Global online clothing retailer boohoo has launched newly acquired brands Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton on its multi-brand ecommerce platform in less than three months in partnership with digital agency, Astound Commerce.
Following the purchase of the three brands in February 2021, Astound Commerce, the retailers’ retained digital implementation partner since 2016, worked collaboratively with the boohoo team to deliver a solution to meet its tight launch deadline.
To support the retailers’ strategic needs, Astound Commerce has built boohoo a truly scalable digital commerce platform, capable of supporting the businesses’ expansion and integration goals. Central to this agility was the custom ‘Reference Application’, which allows multiple brands and locations to leverage the central code base.
This unique solution allows boohoo to launch new sites swiftly, typically new brands and locales can be launched in weeks rather than months or years. As sites are relying on the same core code base, support and new feature enhancement now runs more efficiently, to allow seamless implementation at speed.
For boohoo with multiple brands, this approach offers a huge degree of agility in their go-to-market approach and significant deployment efficiencies, explained Laura McKellar, Head of Technology – Digital, Online Innovation & Marketing at boohoo:
“Our business requires us to adapt to the constantly shifting needs of its customers whilst staying competitive in a growing market. All too often technology can be the main bottleneck to growth. Our partnership with Astound has been crucial to our ability to achieve the pace required to keep up with its ever-evolving business needs, as evidenced by the speed and agility with which we have collaboratively launched these three new sites.”
Astound Commerce designed and delivered the solution, implementing Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and integrating third-party technology, including customer data platform, Exponea (recently acquired by Bloomreach), to enable connected customer experiences and Apple Pay and PayPal to provide frictionless payments and deliver an optimised customer experience on the new platform.
Terry Hunter, CEO of Astound Commerce, commented: “In today’s volatile trading conditions, the Astound commitment to scaling up to meet the needs of our clients is more important than ever – allowing our partners to achieve the pace and agility required to keep up with their ever-evolving business needs. I’m incredibly proud of the Astound Commerce UK boohoo team who delivered an epic turnaround for this project without sacrificing any of the quality or exceptional customer experience.”