Indola, a Henkel brand, chooses VTEX to accelerate its digital B2B transactions

Indola, Henkel’s salon-exclusive brand, has taken one more step towards digitalization by launching its new multi-distributor marketplace

New York, November 9, 2023 – Henkel, a German multinational with almost 150 years of history, and VTEX, the global enterprise digital commerce platform, have entirely transformed the B2B sales system of Indola, Henkel’s salon-exclusive brand. As part of the process, Indola has implemented a new sales channel and launched its multi-distributor marketplace in Spain and Portugal (shop.indola.es), which streamlines business transactions among its professional hairdressing customers and supports inventory management for approximately 280 SKUs of products. 

According to Gartner, about 83% of B2B buyers prefer to place orders and make payments online, enhancing the user experience. In this context, this B2B marketplace model boosts seller orders and provides them with digital visibility that would typically be challenging without the VTEX platform’s resources. “Our marketplace seamlessly integrates our trusted distributors as sellers, maintaining our proven business model. Every order is swiftly transferred from the marketplace directly to our distributors, ensuring efficient fulfillment and shipping for a seamless customer experience. We have also launched another tool that enables our team of distributors and sales associates to capture new digital natives, and —at the same time— we have digitized the brand with new sales channels,” explains Paula Llanet, ecommerce manager at Indola Professional.

Henkel had to embrace a novel approach to conducting business transactions to kickstart this project. Indola’s marketplace has been meticulously crafted to enhance traditional sales models by leveraging cutting-edge digital tools and innovative technologies, amplifying their efficiency. “Here at Indola, the marketplace reinforces our trust in our business model while ensuring that technology provides further support in our day-to-day lives.”

Our core message has always been connected to commercial support. Even though it is true that physical and traditional channels have limited reach in specific scenarios, Indola has managed to fulfill the unmet demand and has supported and streamlined processes that exceeded stores’ capacities. 

Finally, end users consider that customers’ trust in the product brand is a crucial factor. Indola is a benchmark in the professional hair salon market, and its top-selling products are related to PCC coloring, vegan dyes and tints, and innovative technology.

“As digital commerce specialists, we understand the needs of both our B2B and B2C clients. We are delighted with Henkel’s improvement after implementing VTEX IO. We know we can provide them with the tools the company needs to continue growing,” explains Prakash Gurumoorthy, general manager at VTEX EMEA & APAC. 

VTEX, which Gartner recently nominated as “one of the best platforms for managing B2B and B2C digital commerce on the same platform”, was chosen by Henkel to achieve this goal.

“I am sure our upgrade with VTEX has benefited us as clients. The platform is intuitive and user-friendly, enabling us to introduce changes and customize the store to our needs even without much technical expertise,” Paula explains.

Indola, through its differentiating business model, was seeking to leverage the momentum, so it set into motion the search for software that would meet the following requirements:

• B2B ecommerce model to expand the sales model to other companies and professional hairdressers.
• Marketplace model. In this scenario, sales associates took the initiative to personally fulfill and deliver orders, moving away from the reliance on a single centralized warehouse for their products.
• Preserve corporate know-how, client portfolio, and distributor experience. These were the first components to be digitalized and included in the process from the beginning.
• Development support. To make Indola’s unique business model thrive online with minimal time-to-market delays, it was essential to have the vendor’s specialized team to help Indola tailor and fine-tune the platform to its needs.
• Scalability. Being able to drive growth without any technical knowledge about how to increase the size of the operation. More distributors’ sales were critical to this project’s success. We needed a platform that could support that expansion without hassle.

Despite the large number of sales associates within this new marketplace, their administrative barriers, and the configuration of each of those sellers, the new channel was launched just four months after its implementation. As of today, it has caught a growing interest of customers.

All data has been supplied and approved by Henkel. 
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About VTEX

VTEX (NYSE: VTEX) is the enterprise digital commerce platform where forward-thinking CEOs and CIOs smarten up their investments. Our composable and complete platform helps brands and retailers modernize their stack and reduce maintenance costs by rapidly migrating from legacy systems, connecting their entire value chain, and making inventory and fulfillment their strength. 

As a leader in digital commerce, VTEX is trusted by more than 2,600 B2C and B2B customers, including Carrefour, Colgate, Motorola, Sony, Stanley Black & Decker, and Whirlpool, having over 3,400 active online stores across 38 countries (as of FY ended on December 31, 2022). For more information, visit vtex.com.

About Henkel

Henkel operates in more than 75 countries and organizes its activity into two major business units: Adhesive Technologies, with adhesive solutions for consumer goods and industry and Consumer Brands, with market-leading hair, clothing, and home care products.

Henkel’s strategy is based on sustainability, digitalization, and innovation. This is why the corporation has increased its general and technical support for small or medium-sized businesses selling its products over the past years.