Atea Suisse Website development for a company in Switzerland
Website development for a company in Switzerland Web
Website development for a company in Switzerland
ATEA Articoli Tecnici e Antinfortunistica SA is a manufacturing and trading company that has been active on the Swiss market for many years. Its business spans very different areas: industrial technical articles such as hoses, belts, soundproofing, conveyor belts and rubber and plastic flooring; certified personal protective equipment; workwear; bespoke tailoring with sizing carried out at the client's premises; and garment customisation with printing and embroidery.
Such a broad offering raised a problem of scale. The task was not to present a handful of products, but to make an assortment of hundreds of items, divided by family, type and intended use, easy to navigate. A site built from static pages would have become unmanageable at the first price-list update.
We therefore built the project on Magento, but used it in a particular way: as a catalogue engine rather than a sales platform. We make use of the platform's nested category management, product attributes, internal search engine and back office for entering items; the commerce layer, on the other hand, stays switched off, because in this market negotiations go through a quote, not a checkout.
The result shows on the product page: there is the SKU code, the image gallery, the technical description of the material and the attribute table, but instead of a buy button there is a contact request. The catalogue works as a qualification tool, guiding the user to the exact item before handing over to the sales team. The site is fully responsive and SEO optimisation has been built on the category structure, which is what captures product searches.
Choosing a technology and using only what you need
There is one choice in this project that says a lot about how we work. Adopting Magento for a site with no online sales seems a contradiction: it is a platform built for e-commerce. But ATEA's problem was not taking payments, it was managing a vast assortment of technical articles and PPE and making it easy to navigate. And on that front Magento offers category, attribute and search management that few systems can match.
So we took the part of the platform that was needed and left switched off the part that would only have made life harder for the client and the user. Decisions like this can only be made if whoever designs the project understands the company's trade: in the Swiss technical articles market, negotiations go through a quote, and a shopping cart would have been an obstacle, not a service.
It is the method we have followed since NewVisibility was founded in 2013, from an idea by Andrea and Luca: first we put ourselves in the client's shoes and understand where they want to go, then we propose the route. Canton Ticino is a short distance from our office in the province of Como, which makes it easy to support clients across the border. We develop in-house and you talk directly with the people working on your project, even after launch.
Read our manifesto
NewVisibility, a web development agency in the province of Como, which designed the catalogue structure, developed the site on Magento and handled the SEO optimisation.
It is a Swiss manufacturing and trading company dealing in industrial technical articles, certified personal protective equipment, workwear and bespoke tailoring.
Because the platform excels at managing large catalogues: nested categories, product attributes and internal search. The commerce layer stays switched off when negotiations go through a quote.
SKU code, image gallery, technical description of the materials and attribute table. Instead of a buy button there is a contact request to the sales team.
No. When prices and conditions depend on volumes and agreements, the cart complicates rather than simplifies. The catalogue qualifies the request and the sales team closes the deal.
With a multi-level category tree, built on family, type and intended use, alongside an internal search engine for those who already know what they are looking for.
Yes. Canton Ticino is a short distance from our office in the province of Como, and we support clients across the border, managing projects both in person and remotely.
Yes, from the Magento back office: adding new items, editing attributes and reorganising categories can all be done without technical intervention.