Customer
Peeraj Brands International, founded in Romania in 2006, has in its portfolio brands from the fashion and lifestyle area. Peeraj Brands operates over 8 brands from all over Europe, as well as from the USA, in over 30 stores. The growth of Peeraj’s fashion division has been a constant one and, mainly, based on the franchises of some international fashion, footwear and lifestyle brands.
From the very beginning, the group sought to identify those key fashion trends of each season, and to innovate, through the prism of the numerous stores in its portfolio. All of this, coupled with sustained effort, planned growth and a constant desire to excel, have made Peeraj Brands International one of the largest and most important fashion and lifestyle franchise groups in the local retail market.
According to a survey conducted by Statista, it is estimated that revenues in the fashion segment will reach $987,065 million in 2022. Also, according to calculations, revenues will have a growth rate of 11.19% (CAGR 2022-2025), which results in an estimated market volume of $1,357,042 million by 2025.
Regarding fashion accessories, a survey also conducted by Statista estimates that revenues in this segment will reach $57,823 million in 2022, and the market is expected to grow annually by 3.58% (CAGR 2022-2025).
According to the GPeC E-Commerce Romania 2020 Report, the e-commerce sector reached 5.6 billion euros at the end of 2020, 30% more than in 2019 (approx. 4.3 billion euros), and the average value of one transaction was 45.9 euros (desktop) and 39.3 euros (mobile). According to estimates published in the GPeC E-Commerce Romania 2021 report, the Romanian e-commerce sector has reached the threshold of 6.2 billion euros at the end of 2021, by about 10% more than in 2020.
This data is significant when a retailer decides if it is necessary to expand in the online environment, with the help of an e-commerce platform.
Challenge
Distinctive.ro is the online multibrand platform of Peeraj company, distributor of brands such as Skechers, Geox, Miniso, Pimkie, CCC, Armani Ex, Boggi Milano, Women Secret, Pepe Jeans etc.
The online store was originally launched in March 2020, in immediate response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, by closing the company’s offline stores.
Subsequently, the store was developed both front-end and back-end on one of the most versatile global platforms – VTEX and relaunched in October, less than 6 months after its initial launch.
The growing expectations of customers and the desire to maintain a long-term relationship with them are a goal of any newcomer to the ecommerce market. Also, in addition to the challenges of creating a unique customer experience, the Peeraj team also focuses on ensuring an optimal inventory and its management, discounts, promotions, communication and marketing strategy, sustainability, etc.
Given the high competitiveness of e-commerce, not solving problems leads to dissatisfied customers, high dropout rate, high return rate, and, finally, the general decrease in the company’s revenues.
Peeraj’s expectations from the VTEX platform were correlated with the challenges of the ecommerce market. They wanted a platform to help them offer their customers a great shopping experience and to better organize their activities within the company.
Solution
VTEX provides a digital commerce enterprise platform. The VTEX platform has a SaaS architecture, based on microservices and APIs. The headless principle (decoupling the backend from the backend) offers the flexibility to connect multiple channels to the same system.
VTEX is a platform that grows at the same time as the business, without the need for constant updates to interrupt online activity. With an average rate of 109 days to go-live, the VTEX platform has an advantageous time-to-revenue. With the help of the platform you can increase the conversion rate, allow upsell activities, cross-sell and other promotions, and help the easy management and control of multiple stores and warehouses, all in one dashboard.
In addition to all this, Peeraj also benefits from the following features (which are essential for the success of an e-commerce business):
- product catalogs (easy management of product information);
- VTEX Intelligent Search (an advanced search engine that uses artificial intelligence to understand what a customer is looking for and then provides relevant results. This feature includes autocompletion, synonyms, and spell checking);
- native A / B testing (testing is done on both versions of a page, and traffic is automatically redirected to the one with the best results);
- multi-language and multi-currency (which is essential for a business that is considering expanding internationally);
- WHO (Order Management System);
Implementation began with a process to assess the current situation. Peeraj’s needs have been put first, with all stages of the project being established from the beginning (what systems need to be integrated, what human resources are involved on both sides, how the communication will unfold).
Implementation
The implementation process went according to plan, the teams collaborated very well and kept a high standard of quality in everything they worked on. VTEX has various integrations, so incorporating adjacent systems (ERP, payment, courier, etc.) was easy for the Peeraj team.
Easy communication was sufficient to overcome the minimal obstacles that occurred along the way, common in migration processes: resistance to change, alignment of team members in accordance with the initial plan, and other elements related to the unforeseen.
The collaboration began with an extensive consulting process, in which all the aspects necessary for a successful collaboration were discussed. From a technical point of view, the CustomSoft team has ensured that the solution is implemented correctly, and that Peeraj will benefit from all the functionalities necessary to take its business to the next level.
Distinctive online store
The Distinctive project (part of Peeraj Brands International) is a complex project that required intuitive and user-friendly front-end design, back-end and import functionalities, application integrations and other elaborate functionalities, but necessary both to offer customers an improved shopping experience, and to better organize the company’s activities.
The architecture is a marketplace with white-label sellers, which means that the administration of the product catalog is done in the marketplace, while the sellers only deal with order processing. One of the advantages of this architecture is that it can build a community of sellers, which leads to increased visibility of the marketplace and long-term sales.
The challenges encountered in this project were related to the establishment of a design and imports, but with the help of the exchange of know-how between teams, this stage was easily overcome.
This project also required the integration and implementation of several applications, including:
- Integration with Innoship. Innoship is an application that allows you to connect to all national and international couriers using existing contracts. The application allows more efficient management of the relationship with courier companies through a single point of contact, and also provides access to the services of all couriers without new integrations. This application is now found in the VTEX store and is used by many customers both in Romania and abroad.
- SmartBill integration. SmartBill is an online billing and management program. It helps businesses issue invoices, receipts, notices and proformas online, collect payments, save time and avoid mistakes.
- Return app. Initially, this return application was developed for B2C stores, but with this project, the marketplace version was designed.
- Locker delivery implementation. This type of delivery comes with multiple benefits for customers. When the product is delivered in the locker, the customer is notified and can come to pick it up, which gives him the flexibility to take possession of the package when it is a convenient time. The sellers also have advantages related to the delivery to the locker, the most significant of which is the reduction of the transport cost of the packages.
Benefits
Some of the benefits of using the business platform:
- increased customer satisfaction;
- organizing activities in one place;
- increased sales;
- improving the shopping experience on the site;
- differentiation from competitors;
- reducing human error;
- reducing operational costs.
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