CARAN D'ACHE + ME

Visualize product from any angle

Configurate & customize the pen

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CARAN D'ACHE + Me – Create and customize your own pen

At Caran d’Ache, personalization is part of the DNA of this century-old Swiss company.
Whether engraved, screen-printed or pad-printed, many writing products have long been personalized, whether in e-commerce or in-store.

In 2019, the aim was to move from idea to reality by creating, for the website, the Caran d’Ache + Me experience for the 849 Ballpoint Pen, i.e. 5300 possible combinations to create your own 100% personalized ballpoint pen!

The next step was to find a complete personalization solution that could be easily integrated with the Solusquare CMS already in place.

As India VALLA MOTHES, Head of E-commerce, explains, it wasn’t the replatforming of the website or 3D that brought this about, they just made the experience on the e-commerce site more tangible.

This offer was first developed for private customers before being extended to B2B.

Challenges

Offer a “rainbow” customization experience for all parts of the pen

For B2B customers, the ability to add and edit logos, recognize and change colors

Enable customers to engrave personalized text and see the result in real time

Create a multi-language, multi-currency interface that Calculates prices in real time

Integrate real-time 3D previews to stand out from the competition

Simple integration with Solusquare and SAP to retrieve orders and process payments

Create a simple, fun UX/UI for an optimal customer experience

Find an order centralization tool for manufacturing

Solution

The creation of the Caran d’Ache + Me online personalization experience, integrated into the existing online store and also available in-store.

To offer to the customers a co-creation experience with the brand
To differentiate from competition by the use 3D
With the creation of a B2C then B2B experience

Interview with

India VALLA MOTHES

Head of E-Commerce

For us, the 849 ballpoint pen is a product that’s over 50 years old now, that can be personalized and therefore engraved for a very long time, and we wanted to go one STEP further by offering not just engraving but full customization, i.e. being able to create your own pen. We wanted to offer a rainbow of colors for our bodies, a more or less rainbow of colors for the attributes, clips and buttons of our cartridges, plus engraving of the pen and engraving of the Slim Pack, the case that accompanies the pen. So it was a perfect project for 3D. And in fact, we couldn’t see ourselves treating it in a flat way. It was a plus for the customer experience, and we wanted to make it fun. We knew it was a big plus because we were going to really differentiate ourselves with this concept.

Stéphane GRANGIER

IT Manager

I’d say our natural choice was Emersya. So we had our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground with Emersya, which matched all these criteria. It’s always this desire to make a pragmatic choice that corresponds to all our constraints and desires. […] You really need to get a feel for a player who is committed and dynamic. We also felt that the solution offered a level of maintenance flexibility, particularly in terms of updates, that we didn’t necessarily find with competitors. […] We could see that Emersya’s 3D creations were of high quality, and that they matched our requirements. So we were reassured, we were reassured very quickly.

The online 3D Customization experience

Creation of 3D models of the pens and of the customization options on the Emersya platform

Meticulous rendering of the various options, including fluorescent colors

eCommerce website serves 10 countries: Switzerland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, UK, Italy, USA, Japan

For Europe, all orders and logistics are managed by Caran d’Ache in Geneva, Switzerland and centralized in the Emersya module

Development section of Caran d'Ache + Me

Creation of an easy to use interface for the customer to manage all available options

Emersya worked directly with Solusquare to ensure simple integration with the e-commerce platform : at the end of the personalization experience, the data (rendering of the custom product, chosen options, text to be engraved, packaging and price) is generated by an API call and retrieved by the Solusquare / SAP system to manage the next steps in the sales process (placing in basket, validation and payment, order creation in SAP).

Solusquare is linked to the personalization machines by VPN via a webservices connection. The basket is consolidated on the Soluquare side, because a design had already been created for it. The information is then entered into the SAP ERP system. Contentsquare analytical tools are connected to the website to analyze the experience and improve customer satisfaction.

Stéphane GRANGIER

Caran d'Ache + Me Order preparation

Implementation of the Order Management module

Integration of barcodes to identify each component of the customized pen

Custom text management for product engraving

Example of a product sheet in the Order Management module

Our logistics department has information from both SAP and Emersya to launch order preparation. So they have the information that there’s a Caran d’Ache plus me product, i.e. a pen, to prepare with such and such options, such and such components. And then it connects directly to the Emersya back office, because there’s a very well-designed file.

