Cleo, a beloved Canadian fashion retailer, was acquired by Northern Reflections, creating a complex and urgent business problem. The goal was to consolidate multiple retail brands under one corporate umbrella, but this was hindered by Cleo's existing legacy systems and workflows.
The challenge was to swiftly integrate Cleo into Northern Reflections' digital ecosystem, requiring expert alignment across multiple platforms, vendors, and teams. Fahrenheit Marketing was engaged to act as a strategic partner and solve this complex challenge.
This was not a traditional website redesign, but an enterprise-grade rebuild driven by a critical business consolidation. With minimal lead time, our core objective was to build a robust, scalable foundation for the new brand family.
Rebuild & Integrate: We launched a new Cleo website on BigCommerce, seamlessly integrating it into Northern Reflections' ERP system to enable unified inventory, fulfillment, and reporting across all brands.
Operational Streamlining: Our solution navigated a complex 3PL consolidation, streamlining logistics across all three brands (Northern Reflections, Ricki's, & Cleo) and ensuring operational efficiency.
Strategic Guidance: We acted as proactive strategic consultants, helping to reduce vendor friction, identify operational risks, and streamline digital infrastructure to avoid costly missteps and manual deployments.
Our Approach: Delivering Business Value
Our approach was highly collaborative and agile, positioning our team as the "connective tissue" between a complex web of stakeholders, including IT, Marketing, and Operations.
Shared Architecture, Unique Branding:To accelerate time-to-market and control costs, we strategically reused the robust Northern Reflections theme as a base. However, we meticulously preserved Cleo’s distinct brand identity through custom logos, color palettes, fonts, and specific UI adjustments. This demonstrated a strategic balance between cost-effectiveness and brand fidelity.
Custom Features that Drove Loyalty: We developed a proprietary "Stores Manager" app that enabled a highly requested in-store pickup feature, which was a critical part of the customer experience. This also encouraged customer account creation by offering differentiated shipping prices for logged-in users, directly supporting loyalty initiatives.
Proactive Problem Solving: Our philosophy of flexible, reusable code ensured faster, more reliable deployments with fewer manual errors. By implementing an automated deployment pipeline, we provided the client with the stability and speed needed for quick updates and consistent performance.
Key challenges
This project presented significant enterprise-level complexities that we navigated with strategic oversight and technical expertise.
Complex Systems Integration: The most significant challenge was integrating a shared ERP and a complex loyalty program middleware. Our DevOps and cloud architecture expertise allowed us to replicate and fine-tune the middleware, creating a secure, isolated environment for Cleo that maintained data integrity and functionality.
Managing Vendor & System Conflicts: We proactively managed issues with third-party vendors, such as delays with SearchSpring and initial incompatibilities with the payment gateway. We provided hands-on problem-solving, including developing a custom checkout solution to ensure full functionality and business continuity.
Meeting Tight Deadlines: The project was under a compressed timeline due to high costs on the previous platform. We provided critical change management support by communicating potential order delays during warehouse transitions and implementing continuity measures to ensure a smooth launch.
Results
We successfully relaunched Cleo on BigCommerce in approximately 90 days — significantly faster than the typical six months for a similar enterprise-grade project.
Accelerated Time to Value: An enterprise-grade site launched in under 90 days, reinforcing momentum post-acquisition and avoiding the high costs of their previous platform.
Reduced Operational Overhead: Our work resulted in unified systems and vendors, leading to significant cost savings and improved fulfillment efficiency through a streamlined workflow.
Strategic Partnership: Fahrenheit Marketing became a trusted partner, providing crucial consulting that helped Northern Reflections navigate a major digital transition with confidence and avoid costly missteps.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Updates to the custom checkout and loyalty modules improved functionality, encouraged account creation, and enabled in-store pickup resolutions.
Fit Guide Updates: HTML and image updates implemented, resolving mobile formatting issues and adjusting size labels.
What We Loved about this Project
This project was a powerful showcase of our ability to deliver complex enterprise-level e-commerce solutions.
We excelled at being the "connective tissue," enabling Northern Reflections to seamlessly integrate Cleo into its unified digital ecosystem. The ability to deliver complex custom solutions, manage challenging integrations, and navigate tight deadlines while ensuring brand consistency truly highlighted our team's capabilities and commitment to long-term client success.
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