Introduction
A Fabienne Chapot item is recognisable from a mile away with its colourful and playful prints that often brighten up the streets of the Netherlands. First launching as an accessory brand in 2006 and evolving to offer ready-to-wear collections, Fabienne Chapot is a bold and brave expression of womenswear.
Popular among Dutch locals and international audiences, the brand is sold in over 1000 locations, next to over 10 flagship stores. Its webshop had been built on Magento 2.0 but for some time the complexities and slowness of the platform affected the ability to best showcase their content and created difficulty in optimising their growth strategy.
Our migration expertise was exactly what this client needed to boost their online presence and get the ball rolling.
Challenge
Though Magento 2.0 has its benefits, there were enough challenges for the Fabienne Chapot team to deal with.
The key obstacle they faced was the platform’s need for frequent code maintenance which took up time and energy. Especially if left for too long, this could contribute to a slower experience on the website. Shopify Plus by comparison, is easier to use and therefore makes keeping it up to date less of a hassle. The platform also required a lot of custom coding, rather than simpler drag-and-drop options so content would be less frequently updated, which was a frustration for the brand’s marketing team.
Another unfavourable outcome of Fabienne Chapot’s existing tech-stack was the lack of scalability, hindering the capacity of page visits and loads. This was especially problematic during peak webshop moments such as launch collections and (archive/Black Friday) sales.
Solution
A sizable list of concerns regarding Magento’s capabilities for what the client needed, meant that Shopify Plus was a clear solution. Our expertise with migrating fashion clients to Shopify Plus and knowing the nuances of that industry, e.g. working with a large assortment of seasonal products, meant that having us as their partner was also a clear solution.
Shopify Plus has an extensive offering when it comes to inventory management, order management, marketing, store design and is a great help when it comes to scaling up a business.
The most necessary asset in the case of Fabienne Chapot was the ability for Shopify Plus to scale up and be able to handle a greater capacity of users on the webshop. This would mean no more refreshing and reloading and a more seamless user experience – an increased uptime with little to no downtime through Shopify’s 99.99% average uptime.
Another significant addition from Shopify Plus was the ability to create a separate Archive Storefront with separate product info and contents. As mentioned, archive sales are a particularly busy time on the brand’s webshop, so it’s important that products are displayed correctly, making sure stock count is accurate and that the webshop speed is consistent.
Results
The greatest result comes from the migration to Shopify Plus itself. A backend system that functions far more efficiently and works with the user, making it an overall pleasant experience for the Fabienne Chapot team.
Shopify Plus taking care of the hosting relieves a lot of responsibility from the business and its brilliant capabilities mean that there is little to no downtime. In the case of Fabienne Chapot, there was a greatly increased uptime, which gives customers a more pleasant experience on the webshop. In just over two months, the AOV increased by 23%. The cherry on top of the cake comes from the record-breaking archive sales results, which generated remarkable results in total sales over the four days.