Abitare Group is a holding company managed by Abi Consult SA, established in 1991. The company is split into two separate brands; the original one, Abitare Living, is focused on high-end design furniture and home accessories, and Abitare Kids on furniture, toys, nursery items and fashion clothing for children.

In the beginning the group had only two stores in Luxembourg, but over the years they’ve opened three new ones in Luxembourg and six in Spain. The company’s CEO, Pierre Friob, was convinced that eCommerce was the future, so he decided early on to focus his investment on developing several eCommerce stores, and to be present in the most famous marketplaces like Amazon, Nature et Découvertes and Fnac.

A large part of the company’s sales strategy is a unique concept of using gift lists. The customers can select products and make an online wish list for various occasions, such as weddings, baby showers, etc. The list can be shared with friends and family, who can then decide to either purchase a specific product as a gift, or contribute to it by purchasing a gift card via the website or in one of the physical locations.

More info on: http://www.abitare.lu/

Sustaining a Fast Growing Company

As Abitare began increasing their focus on eCommerce, they needed to make sure that their CMS platform was up-to-date. In 2015, Abitare began undertaking huge restructuring of their websites but they soon found that their ERP was too old and the integration between the front-end and the back-end was not optimal. Had they continued with their former ERP they would have had to manage too many operations manually, drastically reducing their productivity.

Abitare contacted Acsone in October 2015, and asked them to analyze their business needs and the feasibility of implementing Ygen for their business. After a quick analysis and budget estimation, Acsone began implementing Ygen with a very tight deadline. The project was to be completed by the 1st of January 2016, including the data migration, which meant that they only had 3 months to get everything done.

Managing an Extensive Retail Network with Ygen

Abitare’s workflow is quite standard, starting from the customer order (online or offline) to the invoicing and/or payment, and inventory and stock management. The initial implementation included Ygen Accounting, Sales, Purchase, Point of Sale, and Inventory;

• When a customer makes an order, Ygen Sales ensures that the sale is documented and then communicates with either Ygen Inventory or Ygen Purchase, depending on the order process. If the product is stock-able then the impact on the current stock is registered with Ygen Inventory. However, if the product follows a make to order process, then it triggers a Purchase Order in the amount of the Sales Order in Ygen Purchase. Once the article is received, then it goes back to Ygen Inventory and the received product is documented and the stock updated.

• Within Ygen Purchase, Abitare heavily uses the reordering rules for their stock management, to avoid any stock shortage and to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction. It allows them to set minimum and maximum stock levels for any given product, to have a reasonable stock level without overcrowding their warehouses.

• Abitare also uses Ygen Inventory to produce the picking orders related to the customer’s order, which is done in two steps: the items in a delivery order are picked and prepared in the warehouse, and then brought to an output location and shipped. The routes feature in Ygen is also helpful to track the flow of goods from one warehouse or between different warehouses.

• Ygen Point of Sales covers Abitare’s management of nearly 26,000 articles (in-store sales) within the several cash registers.

• To complete the sales process, Ygen Accounting can provide all the periodic financial results, as well as the profitability and the forecast ed revenue of each shop.

The initial implementation was a success and in 2016, Abitare asked Acsone to implement Ygen for 6 additional shops, and to set up new websites and a warehouse in Spain. In addition to implementing Ygen, Acsone had other guidelines and responsibilities towards Abitare that they needed to follow;

• They got a connector to the SaaS solution Lengow, which allowed them to connect to more online marketplaces, and Acsone had to ensure good connectivity between the websites and Lengow. It was also important to make sure that stock levels would synchronize and that there was full integration between Lengow and Ygen.

• Acsone developed additional new modules that could manage the gift lists created in their online store.

• They advised and assisted Abitare with their multi-company environment, and made some customizations to Ygen to better fit Abitare’s specific workflow.

Achieving Goals with a Dedicated Partner & 
a Supportive Solution

Abitare is currently using more than 240 Ygen modules to cover all their activities. The decision to implement Ygen was taken quite rapidly, which was largely based on the way Ygen performed as a standard solution, and provided them with a fully integrated and centralized system, covering most of Abitare’s needs. A few customizations were added to cover needs such as managing the online gift list, and connections with Magento for eCommerce, and Lengow to gain access to a larger network of distribution channels and external online marketplaces.

Abitare currently runs 8 companies and operates in 5 different languages. The company has over 50,000 active products, and in 2016 alone, they received more than 32,000 sales orders. The gift list system implemented by Acsone has also worked well, and Abitare has had over 350 opened gift lists.

The partnership between Abitare and Acsone has been excellent from the get-go, and Ygen has proven to be an exemplary solution for them. Having a highly reactive and dedicated partner, as well as a flexible solution, allows Abitare to sustain their fast growth and to effectively deal with their everyday challenges