Europapier Austria: International Webshop Relaunch Across 11 Countries
Coordination of an international webshop relaunch at Europapier Austria GmbH. 11 countries, 16 websites, 8 webshops. Role: IT and e-commerce project manager.
11 Countries
16 websites, 8 webshops coordinated and successfully relaunched
Context
Europapier Austria is an international distribution and trading group for paper, board, and packaging materials with locations across several European countries. Towards the end of 2022, the company faced the task of consolidating its digital infrastructure: several country-specific websites and webshops that had grown organically over years needed to be brought to a unified technological baseline.
I worked as IT and e-commerce project manager from January to December 2023.
Scope
The relaunch covered:
- 11 countries with different language versions, currencies, and regulatory requirements
- 16 websites migrated to a unified platform base
- 8 webshops with country-specific catalogue and pricing structures
The complexity was not in the technology itself, but in coordination: external vendors, internal business units, and country-specific stakeholders with different priorities.
Approach
Backlog management in Jira and Confluence: All requirements were centrally captured and prioritised in Jira. Confluence served as the documentation backbone for decisions, specifications, and handovers to external vendors.
Scrum as coordination framework: Two-week sprints enabled quick responses to changing requirements from individual countries. Sprint reviews with the relevant country stakeholders kept progress transparent.
Interface between business units and vendors: My role was primarily coordinative. I translated business requirements into technical specifications for external developers and, in the reverse direction, filtered technical constraints back into understandable options for the business side.
Architecture Decisions (ADR Summary)
| Decision | Direction | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Shared platform base | Unified technology for all 16 sites | Higher initial migration effort, lower long-term operations cost |
| Country-specific catalogues | Separate product catalogues per market | Data redundancy accepted, local pricing autonomy preserved |
| Localisation approach | Central content, local translation in workflow | Translation management via vendor rather than in-house team |
| Phased delivery | Country by country rather than big-bang release | Risk reduction, but extended project duration |
Result
The relaunch was completed successfully. All 11 countries, 16 websites, and 8 webshops were migrated to the new platform base. Country-specific features (prices, catalogues, languages) were preserved.
Lessons
Cross-border stakeholder management takes more time than expected. Aligning with country managers who have different priorities and timelines requires clear escalation paths and regular synchronisation checkpoints.
Documentation as a coordination instrument. With distributed teams and external vendors, written documentation is not overhead. It is the primary form of communication. Undocumented decisions get challenged retroactively.
Phased releases reduce risk. A country-by-country rollout slows down overall delivery, but errors in one market do not affect others.