Award-winning e-commerce solution for a global fashion wholesaler
Tom Tailor’s usually outstanding brick-and-mortar performance in the South-Eastern European region was heavily hit by the global pandemic. As the structures of the whole fashion industry had to be redefined, making e-commerce appearance became a necessity.
Background
TomTailor is a global fashion wholesaler and retailer with headquarters in Germany. Established in 1962, their clothes have been designed with a statement of freedom and adventure from the very first collection. Nowadays, TomTailor stores can be found all over Europe. However, the most successful market for the brand is the South-Eastern European region, consisting of 7 countries.
Challenge
Although e-commerce has been a must-have among popular retail brands for years, TomTailor’s brick-and-mortar stores in the South-Eastern European market were doing incredibly well on their own. It wasn’t until the global pandemic that the concept of going digital shifted from being a possibility to a necessity.
TomTailor partnered up with Vareo, a digital agency located in Slovenia, to help them create an optimal e-commerce solution for their online stores. The clothing retailer was still not set on the long-term vision for its digital efforts. Therefore, Vareo suggested the Ucommerce and Sitefinity combination as the perfect starting point for an easily scalable online store.
Content is a top priority for Tom Tailor. Therefore, it was essential that their new e-commerce store could handle large amounts of content effortlessly. The fashion industry heavily relies on what, how, and when they communicate both through their visual and written content. This means that the content should be both fast to upload for the developers, and easy to manage for the digital merchants.
Objectives for the solution:
- Manage large amounts of content effortlessly
- Webshop stock in sync with brick-and-mortar
- Personalized user profile
Solution
TomTailor’s Slovenian store was Vareo’s first Ucommerce project. Therefore, they decided to ask one of our Powerhouse partners, The SiteDoctor, for a helping hand. With their guidance, Vareo created a seamless e-commerce solution, not only integrating Ucommerce and Sitefinity but also adding ERP and PIM systems to the equation.
For this phase of the project, the Product Information Management system was the main architecture feature. While the ERP holds the basic data, such as titles and descriptions of the products, the PIM was needed to collect and then enrich it with images, categories, and tags. The data then goes into the Ucommerce catalog, which displays it on the website.
TomTailor also needed a customized checkout process, as the pricing and stock in their online store had to match that of a brick-and-mortar. To handle their requirements, Vareo worked closely on integrating Ucommerce with the ERP system. The discounts are created, managed, and in the digital store through the Ucommerce catalog. After purchasing a product via Ucommerce, the information is retrieved by the ERP immediately and the stock is lowered, letting the brick-and-mortar store know that an item was sold. The integration ensures consistency and clarity for both digital merchants and retail personnel.
Results
Within 3 months, the first phase of TomTailor’s digital universe was put together and ready for launch. Right after going live on the Slovenian market, they conducted a survey on the visitors of their online store. They received an incredibly high net promoter score of 90%.
The response of TomTailor’s team managing their digital store was also positive. After adjusting to the user interface of Sitefinity and Ucommerce, they were delighted to find a website that is easy to manage. They can now prepare weekly promotion articles and connect them to product discounts without the help of an external agency.
In May 2021, Vareo's new e-commerce solution for TomTailor was awarded the Website of the Year by Sitefinity.
When you think about Sitefinity and Ucommerce, they both share the same framework-first idea. I'm a big fan of that because, in this approach, the sky's the limit when it comes to customizations. And if, as a client, you don't know where the e-commerce project will lead you, you can start small, and keep adding more and more Lego pieces when you need it.
Gorazd Planinc
Founder and Owner, Vareo
Further developments
TomTailor and Vareo's plans for the future include adding new functionalities to their digital store and growing within the South-Eastern-European market.
The upcoming functionality upgrade is creating user profiles for the online store’s visitors. This would allow them to have personalized discounts and save their favorite items, making the shopping experience smoother and effortless.
Along with that change, Vareo is also working on transitioning the brick-and-mortar stores from the remaining 6 countries in the same market into the digital world.
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