) as one of the options for completing the purchase.
