AIDA Cruises sets sail with e-commerce partner PORTICA
(Kempen) AIDA Cruises has a new partner for its online shop www.aida-onlineshop.de: the e-commerce specialist PORTICA.
The process service provider has breathed new life into the existing platform and set up an innovative, highly scalable technical infrastructure which allows it to efficiently and reliably cover all tasks associated with this demanding e-commerce project, from the web shop itself to logistics, credit control and customer service. This means AIDA Cruises can guarantee that its staff, customers and travel agencies will continue to promptly receive the items they order, allowing the company, equipped with one of the most modern fleets in the world, to concentrate further on its growing core business – cruises.
“Working with AIDA Cruises is very exciting, as it allows us to demonstrate our full range of services”, said Christoph Janssen, head of PORTICA’s e-commerce department, adding, “In addition, AIDA is a brand which evokes real passion, and its online shop is demonstrating very positive growth.” Since 2014, customers have been able to use the shop to order merchandise relating to the AIDA fleet, a wide range of limited-edition works of art, and more. Due to the astonishing pace of its growth, the existing solution reached its limit, so AIDA Cruises began looking for an alternative. “We place great value on a solution that meets the state of the art in terms of IT, logistics, payment and its hotline. It must also be highly scalable in order to keep up with our development”, said Roland Vogel, Guest Commerce and Digitalization Manager at AIDA Cruises.
Over the past few months, the specialists at PORTICA have been customising their flexible e-commerce solution PORTICA shop for AIDA Cruises. Based on the award-winning pre-certified OXID eSales Enterprise Edition, it includes sub-shops, rights and role management, and a range of other add-ons. PORTICA has integrated three different shops into the solution: one for customers (B2C), one for travel agencies (B2B) and one for employees (B2E). The web shop has also been connected up to the solutions PORTICA isa, PORTICA erp and the revision-safe FibuNet accounting system – since, after all, PORTICA is also taking care of storage, fulfilment and shipping, realising payment with its partners Concardis and Ingenico, handling payment management and credit control processes, and providing customer service through a hotline and other channels.
The overall solution allows the various target groups to conveniently order the items intended for them through the online shop. Interfaces with PORTICA erp automatically trigger shipping and forward orders to the third-party order suppliers holding specific items. These in turn update the order status in PORTICA isa, allowing customers to track their order status from the shop no matter where the item is being stored. All aspects of the solution’s functionality have outstanding potential for future growth. “Aside from the B2C, B2B and B2E shops, we have also developed sub-shops for AIDA’s individual ships”, explained Marie Smets, Professional Service Project Manager at PORTICA. “All of these sub-shops are custom-tailored to their individual target groups, with some aspects of the product range specific to individual sub-shops.”
About AIDA Cruises:
AIDA Cruises is one of the fastest-growing and most financially successful companies in the tourist industry in Germany. Around 8,000 employees from 40 countries work for the company both on land and on board AIDA’s ships. AIDA operates one of the most modern fleets in the world, currently consisting of 12 cruise ships. The company plans to launch three more newly-built ships in 2017, 2019 and 2021. www.aida.de
