Ready to conquer
the market with their
‘sunshine brand’

Until a few years ago, fashion brand Shiwi, part of Luxor Fashion Group, achieved almost all of its turnover from B2B. To change that, the brand had a custom webshop built by a local developer. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t work out as hoped. Adjustments in the backend were expensive and time-consuming. To make matters worse, the developer went bankrupt. Shiwi realized it needed a sustainable solution – and fast. Together with Code Shiwi has now prepared itself at lightning speed for a successful approach to online sales in the Netherlands and abroad.

CLIENT

Shiwi

INDUSTRY

Fashion

TECHNOLOGY

Shopify plus webshops

PACKAGE

Webshop migration

Services we provided

Store Development

UX/UI Design

Email Marketing

Internationalization

B2B

Getting ready for the Netherlands

and the rest op Europe.

Emily Velten is a marketer at Luxor Fashion Group and explains the complexity of the situation: 'In addition to our own webshops, we also work with partner programs, such as Zalando and AboutYou. Those are doing exceptionally well, which made us realize that there were really massive opportunities for Shiwi online. When retail had to close due to corona, there was a real urgent need to speed up.'

Code: Shopify Plus Partner for Shiwi

Emily outlines Shiwi's quest. “After our bad experience with the previous CMS, we wanted to make sure we’d make the right choice. So we started researching extensively what would suit us best. We heard a lot of positive things about Shopify. We soon became convinced that Code was one of the top-tier partners in the Netherlands to work with. Thanks to their experience and portfolio, we had full confidence that they really understand the wishes and needs of a fashion label.'

Essential link between ERP and Shopify

Shiwi was using a custom Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Such a system contains the entire product range of a company and is the basis for processing orders and managing product stock in the webshop or partner programs. Shiwi wanted to control both its own webshop and partner programs from a central ERP system. To achieve this, the company sat down with Code and Divide. Divide is specialized in linking webshops to ERP systems. They do this with their self-developed Omnichannel Integration Suite (OIS).

Marcel Buteijn, Key Account Coordinator at Divide, explains what this involves: 'Shiwi's ERP system feeds OIS with all product and stock information. Code can then make sure that the storefronts show the correct inventory and feed incoming orders from Shopify back to the OIS so that they end up in the ERP system. This way, Shiwi can centrally control its webshop from the ERP system.” Marcel outlines how OIS meets a need: “the link between specific webshops and the many ERP systems that are used often do not exist yet. We solve exactly that problem with OIS.'

Shiwi, Code and Divide look back on a smooth collaboration. Emily: “It was a big, complex project. So it really is an enormous help to see a company like Code working with professional task systems to ensure that everything runs smoothly. That provided a lot of clarity for both sides. The added value for us was really in the professionalism that Code brought to this project.' In addition to designing and building the webshop, Code also contributed to Shiwi's online marketing activities. Emily: “We switched from MailChimp to Klaviyo on Code's recommendation. This system works very smoothly with Shopify. We are already reaping the benefits within two months of using Klaviyo.”

Customer-friendly, professional and accessible

Marcel also looks back on a smooth cooperation. ‘The coordination between Code and Divide to make sure all systems properly worked together was fast and very solution-oriented. Code also really positively surprised me in their customer-friendly communication and professional elaboration of notes and technical documentation. And last but not least, it was always easy to get in touch with them!'

With Shopify, OIS and a new ERP system to manage their various brands and shops, Shiwi is ready for the Dutch market but is also looking beyond the borders. Emily: 'Luxor has several brands in its portfolio besides Shiwi. For example, we have also launched a new shop for Suiteseveneleven together with Code. In addition to the Dutch market, we are looking into which brands we’ll enter the German market with, for example. We now have the strong technical foundation to do so.”