The fashion industry is going through a huge digital transformation, shift can be seen from the offline stores to the channels and devices driven by technology. The fashion industry is now embracing these changes and adapting emerging technologies by becoming more agile. The modern E-commerce architecture of commercetools empowers fashion brands to be more flexible and innovate quickly to scale in real-time. They use API-first commerce and microservices to obtain agility and add as many customizations possible to their customer experience.

The users in the fashion industry are no longer simple with a little content and a purchase transaction, they interact and engage with the brand so that the brand also get influenced by the things they buy. The fashion retailers are getting prepared for these new expectations and need to quickly integrate new channels, add new touchpoints smoothly and willingly innovate with new devices like touch-screen mirrors.

Social Media Commerce Solution

The integrations with social networks have transformed Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to the platforms where shoppers can also make a purchase instead of just following them. For example, Instagram allows the buyer to complete the transaction on the same platform without redirecting them to any of the web stores. The social media commerce solution gives the team a true control, speed and utmost flexibility to generate sales from these channels. The retailer can launch an Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest store in just three weeks and turn the followers into buyers, influencers and reviewers.

The core of commercetools is the modern APIs which connect the front-end to any third-party application. For the fashion industry, these modern APIs make them flexible to build innovative digital experiences like the endless aisle, buy online pickup in-store and mobile POS. commercetools is API-first, which is different from just having APIs and enable the retailers to deliver all-time performance and uptime for the online store. For example, if there is a flash sale and there is a one-page app focused on that single product then commercetools helps in scaling that page up independently from everything from the website so that there is no performance segregation.

The surge in Digital Commerce

E-commerce is growing very fast on a global level and its sales were almost doubled from the year 2015 to 2018. The fashion stores struggled to retain the customers in their physical stores and eventually they were forced to change their strategy for sales and marketing. The retailers and brands are now giving more time for the sales promotion online and also boost their digital efforts to attract customers to make a purchase from their online store. The customers expect websites which are pixel-perfect with enhanced functionality and faster customer support day and night. They also want accelerated delivery and improved return policies. The brands also need to deal with the following challenges with the rise in digital commerce –

• Creating an attractive website or an application to inspire followers. With commercetools, you can provide a dynamic front end and also a Progressive Web App. It is built by professional designers who provide an exceptional combination of product information and editorial content.
• The most common challenge is for the sizing and exchange/returns. Commercetools integrates seamlessly with AR for virtual trial. The retailers are striving to reduce the return rate by giving a better understanding of size thus saving a lot of money.
• Targeting a new audience is also a big challenge for the brands as they require to be present in several areas of the world. Their stores need to present the local circumstances like distinct preferences for products, prices and shipping methods.
• The retailers need to make sure that their users and customers have full-time access to the collections and real time inventory they have, regardless of when they view or from where they view.
• Another challenge is for large retailers to manage their stocks as they need to make an estimate of how many items can be sold through their digital platform. Some fashion retailers build their own marketplace to avoid the risk of stock along with offering a much wider range to the customers.

commercetools to the Rescue

The challenges mentioned above have a technological aspect connected to them and are unimaginable without the use of software applications. These software applications are built, maintained and used in dynamic ways from time to time. In the 90s, it was enough to just create a web store but with the increase in new models of business and touch points, things are changing for good with a great speed.

The retailers now are aware that to be successful they need their own technical team which will provide customized solutions for their business. In order to stay agile and independent, they need to attract talent to develop and design a functional website along with delivering engaging user experience on mobile devices. This cannot be done by professionals who only work with fashion brands with no experience in the digital industry. Instead of depending on the old models such as the one-fits-all and monolithic solution, the brands use a future-proof platform such as commercetools. It is relevant for the retailers to create their own ecosystem and take full control of that.

The new commercetools solution is “headless” and API based which enable them to integrate the applications and exchange information. It is imperative for the brands to become digital-savvy and redesign their complete consumer-brand relationship with the use of a platform like commercetools because there are no more traditional segments of consumers and geographies.

For Express Inc., an American fashion retailer needed to replace its legacy commerce platform and opt for a modern and cloud-based solution to enhance agility. Also, Highsnobiety, a media platform on culture and fashion took a step forward with the launch of its E-commerce website. The company wanted an exceptional combination of E-commerce and content. commercetools helped these brands with an API approach, microservices architecture and integration with Adobe Experience Cloud. It has also helped big fashion brands in modernizing like 66⁰ North, Carhatt Work in Progress, Derek Rose and Paige.

About SynergyTop

SynergyTop is a proud commercetools partner and it’s working towards achieving commercetools vision to help the rest of the industry embrace #MACH with the same passion as the 260+ commercetool’ers around the world.

SynergyTop leverages all the facility provided by commercetools like Accelerators, Integrators, Merchant Center, Marketplace etc. to provide seamless commercetools implementations.  At SynergyTop, we have a team of best in the industry consultants on headless commerce experience and cloud solutions. Our experienced team is looking forward to support you through this migration. Write to us at info@synergytop.com