Case Study: Willow

General Information

1. Current Platform: Shopify
2. Previous Platform: Magico
3. Services Provided: EPOS Integration, Detailed Marketplace Integration, Detailed Logistics Integration, and Automation, Click & Collect, Email Integration, Theme Customisation

Background

Willow is a women’s fashion store with two physical locations – Ennis and Galway.

Recently crowned National Store of the Year 2019 by Retail Excellence Ireland, they were looking to grow their ecommerce presence and move away from the proprietary platform they were currently using.

At the same time, Willow was switching to a new EPOS, which meant the catalogue build became complicated but was vitally important.

In our initial discussions, we suggested the new build be completed on Shopify. Our initial discussions focused on gaining an understanding of their new EPOS (Lightspeed) and finding an integrator (Hyperspace) to connect Lightspeed with Shopify to manage stock levels.

Feature Case Study: Single Stock Level and Click & Collect

The two key goals for Willow initially were:

1. Create a solution that will allow for a single stock level online calculated from two physical stores.
2. Create a solution for Click and Collect for customers to pick up in two physical stores (Galway and Clare), ensuring correct stock levels at each store appear in online store.

We first completed a proof of concept phase in which we confirmed we were able to find a Click & Collect solution for Shopify that would satisfy Willow’s needs along with supporting work on their catalogue build. The catalogue build was a significant amount of work, with stock levels previously coming from different systems for the two stores, and complications with the set-up of the previous web catalogue.

After sign-off from WIllow on the proof of concept, we began implementing and customising the theme, with a regular flow of information between Willow and StudioForty9. We added apps for filters, product recommendations, wishlist and an additional payment method (PayPal).

The catalogue build continued in conjunction with theme customisation, with StudioForty9 setting up a structure for the catalogue in Lightspeed and testing the information flow between Shopify and Lightspeed via the connector – Hyperspace.

It can’t be underestimated how much work goes into getting a catalogue into the correct format to use both from an EPOS perspective and an ecommerce platform perspective. We aimed to have the site live by early March and met that deadline, rolling straight into an ongoing Service Level Agreement for ongoing and future work.