velroq.com: the first B2B ecommerce platform for high-tech drill parts

Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions (SMR) is a leading global supplier of capital equipment, tools, services, and technical solutions for the mining & construction industries. Recognizing the vast strategic potential presented by the growing aftermarket sales, the company engaged SparkOptimus to support the development of their venture concept. This evolved into velroq.com, the first online retailer of drilling machine parts, ranging from hydraulic pumps to maintenance kits.

We worked with the SMR team to turn their venture idea from a few slides into a fully operating business in a matter of months. Together we started with rapidly testing the initial vision, validating the idea step by step against lowest cost possible at every stage (interviews, PoC, build first version), gaining positive feedback to secure seed funding to fully operationalise.

Following this, we worked with the team to design and build a market leading B2B ecommerce shop with unique features such as a ‘machine selector’ which allows a customer to identify their machine and virtually drill down into the machine to find the right components. We then set up a sales funnel and fully functioning supply chain by reusing existing tech, leveraging existing supply chain, and external ecommerce best practices as much as possible while tailoring key points.

We continuously improved the entire proposition based on customer feedback (namely assortment, web features, price updates) which resulted in growing revenues every month, but more importantly learning more about the barriers, needs, and behavioural drivers of a customer segment of which relatively little was known previously.