Supplying PPE to Close-Contact Professionals During COVID-19

In a three-way partnership to meet the challenges created by the coronavirus, Wavin (a global player in construction and infrastructure), commercetools, and Valtech have teamed up to provide protective face shields to businesses in the Netherlands whose work involves close physical contact with their customers. Initial talks on the non-profit project began in early April. Just three weeks later, these led to the launch of an all-new campaign environment, including full online ordering and payment options.

Normally, Wavin specialises in manufacturing plastic piping systems and rainwater management units. In the face of the current pandemic, the company quickly switched focus to making solid-plastic face shields, meeting a vital need given the current acute shortage of this kind of personal protective equipment.

Straightforward Ordering

Wavin initially supplied face shields to healthcare professionals. In April, it began to focus on meeting the needs of other close-contact professions, such as dentists, hairdressers, physiotherapists and installation and maintenance staff. Key to this was to make placing an order as simple as possible and offering an automated and reliable ordering process. This is where Valtech, as Wavin's existing digital partner, came in.

Fast Commerce with Commercetools

After advising Wavin on user experience and platform development, we set up a minimalist, yet fully integrated, commerce environment in a very short time. The environment is based on the headless commerce solution from commercetools, our technology partner. This accessible and flexible platform is ideal for fast-moving, multi-faceted projects like the one for Wavin and demonstrates the power of headless, API-first and cloud-based architectures. Headless platforms are content management systems that store, manage and deliver content without a front-end delivery layer.

Flexible as Can Be

The project demanded considerable flexibility, especially given certain changing market developments in the Netherlands. Although the project scope altered slightly as a result, the commerce environment and support team were set up so they could respond quickly. From the pressure cooker environment and tight deadlines to the real enthusiasm of everyone involved—the smooth partnership between the three parties has made the project a success, and the initial orders have now been processed—a great achievement given the short turnaround time.

With this not-for-profit initiative, all three parties hope to make a small contribution to protecting everyone whose work means they run an increased risk of catching Covid-19.