Raymond, a globally recognized leader in premium apparel, sought to accelerate their e-commerce capabilities by migrating to Shopify. Facing limitations with their legacy system, Raymond collaborated with Marmeto to strategically migrate and modernize their commerce infrastructure.
Leveraging Marmeto’s expertise in Shopify migrations, custom integrations, and innovative tech solutions, Raymond optimized their operations and enhanced the online shopping experience for their customers. This transformation laid the foundation for sustained growth, ensuring Raymond’s place as a leader in the premium apparel market.
The project was executed in two phases: migration and tech solution development. While some tech solutions are live and contributing to improved performance, others are still in the development phase, ensuring a future-ready e-commerce platform.
Through this collaboration, Raymond has gained the flexibility and control necessary to continue innovating and excelling in the ever-evolving e-commerce space.
Step 1 - The Need for a Modernized and Flexible Solution
Raymond was operating on a custom-built platform that lacked the flexibility and scalability required to meet their evolving business needs hence needing them to choose Shopify as their online platform.
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Fragmented Ecosystem
The existing infrastructure was built on different platforms for inventory management and storefront operations, leading to a fragmented ecosystem. This siloed setup caused inefficiencies in inventory tracking, order management, and overall customer experience. The lack of seamless platform synchronization resulted in delays, inaccuracies, and disruptions, ultimately impacting business performance and diminishing customer satisfaction. A more unified solution was needed to streamline operations and optimize workflows.
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Inflexibility and Limited Integrations
The custom-built platform in use lacked the agility required to adapt to fast-changing market demands, making even the smallest updates reliant on dedicated developers. This inflexibility diverted valuable resources away from strategic business initiatives and hindered the ability to quickly respond to emerging trends. In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, this rigid system posed a significant roadblock. Additionally, integrating online and offline store operations proved challenging, as the lack of seamless connectivity between physical and digital retail environments created a fragmented customer experience. The challenges stemming from inventory synching, managing cross-channel sales, and tracking customer behavior, was limiting Raymond's ability to offer personalized services and improve operational efficiency.
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High Operational Costs
Maintaining a custom-built store incurred substantial overhead costs, but with Shopify Plus, Raymond gained the ability to create both ecommerce and non-ecommerce stores at a significantly lower cost. The Shopify Plus plan provided a more scalable and cost-effective solution, reducing the overall operational expenses compared to the custom-built alternative. This shift helped businesses align with market demands without sacrificing performance or incurring unnecessary costs.
Step 2- Migrating the Custom-Built Store to Shopify
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Data Migration:
Migrating SKUs, customer data, and order history from the legacy custom platform to Shopify presented a significant challenge due to the complex and unique data structures in place. The custom-built system had tailored workflows that didn’t align with Shopify’s standardized processes, necessitating a thorough data validation and reconfiguration process to ensure accurate data transfer and integrity.
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Custom Features Integration:
Raymond's previous custom platform featured unique integrations that weren’t directly compatible with Shopify's native ecosystem. This required careful re-engineering to integrate these custom features, especially the specialized inventory management system. Marmeto worked to align these systems with Shopify’s functionalities, ensuring seamless integration without compromising the operational efficiency of Raymond's business.
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UI Redesign:
Transitioning from a custom-built platform to Shopify required a UI overhaul that maintained brand consistency while optimizing user experience within Shopify's ecosystem. Raymond wanted to preserve their original store's look and feel. Marmeto focused on delivering a seamless UI redesign that improved user engagement while aligning with Shopify’s capabilities, ensuring both visual appeal and operational efficiency.
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Offline and Online Store Integration:
One of the critical challenges was integrating Raymond’s offline and online stores to enable efficient inventory synchronization and order fulfillment. This integration was key to delivering a unified customer experience, allowing customers to place orders online and have them fulfilled from the nearest offline store. Marmeto focused on creating a streamlined process to ensure inventory and order fulfillment systems were synchronized across both platforms.
