August 6, 2020

Fashion House

The boundaries between online and offline for a large retailer have been blurred. The website, the application and a dozen integrations have been made. Fully digitalized business with 30 stores and 10 million visitors per year
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intro

More than e-commerce: Fashion House website and App

Fashion House is one of the main and oldest retailers in Belarus, which represents top fashion brands: from Mango to Emporio Armani.

A year ago only the company was not even represented in the Internet, but today it has one of the most advanced e-commerce solutions and complex integration with dozens of services. It is quite possible that Fashion House will become the Belarusian pioneer in new retail, which will combine offline and online into one whole unit.

Objective: to create an e-commerce solution from scratch with a lot of potential for the future.

Project outside: only shopping and nothing superfluous

Catalog

Clean pages without information noise and an advanced catalog with dependent filters. There are no banners, news, promotional blocks, unnecessary small details. Everything is done in such a way as to immediately plunge into the world of shopping.

The filter system is different from most of the stores. They are very compact, conditions are applied instantly, without reloading the page. No “Apply” buttons at all. Due to this search speed increases significantly, it becomes light and invisible, like air.

Product page

Everything is minimalistic and functional here. Secondary text blocks open on click and do not overload the overall picture. There is an opportunity to add not only photos, but also videos, which there will me more and more in e-commerce.

When changing colors, only available sizes will be shown, and vice versa. There is a size chart on every page, which will not let you mess up, no matter what markings the manufacturer uses.

A tool for forming looks has been brought up, the products that are ideally combined with the chosen clothing or footwear. This is a complete win-win, because the user does not need to be a fashion expert, and the store receives a high-quality cross-sale.
For sure, the selection of similar products and browsing history also takes place here. Though they were moved to the very bottom of the page, as the information is interesting, but not the most important.

Inside of the project: React, API and many integrations

From the user perspective, Fashion House looks like thousands of pages, but technically it is a Single Page Web Application (SPA) built on the React framework. Remember, we mentioned instant filters and website loading speed? This is exactly the result of this development method: pages are refreshed without a total reload.

The website and the mobile app use one API, which allows any changes in the back-end to be applied to both the website and the app at the same time.

Another feature of the project is the minimum of operations through the control panel and a large number of integrations. Due to this the website is very independent: keeping the catalog up to date, processing orders, collecting analytics - everything happens automatically and continuously.

1C and catalog creation

We have a rich experience of working with 1C, though the Fashion House case is a real level up. There are many variables behind each item of clothing, and there are tens of thousands of items in catalogs. The data should be updated almost in real time. But a user sees only relevant data about the product: sizes, colors, stores, where a specific product with the required parameters is in stock right now.

If you don’t hurry to pay, and the last thing leaves the warehouse, you will be promptly notified of this. It is simply impossible to buy missing goods here. We hope that such benefits of civilization will someday reach such services like booking.com.

CRM, marketing and analytics

We make functional business tools that are doing well with data collection and processing. Fashion House already has an advanced analytics system: the customer receives detailed data on which categories and brands are the most popular, who are their users, how much the attraction costs, what products are viewed more often, what goes into the basket.

An email marketing tool is also connected for high-quality dealing with databases via email and sms.

Authorization on the site occurs by phone number. We and most of our clients are in favor of this method of signing in on the site, for a number of reasons at once: no logins and passwords, simple and quick access to your account, increased security, plus only valid users.

Next in line for integration is a CRM system with powerful functionality:

  • the simplest possible dealing with orders;
  • combining all sales channels and attracting customers from the website and App to the Instagram account;
  • segmentation and work with funnels;
  • card of each client;
  • recommendation management, etc.

Discount system

Here we have disengaged users from plastic discount cards, and the customer from the need to produce them and spend thousands of dollars on it additionally. Now the discount system is a full-fledged online tool connected with 1C, which takes into account dozens of options for different discounts: general, for certain categories, cumulative, personal, etc.

The customer card is now in the App and not only online, but also offline orders are recorded on it. All purchase history is available in the user's profile.

The system of applying discounts turned out to be difficult to implement, but it looks simple for a user. A regular discount on a product, a discount on a card or promotional codes – nothing will be mixed and will be clearly seen while ordering.

Fashion House App

Due to the use of React Native, the App works equally well on iOS and Android, using the native technologies of a specific operating system.

Although this platform is occasionally criticized by developers, the remaining 99% of the time it successfully solves the problem of quickly creating applications and saving the customer's money. Facebook, Instagram, Bloomberg, Airbnb work great on it.

React Native will make the Fashion House app very easy to maintain and customize. And due to the use of the API common with the website, any updates to the website's functionality will be pulled here.

Convenient navigation

Promoblocks, sales, promotions, convenient navigation personalized for each gender.

Product search by barcode

The App has all the advantages of the Fashion House web version and even a little more. For example, the ability to scan a barcode in a store and get to the product page in the catalog. This gives customers the access to the data that previously only store employees had: all information about sizes, colors, and availability in specific stores. And all this in real time, of course.

Convenient catalog

Convenient dependent filters, search for typos, popular sorts.

Informative product screen

Product screen with photos, videos, available sizes in stores. Composite images with this item.

Nearest shops on the map

Search based on geolocation, building a route to the nearest stores with the selected clothes.

Convenient design

Ordering a self-pickup, a delivery in a few steps, and for authorized users even faster. Payment using Apple Pay, Google Pay.

Personal account

Purchase history, delivery addresses, bonus accumulation.

We mentioned the online customer card in the App. There are plans for a serious modification of the functionality that will help to fully integrate traditional and online purchases into one another and, in fact, make shopping seamless.

Soon, behind the history of purchases, a history of fittings and a whole range of opportunities will become possible, which will allow retailers to take their business to a completely new level. How about ordering clothes through the App straight to your fitting room along with recommended items based on your preferences? This is not a distant future, because we are already engaged in developing the appropriate IT equipment of Fashion House stores.

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