Selling shutters online isn’t straightforward – every order is unique, and we needed a platform that could manage that complexity without confusing our customers. We now have a system that not only makes the buying journey simple for customers, but also streamlines behind the scenes. What used to take days now takes hours, and we finally have a platform that feels ready for the future.
Vicky Bibby
Business Development Director, TCMM
Client background
TCMM Shutter Group are a leader in selling made-to-measure plantation shutters online.
They required an approach that would simplify the ecommerce journey for their customers for one of the most customisable products you can buy.
With multiple brands in the UK and US, TCMM caters to every kind of customer - from trade professionals to DIY homeowners.
But selling shutters online is no easy feat. Every order is unique, with endless options, sizes, and finishes, creating thousands of product configuration options.
Challenges
As TCMM grew, their platform architecture struggled to keep pace. Product management became increasingly complex, while the business demanded a faster time-to-market.
Their old platform managed a large proportion of their ecomm portfolio, each brand with its own product set, variants and pricing.
As the product offering grew, there was more variety for customers across each brand to choose from, but to the detriment of TCMM and their internal operations.
Scaling their business became tougher, took longer, and cost more.
New products meant new assets for the configurator, generated in multiple colour variants, slat sizes, and styles.
Development was needed for each new product being added onto the site, alongside an intricate build out of the product within their CMS.
This was acceptable when TCMM started their journey with a small product offering as a challenger brand.
But as their business and product range grew, and they established themselves within the market, their platform became a limiter rather than enabler of growth.
The solution
Struct PIM’s preferred partner, true architected a future-facing ecommerce platform from the ground up that would help TCMM scale their business in the right way – with Struct PIM at the heart of the platform to drive product simplicity.
true normalised various product datasets across multiple sources into a single, coherent product set within Struct PIM.
Struct PIM was able to handle the complexities of window shutter configuration dependencies and logic seamlessly; scaling to manage over 10,000 product options across products easily.
As well as this, Struct PIM is connected to TCMM’s websites, ERP, content recommendations platform and ecommerce tools to create one smooth process.
With TCMM’s ever expanding portfolio, Struct and Umbraco are the perfect combination to assist with the continued expansion of TCMM, from the ease of being able to set up new product structures and brands in Struct with just a few clicks, to the flexibility of sharing attributes between brands.
Struct makes these transitions work seamlessly. From configuration and pricing to promotions and delivery - every step now works together, delivering speed, accuracy, and a better buying experience, with Struct PIM at the heart.
Launching new products used to require weeks of effort and planning, with support from true developers to deploy product configuration changes.
And even when product setup did not require a developer’s time, an in-depth knowledge of the system was a prerequisite to manage most of the product configuration.
Now, TCMM can manage all the configuration in-house and this can be achieved within hours in a completely self-sufficient manner.
If development time is necessary to introduce a complex product type, it takes 50% less effort and time to achieve.