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Shopify Ecosystem Familiarization:
The legacy system used barcodes to track inventory, but Shopify’s native system did not seamlessly support this method. To ensure smooth synchronization between inventory systems, Marmeto implemented custom integrations to bridge the gap between Shopify and the previous system, enabling consistent product SKU tracking and inventory management across all platforms. This ensured a smooth transition and operational continuity post-migration.
Step 3- Implementing Tech Solutions and Optimizations
After the successful migration, Phase 2 focused on refining Raymond’s online store to enhance the customer experience and streamline operational efficiency through cutting-edge technology solutions.
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Product Recommendation Engine:
To offer a personalized shopping experience, Marmeto integrated a dynamic Product Recommendation Engine. This solution replaced Shopify’s generic recommendations, delivering tailored product suggestions based on customer browsing behavior on the Product Detail Pages (PDP). A challenge arose when aligning the product card UI with Raymond’s original design language. Marmeto overcame this by customizing the UI via direct API integration, ensuring the product cards matched the store’s design standards while maintaining functionality and seamless user experience.
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Product Sorting with Inventory Depth:
Marmeto developed a Product Intelligence Sorting System, that prioritized products with the most inventory across all sizes. This sorting logic placed products with available stock at the top of collection pages, making it easier for customers to find what they were looking for. Products without available inventory were placed at the bottom, enhancing inventory visibility and improving the overall shopping experience for customers.
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Integrated EMI Solution:
To provide flexible payment options, Marmeto integrated an EMI (Equated Monthly Installment) Solution, allowing customers to pay for purchases in installments. This solution expanded accessibility to a broader range of customers, increasing sales potential and enhancing customer satisfaction.
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Custom Product as Variant Solution:
To align with Raymond’s existing product structure, Marmeto implemented a Custom Built Product as a Variant Solution. This innovation allowed products to be categorized and displayed by variants such as size, color, and style, improving the customer navigation process and reducing the need to jump between multiple product pages. This streamlined the shopping experience and simplified product discovery.
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Wizzy Search Integration:
Marmeto upgraded Raymond’s search functionality by moving from Shopify’s standard search to the advanced Wizzy Search Tool. This integration offered enhanced control over search results and better sorting on collection pages, allowing customers to find the exact products they needed more quickly and efficiently. The improved search function significantly contributed to the overall user experience.
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Discount and Upsell Opportunities:
To increase customer engagement and sales, Marmeto implemented the Merchant Accelerated Program (MAP). By strategically placing discount codes across the store, Raymond saw a 480% increase in coupon usage, leading to substantial sales growth. Additionally, the Shop the Look feature, which suggested complete outfits or complementary products, unlocked significant upsell opportunities, boosting Average Order Value (AOV) and enriching the overall customer shopping experience.
Step 4- Celebrating the wins on the successful going live
While the project’s long-term impact is still being measured, initial results highlight the transformation’s success:
Store Performance Metrics (for a month after going live):
- Sessions on store: 12.4M
- Mobile device Sessions: 11.4M
- Desktop Device Sessions: 929.2K
- Net sales: INR 195.46M
- AOV: INR 1726
- Conversion Rate: 0.97%
Additionally, this activity significantly boosted engagement and contributed to the overall growth of Raymond’s online store, driving increased brand visibility and customer interaction. By leveraging targeted strategies, Marmeto helped enhance:
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Operational Efficiency
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Customer Experience
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Coupon Usage and Growth
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Scalability for the Future
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Brand Visibility and Reach
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Seamless Integration Across Channels
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Data-Driven Insights
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Faster Load Times and Performance
Step 5- Future Optimizations:
Looking ahead, Marmeto plans to further enhance Raymond’s online store with additional product sorting and recommendation features, including Bestseller Sorting. A future update will also introduce a Pin Code Solution, enabling customers to check delivery availability for their location before making a purchase. This will address challenges related to limited delivery service areas and further improve the shopping experience.
By migrating Raymond to Shopify and implementing advanced features tailored to their unique needs, Marmeto delivered a transformative solution that not only resolved existing challenges but also unlocked new opportunities for growth.
With ongoing support and innovations, Raymond is now poised to lead in the commerce landscape with a scalable and customer-centric platform.
