How can businesses stay competitive in today’s rapidly evolving Commerce Landscape?
The answer lies in creating a seamless and intuitive shopping experience that truly enhances the customer journey, much like what United Colors of Benetton (UCB) accomplished.
A renowned merchant known for its premium apparel and foot wear, was facing significant challenges in showcasing its expansive inventory and managing complex backend systems across different platforms. With the need to migrate from Salesforce to Shopify, UCB turned to Marmeto, a B2B Tech solutions provider known for its expertise in commerce migrations and backend solutions.
We’ve explored the collaboration between Marmeto and UCB, along with our partner Eshopbox, to create a unified, customer-friendly shopping experience. Together, the three entities delivered a comprehensive solution that not only addressed UCB’s challenges but also helped elevate their online business performance.
UCB’S Challenge Before Approaching Marmeto
UCB, faced a critical challenge: migrating from Salesforce to Shopify. This migration wasn’t just about transitioning to a new platform; it involved replicating their existing backend infrastructure while enhancing their order management and customer experience systems. UCB wanted a solution that would streamline their complex backend flows, facilitate efficient order and return management, and ensure the smooth operation of their vast product catalog.
Key Challenges:
Integrating a large inventory into a seamless, user-friendly online store created hurdles for both the business and its customers. The existing system faced challenges in offering the flexibility required to streamline navigation and help customers make well-informed purchasing decisions. Additionally, the backend inefficiencies impacted the overall operational performance.
To overcome these challenges, we aimed to:
Migrating data from Salesforce, managing thousands of products, customer orders, and SKU variations.
Replicating backend workflows across their OMS, WMS, and ERP systems.
Providing a superior customer experience with an easy-to-navigate product catalog and intuitive user journey.
Solutions Created by Marmeto
Marmeto addressed these challenges with a series of carefully designed solutions that optimized UCB’s entire ecommerce ecosystem, from backend integrations to customer-facing features.
1. Data Migration from Salesforce to Shopify
Challenge: Migrating complex data from Salesforce, including product details, customer orders, and inventory, to Shopify’s format was a critical task. The Salesforce data was in XML format, which required custom coding for conversion.
Solution: Marmeto successfully migrated UCB’s entire product catalog, customer data, and orders to Shopify without the assistance of third-party partners, marking the first time Marmeto took on such a Salesforce to Shopify data migration independently.
Custom coding was implemented to ensure the smooth transformation of the Salesforce data into Shopify’s format.
The migration process was completed within 2 weeks, ensuring no data was lost and UCB could meet its go-live date on schedule.
2. Backend Optimization and Integration
Challenge: UCB required a backend system that integrated with multiple systems, including order management, warehouse management, and inventory management for apparel and footwear.
Solution: Marmeto designed and implemented an elaborate backend solution that ensured seamless order management, inventory synchronization, and returns processing across multiple systems.
Inventory from different warehouse partners was integrated into a single system to ensure real-time stock updates.
A detailed flowchart was created to ensure smooth operations post-launch, making it easier for UCB to manage its operations autonomously.
3. Variant as a Product – Multiple SKUs in One Page
Challenge: UCB wanted to group different products under a single product page or have multiple SKUs showing different products based on backend bundling.
Solution: Marmeto created a “Variant as a Product” feature that allowed multiple SKUs to appear under one product page, offering a better customer experience.
Products and their variants (e.g., sizes, colors) could be easily toggled, with details such as sizing and availability automatically updating across SKUs without the need for customers to click through multiple pages.
This solution streamlined the customer journey, enhancing the shopping experience by keeping users on a single page and reducing the number of clicks required to explore different product options.
4. Custom Size Chart for better UX
Challenge: The absence of an intuitive size guide was a sore spot in customer experience which led to an increase in the order return rate.
Solution: Marmeto developed a custom size chart that was integrated into each product page.
The size chart was dynamically populated based on product variants, allowing customers to see precise measurements in both inches and centimeters.
Customers could directly select their size from the chart and add items to their cart without navigating away from the page, for better user experience.
5. User-Friendly Features to Enhance Customer Experience
Challenge: UCB needed to provide a more engaging and efficient shopping experience for their customers.
Solution: Marmeto introduced several enhancements to improve usability and engagement:
View Offers in Cart: Customers can easily view promotional offers or discounts applied to their cart before checkout.
PDP Offers on Product Pages: Promotional banners and discounts were placed directly on product pages, encouraging customers to complete their purchases.
Product Card Swatches: Customers could explore all available colors of a product directly from the homepage or PLP (Product Listing Page) via swatches.
Subcategories on PLP: Marmeto added subcategories on the PLP to help customers quickly filter and find the products they were looking for.
Role of Eshopbox in the UCB’s Project
While Marmeto focused on ecommerce migration and backend optimizations, Eshopbox played a crucial role in ensuring that UCB’s supply chain and fulfillment processes were as smooth and efficient as possible.
Eshopbox’s Contributions:
Warehousing & Fulfillment: Eshopbox offered warehousing solutions across 4 prime locations—Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Kolkata, and Mumbai—enabling UCB to offer faster and more reliable deliveries across the country.
Customer Portal: Eshopbox created a personalized post-purchase experience for UCB customers through a branded customer portal, offering features like centralized refund management, branded tracking pages, and shipping updates via WhatsApp notifications.
Last-Mile Shipping: The partnership provided a last-mile shipping application that ensured seamless order fulfillment, with end-to-end updates for customers on their order status.
Deliverables and Key Metrics Post-Implementation
After the successful migration and implementation of new features, UCB witnessed a significant improvement in its ecommerce performance. The following data points highlight the positive impact of the partnership with Marmeto and Eshopbox:
Store Performance Metrics until January 2025:
Mobile Sessions: 90% of all site sessions came from mobile devices, reflecting the optimized mobile shopping experience.
Desktop Sessions: 10% of sessions occurred via desktop devices.
Loading Speed: 2.31 seconds
Interactivity: 144 ms
Visual Stability: 0.01
These figures demonstrate the effectiveness of the new solutions in improving UCB’s ecommerce platform, both in terms of customer engagement and sales performance.
Benefits of the Solution to UCB in the Long Run
The solutions implemented by Marmeto and Eshopbox have set UCB on a path toward sustained growth and efficiency in their ecommerce operations. Key long-term benefits include:
Improved Customer Experience: With a streamlined shopping experience and enhanced product visibility, UCB can expect increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Operational Efficiency: The integration of multiple backend systems has improved order management, inventory control, and returns processing.
Scalability: The solutions in place are scalable, allowing UCB to grow and adapt to future business needs without additional friction.
Conclusion
The partnership between Marmeto and Eshopbox for United Colors of Benetton (UCB) has delivered outstanding results, transforming UCB’s ecommerce platform into a more efficient, customer-friendly, and scalable solution.
By focusing on data migration, backend integrations, and customer experience optimization, Marmeto and Eshopbox have helped UCB improve its store performance, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase conversions. This collaboration exemplifies the power of integrated technology solutions in driving growth for ecommerce merchants.
As UCB continues to thrive in the ecommerce landscape, Marmeto’s role as a trusted technology partner remains pivotal in ensuring sustained success and operational excellence.
