Alain Afflelou.
TECHNOLOGY.
Adobe Commerce Cloud
SCOPE.
Multi-country B2C
SECTOR.
Optics & Hearing
New ambitions
Alain Afflelou, an iconic brand present in more than ten countries, was running its B2C website on a custom Symfony stack. A robust solution for its time, but one that had become a barrier to agility. Every evolution required a double effort: developing for two distinct systems, maintaining two code bases, and juggling between teams with poorly defined scopes.
The challenge was not purely technical. For Afflelou, digital is above all a lever for visibility and in-store traffic. The goal was therefore to build a platform that first serves local SEO and appointment booking, and then lays the foundations for a true international e-commerce operation.
By the numbers:
- 6 countries targeted by the multi-store deployment: France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Belgium and Switzerland
- 2 Magento / Adobe Commerce Cloud instances unified around a shared core
- 90% of modules shared between B2B and B2C
Building a core model
Rather than delivering a website, we designed a system. A central model capable of adapting to each market, activating or deactivating features on the fly, and evolving alongside Afflelou’s information system without friction.
Modular architecture: A common base for all countries. The shared modules cover 90% of the need: PIM import, catalogue management, product SEO, media. Each instance can override them to address its local specificities.
Unified design system: A system of reusable components to guarantee a consistent visual experience from one country to the next, while allowing for rapid local adaptations. Brand consistency is tailored to each deployment.
International scalability: Thanks to Adobe Commerce’s native multi-store structure, each new market can be launched as a showcase or full e-commerce site without any redesign. Time-to-market is drastically reduced.
What we built
At the heart of the drive-to-store strategy, the store locator allows users to find the nearest franchised store via an interactive map, then book a time slot by consultation type (optics or hearing), directly connected to each point of sale’s schedule.
To strengthen this local presence, dedicated pages by city and region were entirely redesigned to capture proximity searches. If a customer searches for an optician in Strasbourg, all Afflelou stores appear. Once replicated across every French and international city where the brand operates, this becomes one of the platform’s most powerful SEO levers. Thousands of pages are generated, each one a gateway into the network.
From website to store, the journey is designed without interruption. Online appointment booking, the store locator and the customer account create a natural link between the digital experience and the in-store welcome. Genuine omnichannel, not just on paper.
And this is just the beginning! Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Latin America — the expansion roadmap is already underway, and the architecture is ready to be deployed in each new market, without compromise and without technical debt.
Custom lens configurator: This is the project’s technical centrepiece. Non-existent natively in Adobe Commerce, this configurator was developed entirely from scratch, enabling users to select their lenses and pupillary rules. Depending on their choices and order, stock management is updated in real time. This is a custom system that gives Afflelou’s B2C customers a unique experience when purchasing their optical products. It makes Afflelou a pioneer in the digitalisation of the optical journey, and a reference in a sector that remains largely untransformed.
Intelligent promotions engine: Afflelou’s flagship promotions (such as the second pair for €1) are integrated directly into the checkout funnel. As soon as an eligible product is added to the basket, a suggestion appears to guide the user towards the relevant offer.
Two instances, one single ecosystem
The architecture is built on two Magento / Adobe Commerce instances, designed to coexist without friction. On one side, the B2C under Adobe Commerce — a multi-store, multi-country platform open to the general public, whose primary focus is search engine visibility: local visibility, international presence, and brand development. On the other, the B2B dedicated to franchised opticians for the day-to-day management of their orders and stock.
What makes the model powerful is precisely what unites them: a shared module catalogue covering 90% of common needs. PIM import, product catalogue, photo and video management, SEO content, eco-responsibility data, ETL connectors, OPCON, EyesRoad and Azure AD — these are all building blocks developed and maintained once, but deployed everywhere.
This pooling has a direct impact on development and ongoing maintenance costs, on consistency between the two scopes, and on each instance’s ability to evolve at its own pace. Every evolution of Afflelou’s information system is instantly reflected across the entire platform, with no additional effort.
Since our involvement, the group has not stopped accelerating. Morocco, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Colombia — showcase sites are deployed in just a few weeks, and the switch to e-commerce requires nothing more than a simple activation. No redesign, no delays!
our other projects
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