Our Clients Open Up
Clément Boës
Assistant Director of Ecommerce and Marketing at Bicycles Quilicot
“ What we expect from a partnership is to have a resource who understands our needs and our objectives. Those who can offer us solutions that will transform our daily operations.”
« Because knowing the reality of our clients is the basis of any success, we seek to highlight the different aspects of a digital marketing mandate. Testimonials on the back end of a project enrich our vision of ecommerce. »
The company
« Bicycles Quilicot is a specialty bike shop. Founded in 1915, the chain now has seven branches (including Vélo Branché, which focuses on electric bikes). The company stands out due to its passionate team, its wide range of products (bikes, clothing, accessories, components) and its personalized services. »
Your position
« I deal with marketing and ecommerce. When I arrived as coordinator in 2016, the team was small. There were two of us to take care of everything web-related! One of my goals was to develop the transactional site. We have expanded the teams, structured our ways of doing things. I became Assistant Director of Ecommerce and Marketing during this evolution. »
Industry and positioning
« We are a bike store, so the primary goal is to offer every possible product and service related to cycling. What sets us apart is the fact that virtually all employees, whether web folks, salespeople or mechanics, are bike enthusiasts. We try to transmit this passion in the store, but also on our website. We keep the passion of a small boutique, but with the scale of a large retailer. »
Your vision of ecommerce
« We obviously want to sell our products online, but we try to put our site at the service of our stores. When it comes to accessories and equipment, people love to shop online. But for bigger purchases, like bikes, people want to go to the store. We accompany the client right from the research phase. Afterwards, we encourage people to come to the store, especially with tools such as the chat function. »
The Collaboration
Before TWO DEV
A summary of your work processes before TWO DEV’s arrival
« When I arrived in 2016, there was already a redesign project started with an agency. We launched our first Magento site in 2017. That said, the collaboration with the agency was very complicated: features that were oversold and poorly created, ineffective follow-ups… Let’s just say there were a lot of disappointments.
In 2018, we wanted to adjust by hiring an in-house programmer (someone with technical skills who could be a point of contact with our future external resources). We worked with a small agency, with self-employed workers… We tried different formulas, but it was never ideal. When working with several providers, it is quite easy for them to pass the buck. We wasted a lot of time on communications. It was unsustainable in the long term.
When our in-house programmer left Quilicot in 2019, we found ourselves without reliable resources. We had to rethink our approach. For me, it was clear: we had to be able to count on an agency that would have overall responsibility for the website. »
With TWO DEV
A glimpse of your collaboration with TWO DEV
« When we met TWO DEV, we felt, on the one hand, that they were Magento specialists, that they knew the platform from A to Z. We also felt that they were highly motivated. There was a desire to grow with us. We liked their approach.
We started the project with the objective of stabilizing operations. We made a good inventory before making the list of what we wanted to do in the medium and long term.
Today, we operate with annual or biannual strategies. We sit down with TWO DEV to break down the projects, estimate the time it might take and divide everything into monthly hour banks. We really try to keep a good balance when it comes to the time spread between new projects, debugging and maintenance.
Monitoring is done on a weekly basis, with a ticket system for viewing the progress of the work in real time and a meeting every Tuesday with a project manager from TWO DEV.
The fact that the same programmers work with us on the evolution of our site, everything is easier. There is no need to go back over the project for each new need. We save time and it is more reassuring for everyone. »
Your favourite value
« It’s team spirit. For us at Quilicot, collaboration is our number one value. We need the expertise of an agency to help us grow. The philosophy is to say, ‘If our transactional site grows with us, you will grow too.’ The success of one is the success of the other. »
A standout project
« The implementation of Akeneo, a PIM (Product Information Management) solution that allows us to centralize the addition of products, has become a very important asset. Rolling three or four tools into one simplifies the task of employees in charge of product integration and shortens our training for new employees. It makes our lives easier… and it will continue to make our lives easier in the future for the thousands, the tens of thousands of products that we add to the site each year! »
A highlight
« What struck me the most was when we had to launch our new transactional site in the midst of a pandemic. We had been working on the redesign for a year, but with stores closing in early 2020, online traffic skyrocketed. We had to react. We launched the site two or three weeks after the start of COVID. We had no room for error. It was rather stressful, but in the end everything went well. »
