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~ Intershop ~

RAJA E-COMMERCE

AND E-PROCUREMENT:

A SOLID INTERSHOP B2B

E-COMMERCE CORE WITH A

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC COMMITMENT

Text: Frank Calviño // Photos: Intershop

RAJA’s history is one of constant pioneering: this renowned packaging materials wholesaler
was founded by two women – Rachel Marcovici and Janine Rocher – in 1954 when women
were not even allowed to have their own bank accounts in France. And to top it all, these
two magnificent entrepreneurs decided to start their business in perhaps one of the worst
possible scenarios: post-WWII France, where scarcity and precarity were a daily occurrence.

ut their ingenuity and courage made them lessons we can learn from this successful combination of
successful whereas many others failed. And RAJA DNA and Intershop functionalities.
Bthis success was in great part to Rachel
visionary business approach. For example, they Intershop as a solid base to build for the future
chose to work with a circular economy approach The main reason why RAJA opted for Intershop was that
before that even existed, using second-hand Intershop provided a rock-solid B2B specialized e-commerce
products to alleviate the scarcity of ravaged post- solution. Something that the company considered
war Europe, and decided that customer-centric fundamental, as it provided RAJA with a core solution that
commitment had to be part of RAJA DNA. was already, out of the box, capable of delivering most of their
specific B2B needs.
This entrepreneurial, visionary, and courageous DNA has
been part of RAJA until today: They were the first company Let’s talk a bit about the thought process behind
to offer mail-order packaging products via catalogue in RAJA’s expansion into B2B e-commerce, what RAJA
France and one of the first companies in their industry to was searching for in its online solution, and why you
launch an online e-commerce and e-procurement solution in chose Intershop?
2000. Antoine: RAJA experienced massive growth as a company,
and thus, we needed something that was scalable and
And it paid off: RAJA currently has 26 companies, and the reliable. Also, RAJA has different verticals across the
RAJA Group is now present in 19 European countries; it company. We have the office supply vertical, the packaging
accounts for over 4,500 employees and a sales volume of over vertical, and the industrial vertical.
€1,7 billion and is positioned as the top European distributor
of business supplies and equipment. At the same time, we asked ourselves, ‘Do we want to offer
the same customer experience in all of our verticals?’ and
That’s why today, we had the pleasure of speaking with ‘How many specificities do we need to tackle?.’ To answer
Antoine Laffond, Head of Digital & e-commerce at RAJA, this, we went to our core. In our core business, we are
to examine RAJA’s success story in dealing with e-commerce fundamentally a B2B company. That’s why Intershop made
and e-procurement, why it chose Intershop as a B2B so much sense for us; it is the best B2B platform, ‘out-of-
e-commerce solution, what challenges it faced, how Intershop the-box,’ for B2B companies wishing to go online.
helped them overcome these challenges, and above all, what

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