Weidinger - B2B laboratory products marketplace UX case study

Weidinger

Founded in 1948 as a family business, Weidinger are a supplier and manufacturer of a variety of products and services, including soldering equipment, PPE, microscopes, robotics, and many other factory and laboratory products.

With a logistics center and headquarters in Gernlinden, Germany, the company delivers worldwide with the help of its team of 18 sales representatives providing the highest level of customer service to their clients.

Besides their massive product catalog, their offer also includes consulting and planning of ESD protection zones as well as the implementation of ESD training, workshops, audits and material testing.

Weidinger is an example of a B2B multi-brand ecommerce platform that does a fantastic job of representing its brands and making its 50,000+ product catalog discoverable to users. Let's take a look!

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Navigation

The top navigation features a multi-tiered mega menu, making it easy for customers to explore subcategories without having to load pages. You'll also notice in the top right corner there is a language selector - they do sell globally after all!

Homepage

We see the all too familiar main banner at the top of the homepage, immediately followed by a list of the benefits of being a Weidinger customer accompanied by a CTA to register an account on the platform.

Also, notice the little ‘Trusted Shop’ badge in the bottom right that shows off the company’s average user rating.

Next, we see a section dedicated to some of the newest products and a carousel containing their top sellers. 

Notice how the Trusted Shop badge is sticky!

Below, is a section displaying the logos of brands whose products they offer, each linking to the relevant brand page.

Weidinger also provides certain technical services to their customers which they decided to advertise on the homepage.

This is followed by a grid of top categories and a grid featuring top subcategories for one of those top categories.

Footer

In the footer, they decided to insert some badges that show of their certifications, awards, and compliances with GDPR.

On mobile, each section of the footer is collapsed to save on space.

Direct Order

Weidinger has a direct order feature that allows users to search items by article number and add them to cart. This is, however, not available on mobile devices.

This feature benefits both returning customers who'd like to repeat a purchase of specific goods (i.e., the know they article number) or for new customers that already know exactly what they're looking (i.e., they also know the article number).

Brand Listing

The top of the brand listing has a banner displaying all the brand logos followed by a grid of their ‘premium brands’.

Then a simple alphabetically ordered list of all brands.

Brand Page

The brand pages themselves aren’t particularly flashy, but they still have some custom elements specific to each brand such as the main banner and page coloring.

On all brand pages, there is a carousel of the latest or best-selling products below the banner.

In the case of JCB, the next element on the page is a slider of their top products lines. The other brand pages, however, do not all follow the same format.

This is followed by some product categories, and a category-specific information section (soldering tips in this example).

The next part of the page has two functions: 1) to educate customers about the health risk associated with prolonged use of their products, and 2) a promotion of the products they offer that helps negate those health risks.

Below are two more videos that further promote their brand and sustainable practices.

And at the very bottom, even more videos showing off some upcoming products.

Product Listing

The product listing is fairly standard at a glance, with a category description and accompanying image.

The products can be displayed in a grid layout.

Or in a list, in which case the user can change quantities and add products directly to the cart, thereby providing a more streamlines buying experience.

However, the list view is not available on mobile devices.

Product Page

The product page more or less follows the same conventions is most of the examples we’ve seen in our other blog posts, with the extra option to view ‘Your price break’ - a feature only available to logged-in users with a valid tax ID.

As you’d expect, this is followed by product details that include a link to an instructional YouTube video.

This is followed by a carousel of matching accessories and, lastly, a carousel of recently viewed products.

Cart

The single-step pop out cart not only allows the user to easily edit quantities and remove items, but it displays some important product information for the client's reference, such as article number and manufacturer number.

The user also has the option to download the cart as a PDF.

Registration

Users must register before making a purchase, and when they do so they are greeted with a three-step registration form where the most enter company info, personal info, and set their user credentials.

About Us

Weidinger chose a nice (but not uncommon) way to describe their company history. They give a clear, year-by-year listing of events that led them to where they are today.

Summary & Suggestions

Between the product listing pages, top navigation, direct order page, and brand listing pages, Weidinger certainly makes it straightforward for businesses to discover and purchase products from them.

Not only that, but their team has also been very meticulous when it comes to adding informational and educational content related to brands and the products themselves. These are essential details to include when the items you’re selling have specific features, functions, applications, warnings, and so on.

While the website is of very high quality and has many features that forge a solid buyer experience, there are two things (or rather lack of) we noticed that Weidinger could consider implementing further down the line:

1. Volume pricing - discounted rates when purchasing large quantity of a select product.
2. Quotes - allow customers to request a quotation when purchasing a combination and/or a large quantity of various goods.

Implementing both of these features might not be necessary as they could serve a somewhat similar purpose, and it may not be in Weidinger's interests to implement either of them depending on their business or pricing model.

However, each of these could serve as means to streamline the often-complex B2B purchasing process for some of their larger clients, for example, universities, government labs, and electronics manufacturers.

UX deliverables guidelines

When it's time to upgrade your storefront design by using a more custom solution, here a few things to help streamline the process:

• All layouts should be designed mobile-first, desktop-second (but you will need both)
• Using pre-made components shortens the implementation time
• Layouts should be presented following the user journey in an orderly fashion
• All actions and menu or navigation states should be included
• All brand or icon assets should be in SVG format 
• UX design hand-over using Figma.com or a similar service is recommended
• UX questions & answers sessions should be included
• Follow up adjustments or corrections should be anticipated

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