Accès rapide :
Discover Synolia’s comprehensive platform of services and solutions to help you deliver the best experience to your customers, users and employees.
See more
Flexible, customizable and high-performance, the solutions we’ve selected can be adapted to your needs to support your digitalization strategy.
Through its European headquarters, Pilot Corporation of Europe, based in Annecy, Pilot pursues its mission of supporting the act of writing by manufacturing and selling cutting-edge writing instruments. Since its founding in Japan more than 100 years ago, Pilot has built unique know-how in designing and manufacturing innovative, high-quality, environmentally friendly products. At a time when screens and smartphones are an integral part of daily life, Pilot is more committed than ever to supporting the act of writing by inviting everyone to tell their own story. After developing a B2B e-commerce site model, Pilot Corporation of Europe has reached the final step of its digitalization process: launching a D2C e-commerce platform.
For several years, Pilot has been driving a digitalization project for the group across Europe. After completing its B2B platform model for its European subsidiaries in July 2022, it was time for the final step of the project. This last step was meant to let the European headquarters clearly showcase the group’s full product ranges to end consumers, whom Pilot also wants to get to know better.
It was a large-scale project and a real shake-up for Pilot, which until then had not sold its products directly.
In September 2022, Pilot asked Synolia to build a D2C e-commerce platform model that could be rolled out to all its European subsidiaries, so they could sell Pilot products directly to end consumers. Pilot naturally chose to rely on the proven efficiency of Adobe Commerce in hybrid B2B/B2C contexts, extending its existing B2B platform to this new business.
Julien Barabant, Brand and Digital Manager at Pilot Corporation of Europe and in charge of the group’s digitalization across Europe, took the lead on the project alongside Sylvain Desmoulins, E-commerce Project Manager.
Design a D2C e-commerce platform that reaches end consumers directly and can be rolled out quickly to the European subsidiaries, while accounting for the specifics of each market.
Designing a D2C e-commerce site at European scale is a major challenge. Since each country’s market has its own characteristics (tax system, size, consumer purchasing power, culture, regulations and standards…), Pilot wanted to provide its European subsidiaries with a D2C platform model to support them and let them sell directly to consumers.
This approach would help them build up their e-commerce expertise. In short, the group aims to harmonize the ecosystem of all its subsidiaries by equipping itself with a model site for every entity.
“Sharing one site across Europe is meant to make its rollout in each region easier and faster, by building on the work already done. As the European headquarters, our goal is to give our subsidiaries ready-to-use expertise and services, while guiding them toward autonomy in running their e-commerce site, with the specifics of their market in mind.”
Pilot’s need for a D2C e-commerce platform stems from the desire to present its entire product range directly to end consumers. A D2C e-commerce platform was the ideal answer: it improves this visibility, helps end consumers find the right model, and gives them the best possible availability.
“The D2C e-commerce platform gives us more control over how our entire product range is presented and accessed. On top of that, it is a tool that helps us better understand our consumers. We mean not only sales data, but also the way they interact with our products, which helps us spot weak signals and growth opportunities faster.”
“This D2C e-commerce platform is also a way to shorten our subsidiaries' time-to-market. Everyone now has more flexibility, whether to launch a product or to announce something new in the ranges, for example.”
Pilot Corporation of Europe’s D2C project therefore means creating an e-commerce platform model designed to be rolled out to the Pilot group’s European subsidiaries. This macro-level scope calls for the right strategic thinking to deliver the project on time.
“Running a project at European scale means thinking globally so you don't keep doing and undoing development work. That's a big challenge, because throughout the project we constantly had to reverse-engineer requirements to make sure the needs expressed by the first target country were either a European rule or a local specificity.”
Beyond the macro-level thinking the project requires, Pilot also has to coordinate a number of teams to see it through. This adds another layer that calls for careful time management to keep all stakeholders aligned.
“Implementing this project meant bringing together and coordinating a whole group of people, both internally and externally. We're talking about some thirty people, and that's just internally.”
Convinced by the results of the B2B e-commerce project, Pilot once again called on Synolia and its more than 15 years of Adobe Commerce expertise to support the rollout of this D2C e-commerce platform.
“We found Synolia through our network. From the start of the B2B project, we knew we were working with an experienced company able to deliver high-quality service on Adobe Commerce. After a successful first project, it was only natural to place our trust in them again for this D2C project. Geographic proximity (between Annecy and Lyon) was also a key factor in our decision. It means better communication and makes it easier to organize meetings and key milestone reviews.”
On top of Pilot Corporation of Europe’s existing command of Adobe Commerce, the solution offers several advantages:
“Choosing Adobe Commerce was a matter of practicality and logic. We had already used the solution for the B2B project, and we wanted to take advantage of how easily it integrates with our current information system. Pooling development work and the technology we already use also saves us from training teams on other tools.”
“The success of the B2B project, the path to success the D2C project is now on, and our European subsidiaries' buy-in to these platforms all reflect the quality of the work done by Synolia's teams, especially on the technical side. These teams lived up to everything we expected.”
On November 29, 2023, Pilot Corporation of Europe’s D2C e-commerce platform went live at its subsidiary Pilot Pen France. The launch phase, which ran until January 2024, served as the first real-world test and proved very promising for the next steps.
“The first orders came in quickly. And the entire process for handling them (integration into our IT system, picking and shipping, status updates, automatic transactional emails, payment collection, feeds into our analytics tools…) ran without a hitch.”
Before the e-commerce site went live, Pilot had a corporate showcase website. With the help of Metrixx, an agency specializing in SEO, traffic from the old site was redirected to the e-commerce site, so Pilot kept the same number of visits at launch. This allowed Pilot to make its first sales without any additional media investment at first, a significant achievement and a source of satisfaction for the project team. Internally, teams are already feeling the benefits of the new platform: more detailed and therefore more accurate order tracking, more room to maneuver in running the platform (sales campaigns, performance tracking…), and a smoother financial flow.
“Even though the media plan hasn't launched yet, so there has been no big announcement, the number of orders is encouraging and bodes well for the future. Another reason to be pleased: the customer reviews collected since launch are all very positive.”
Pilot Corporation of Europe now intends to complete its European digitalization process by rolling the platform out to its subsidiaries, and maybe go even further…?
“We plan to roll out this D2C platform across different European regions, and possibly even use it to strengthen our presence on certain marketplaces.”
Want to learn more about the Pilot Europe project and building an e-commerce platform? Contact Synolia, your e-commerce partner agency!
Get in touch
"We want to give Synolia's teams the thanks they deserve. First, for their professionalism and availability. And second, for the human touch they brought throughout this project."
Discover the case study Lafreto Outdoor (Lunettesdesoleil.fr): a mobile-first e-commerce replatforming powered by Adobe Commerce and Hyvä
Discover the case study Avidsen secures its e-commerce ambitions with a strategic e-commerce consulting engagement
Discover the case study Tut Tut: exponential growth powered by HubSpot
