Advantech IoTMart enhances B2B eCommerce experience and accelerates global rollouts with Magnolia

The Advantech IoTMart team identified opportunities to enhance the digital experience and better support the purchasing behaviors of their B2B customers. "The previous front-end experience wasn't optimized for the specific purchasing journeys of our B2B customers, leading to missed sales opportunities," says Jonney Chang, Vice President of Global IoTMart/AOnline Sector Organization at Advantech. “To improve sales, we needed a more customizable front end.”

In addition to supporting typical customer buying processes, the company wanted to create a more visually pleasing experience. “Our marketing team had limited control over the front-end interface,” says Chang. "The native CMS offered limited flexibility, hindering our marketing team's ability to fully express our brand identity and create visually compelling interfaces."

The previous CMS also made it difficult to publish content updates, implement promotions, or manage campaigns. “We weren’t able to push out campaigns or messaging in a timely manner,” says Chang. “We wanted to give marketers an easier-to-use interface and greater flexibility for delivering new content to customers.”

While replacing the rigid front end was a top priority, the Advantech IoTMart team needed to keep the back end intact. “We had already spent a long time setting up our partner catalog and partner tier pricing with Salesforce, and we wanted to retain that customized structure,” says Chang. “We needed an alternative CMS that we could integrate easily with our existing back end.”

A business partner recommended Magnolia to the Advantech IoTMart team, and it was a clear match for the company’s needs. “Magnolia’s headless architecture and proven integration capabilities with Salesforce B2B Commerce were crucial differentiators,” says Chang. “This seamless compatibility, without requiring a complete overhaul of our established back end processes, was a key factor in our decision.”

The Magnolia platform helped Advantech IoTMart create a consistent, well-branded buying experience for its B2B customers. "Magnolia provided strong UI/UX customization so we could create an ‘aesthetic’ website on top of the functionalities,” says Chang.

Advantech IoTMart worked with a system integrator to deploy the Magnolia platform and ensure its integration with the Salesforce B2B Commerce platform. “Implementation was smooth and collaborative,” says Chang. “We started with our EU site and will be gradually rolling out the platform to other regions.”

The Magnolia team helped ease the transition to the new platform. “They provided technical guidance and onboarding support, and they ensured compatibility with our tech stack,” says Chang. “They even flew to Taiwan to conduct in-person training.”

With a more flexible front end, Advantech IoTMart has built digital experiences that better support the company’s B2B customers. The customized front end flows, built with Magnolia, now align perfectly with the complex purchasing behaviors typical of our B2B clients, supporting everything from detailed product exploration to quote requests and final procurement.”

The Advantech IoTMart teams created customized site templates, which they were able to reuse with new sites. “Thanks to the reusable templates, we’re now launching new country sites 70% faster—dramatically improving our speed to market.” says Chang.

Ultimately, the improved customer experiences should help Advantech IoTMart not only regain lost revenues but also attract new customers. “

By delivering a superior and more intuitive digital experience via the IoTMart portal, we are confident in our ability to not only recapture previously hindered sales but also capture new market share in a competitive landscape,” says Chang.

The Advantech IoTMart team is capitalizing on the preconfigured approval workflow available within the Magnolia Pages app to streamline content reviews before publishing. “With Magnolia’s built-in approval process, we’ve reduced page publishing time by 50 percent,” says Chang. “We can deliver new content and messaging much faster than before.”

With an easy-to-use interface, the Magnolia platform benefits multiple teams at Advantech IoTMart. “Marketing, UI/UX, IT, and sales teams use Magnolia daily for content updates, campaign scheduling, and performance monitoring,” says Chang. “We’ve significantly increased productivity while fostering collaboration across departments.”

Magnolia’s Campaign Manager module enables the Advantech IoTMart team to more easily create, manage, and schedule campaigns from a single place. “We have gained much better control over digital campaigns since transitioning to Magnolia,” says Chang. “The campaign management and scheduled publishing features are game changers for our marketing team.”

The Advantech IoTMart team is seeing the benefits of adopting a truly composable DXP, which enables the company to retain existing systems while adding new, best-of-breed tools. “Magnolia allowed us to substantially modernize our digital experience without compromising the back end setup we spent years building,” says Chang. “It’s a platform that truly bridges content and commerce.”

Looking ahead, the Advantech IoTMart team is considering new integrations and additional Magnolia capabilities. “We’re exploring AI chatbot integration to further enhance the customer experience while also investigating conversion analytics, which could help us find new opportunities for optimization,” says Chang. “Magnolia’s open integration makes this all feasible.”