Each of the approximately 300,000 FREITAG bags and accessories produced each year is unique. A large proportion is manufactured in Zurich, where the truck tarpaulins are dismantled and washed by FREITAG employees before the bag designers cut out the best motifs with their cutter knives and templates and these are then processed into bags.

So far, so good. But more and more often, customers inquire in the FREITAG stores whether a specific bag is also available in another color, with this or that motif. The bag makers have taken these requests for (even) more uniqueness to heart – and fell back on the diploma thesis in which DEPT® employee Severin Klaus invented, designed and programmed the first F-Cut for FREITAG 20 years ago.

The DEPT® team in Switzerland has been working with FREITAG since 2020 and has, among other things, implemented a bag swapping campaign on Tinder for the brand. Now FREITAG approached us to awaken the online cutting table F-Cut from its slumber together with bag and UX designers, logisticians and many other experts.

The following positioning and visions were defined in a preliminary project:

F-Cut offers a unique combination of rough & real materials with digital perfection and a smooth product configuration – no matter on which device, including 3D preview in real time. In this way, the offline world of FREITAG is linked to the online world thanks to a unique experience. 
 
For F-Cut, DEPT® not only implemented the UX, UI and the 3D preview, but also the back- and frontend. The visual identity, creative direction and copy were done by FREITAG.

From a technical perspective, F-Cut is a web application that combines various systems. On the one hand, there is of course the F-Cut app – the GUI – in which FREITAG customers configure their bags. Then there is the F-Cut backend with a headless CMS, which primarily provides a database and communicates via API with the checkout (FREITAG online store) and of course the F-Cut app. In addition, there are further admin interfaces with everyday tarpaulin management functions (configuration, orders, etc.) and tarpaulin upload, editor and export (DXF) for production.

For the first release, the focus was on the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid): we limited ourselves to one bag type, the Messenger Bag F712 DRAGNET, which can be designed using four virtual templates from a selection of 20-50 different truck tarps. The designable bag types could be expanded in the future or the bag type could change at fixed intervals.

In order to ensure fairness and equality, new tarpaulins are silently added to the system to exclude disputes about the “good” tarpaulin pieces. Another important aspect for FREITAG was the balance between maximum design freedom and sustainability: leftover tarpaulins are used for accessory products.

Already before the go-live, F-Cut triggered enthusiasm both among the DEPT® and FREITAG teams. Several further development projects are already planned: more products and features are to follow. 20 years after the birth of the idea, F-Cut has finally awoken from its slumber and will continue to grow steadily.

We have a long-term Microsoft Gold Partnership for Application Development and, more recently, added a Gold Partnership for Cloud Platform and DevOps; by expanding our capabilities, we can now provide customers with the full suite of Microsoft services.

We love Azure. Microsoft Azure is a commonly used cloud environment within DEPT® because it fits in well with the technology that we use for our clients. We also have clear agreements with Microsoft about service levels and underlying services, so that we can serve our customers even better. Microsoft’s services have evolved over the past five years, making it even more interesting for us to host our applications and solutions on Microsoft Azure.

Like DEPT®, Microsoft is constantly evolving and improving, and this is reflected in the various Microsoft features we work with. Think of developments such as AI, machine learning, API management, Azure DevOps, Azure WebApps, Cosmos DB, Azure Storage, serverless architectures based on Azure Functions, and Logic Apps, and lots more. Other reasons why we use Microsoft Azure include:

Availability

Scaling up to serve regions around the world.

Security

The security services of Azure provide insight into intrusion attempts, vulnerabilities etc.

Governance & Cost Management

By using Azure Lighthouse, we can better monitor and govern our cloud infrastructures and have a good understanding of the costs incurred by the environments.

Our open-source mindset is in line with microsoft’s strategy. In addition, the available tooling enables us to fully code our infrastructures and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

commercetools can be seen as a pioneer in the field of microservices. These include all e-commerce functionalities, such as PIM, cart and order management, marketing and promotions, payments and internationalization. A flexible and fast API connects these services to all relevant frontends and applications such as webshops, mobile apps, voice, AR/VR applications, and social networks. The following four themes are central to the choice of commercial tools:

Microservices

Functionality is developed in a modular way in which each function can be used and developed separately.

API first principle

More than 300 APIs unlock all kinds of functionalities one could desire.

Cloud-Native

 commercetools runs entirely in the cloud, guaranteeing IT performance, scalability, and security.

Headless

The focus of commercetools is on creating the functional commerce building blocks for your webshop.

DEPT® partners with Bloomreach, Contentful, and Magnolia and offers standard integration for commercetools. Thanks to the ‘API First’ principle, commercetools can work efficiently with any front-end solution. As commercetools expert, DEPT® also has experience with integrating other solutions such as Adobe and Drupal.

It allows brands to build and enrich their online shopping experience. With microservices and APIs, commercetools provides the speed and flexibility that today’s digital world demands. As a commercetools partner, DEPT® is equipped to help companies implement and use this software.

DEPT® has supported a wide range of companies with the implementation and usage of commercetools. The following practical examples show how commercetools can take your e-commerce to the next level:

• Eurail.com was looking for a future-proof solution that made it possible to build personal experiences with rich content, implement new functionalities quickly, and swiftly respond to changes in the market. We used both commercetools and Adobe Experience Manager to make this a reality. You can read more about it here.
• Goudsmit Magnetics is an international manufacturer of magnetic systems. Digital transformation is very important here for the long term and Goudsmit defined a new digital strategy together with DEPT®. Based on commercial tools and Magnolia CMS, DEPT® then created for the company a new online platform.
• Holland & Barrett – At the end of 2018, Holland & Barrett, a Dutch chain of health food shops, chose DEPT® as their e-commerce partner. Their new global platform was built using commercetools in combination with Magnolia CMS.