For this new meeting, we were able to meet Yann Merchier, Director of the Product & Data team at BOXY. His arrival at BOXY in June 2020 marks an important turning point for the company, as it was at this point that they moved from technology provider to full-fledged retailer. But before going into more detail about the product and the place of NoCode at BOXY, an introduction to the company is in order.
This is the first stand-alone convenience store open 24/7. The stores are actually old, recycled shipping containers in which you'll never find staff. But why? Because they can be accessed at any time of the day or night using a simple cell phone and cutting-edge technology. How does it work? Your phone unlocks the door, you shop and receive a bill shortly after leaving the store. The final step is to debit your account a few days later. A real revolution!
Today, BOXY has some fifty stand-alone stores, most of them located near business parks and areas without local shops. One of the most successful of these stores is at Disneyland.
To continue with the figures, BOXY's head office employs some 50 people, and after just 3 years in business, the company has already raised its first round of financing to the tune of 5 million euros, followed by a second round shortly afterwards to the tune of 25 million euros.
With those introductions out of the way, let's get back to the heart of the matter: the link between NoCode and BOXY.
The first subjects Yann tackled on his arrival were data-related. At the time, the teams were using Google Sheets to centralize and track data (inventory management, for example). And it was after discovering and integrating the NoCode Retool tool into their technical stack that the data and product teams ended up merging and working more closely together.
💡 Retool is a NoCode tool that lets you quickly build interfaces for your internal tools without coding and from external databases.
Retool has changed the way teams work, enabling them to concentrate on product logic and, in particular, to iterate and test more and more. The teams consider that they use Retool in a rather LowCode way, as the NoCode tool is mixed with the use of code such as SQL and HTTP languages.
In addition to enabling them to focus on the product and move faster, a tool like Retool has other advantages, according to the ROXY teams:
Yann also told us about the teams' complete technical stack and it turns out that NoCode is everywhere:
On the automation side, Yann also tested Zapier, but was not won over by the tool. He also confided that he found the interface not very easy to use, and that there was too little visibility over automation execution.
BOXY's teams are convinced by NoCode, and the solution has become an integral part of the company's business (marketing, HR) and technical teams. So it's only natural that BOXY's future should involve NoCode. Among the NoCode topics to be addressed in the future :
Thanks again to Yann for his warm welcome at BOXY. The NoCode Series team is delighted to see that NoCode is once again an integral part of an innovative and promising project. 🧡
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