We can also scan barcodes for components, and above all, what was a problem for us, because SAP is not at all designed for that, was the whole engraving part, so the interpretation of engravings with special characters, the possible integration of emojis, we have a few and that’s not at all. ERP isn’t designed for that at all.

Stéphane GRANGIER

Example of a product sheet in the Order Management module

Our shipping department is organized around a preparation line. In fact, to manufacture each ballpoint pen, they have at their disposal, in preparation bins, each component, each body, each cartridge that makes up the pen. Once the pen has been assembled, a Gravotech laser engraving machine is used directly . We have no computer interface with the engraving machine. This is indeed an area for improvement for 2024. A nice to have in the future to be able to trigger engraving directly from the Emersya interface.

So that means that in the event that an order includes an engraved Caran d’Ache Plus Me, they’ll actually pull up their SAP picking list on the one hand but also go into Emersya to pick up the components. Each component has a reference number with us, which enables them to identify whether it’s a blue body, a black cartridge, and so on. Based on this, they can create the ballpoint pen. It’s really handmade.

India VALLA MOTHES

Caran d'Ache + Me B2B experience

Preparation of a second personalization experience for the B2B market, with the possibility of applying logos on different parts of the pen.

The experience was released only 6 weeks after the B2C configurator.

I like to take the example of real estate projects. When you’re buying new and you don’t know how to furnish your apartment, and you’ve got a great real estate agent who can show you what your living room could look like? Well, it’s a bit like that for our sales people.

Instead of going through a tedious process where customers or potential customers first have to send us a logo, something or other, which we generate, a kind of proof that we send back to them by e-mail. Well, now we’ve got a fun tool that lets them see at a glance. It’s a tool for the sales force, which is also very useful for visualizing the possibilities offered by B2B.

India VALLA MOTHES

Informations concerning logos’ insertion in the Order Management Tool

Final summary in the Order Management Tool

Caran d'Ache + Me In-store deployment

In all the points of sale ( 3 in Switzerland, 1 in Berlin, 1 in Tokyo, 2 in Paris in BHV and Le Bon Marché stores and also in occasional sales points created for Christmas), the 3D personalization experience for Caran d’Ache + ME is available on touch-screen kiosks with the same experience as on the e-Commerce site.

The shops are not connected to ERP, Solusquare or other POS software. Therefore orders cannot be placed on the kiosk but the aim is to facilitate idea generation for the customer. Customers create their pen in 3D, with or without help and the shop sales staff process the order directly and create the pen on-site.

The application is a powerful sales tool to “accompany” customers when sales staff are unavailable

Impact on sales

The increase in sales of the 849 ballpoint pen meant that within 2 months, it had become a best seller with a PDM of 22% of overall sales.

The personalization option has enabled Caran d’Ache to sell more expensive pens (at 65/70 CH instead of 45/50 CH), and the price increase of almost 45% has clearly not been a problem.

The engraving option has proven very popular as 98% of pens ordered are now sold engraved

It’s a very consistent success, since today it’s become our bestseller product, and very quickly. We launched in October 2020, and by the end of the year, we were already seeing the absolutely non-negligible effects on our sales, obviously, but also in terms of the product mix.

If there’s one thing we’ve noticed, it’s that engraving is essential. We have 98% of our pens engraved.

It’s a product that’s positioned in relation to a standard pen, even though it’s more expensive, because it’s assembled by hand. The price barrier has not been a barrier, something I was a bit afraid of at the time, when I said to myself, is the customer really going to go from a product that would cost 50 francs on limited editions to 70 francs, which is still not negligible. The gap is substantial, and it doesn’t seem to be, because price has never been an issue.

India VALLA MOTHES

About the company

Since it was founded in Geneva in 1915, Caran d’Ache has intertwined the threads of its history with those of creativity and emotion. Budding artists, amateurs and professionals alike, countless generations have shared and continue to share the same passion for its colours and the quality of its drawing and writing instruments.

Initially known as Fabrique Genevoise de Crayons, the company was renamed Caran d’Ache in 1924 under the impetus of its then managing director, Arnold Schweitzer. Meaning ‘pencil’ in Russian, Caran d’Ache derives its name from the Turkish word ‘kara-tash’, meaning ‘black stone’ in reference to graphite. A true icon of Swiss Made, Caran d’Ache is a family business now presided over by Carole Hubscher, representing the 4th generation of a family that has been involved at the highest level of management since the 1930s.

CARAN D'ACHE + ME