Cleo, a well-known Canadian fashion retailer, was recently acquired by Northern Reflections as part of a strategic consolidation of retail brands under one corporate umbrella.
This created a complex environment with existing legacy systems and workflows, requiring expert alignment across platforms, vendors, and teams.
Fahrenheit Marketing was engaged to help rebuild Cleo's website on BigCommerce, streamline backend operations, and provide strategic consulting during this significant transition.
This project was not a traditional website redesign, but an enterprise-grade rebuild driven by a critical business consolidation. With minimal lead time, the core objective was to:
Rebuild an Enterprise-Grade BigCommerce Website: Launch a new, robust Cleo website on BigCommerce in parallel with Ricki's.
Integrate into Northern Reflections’ ERP System: Enable unified inventory, fulfillment, and reporting across the new brand family.
Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Adapt UX flows to align with new fulfillment logic and 3PL operations.
Navigate 3PL Consolidation: Streamline logistics across all three brands (Northern Reflections, Ricki's, Cleo).
Provide Strategic Consulting: Reduce vendor friction, identify operational risks, and streamline digital infrastructure to avoid costly missteps and manual deployments.
Our approach was highly collaborative and agile, acting as the connective tissue between IT, Marketing, and Operations.
We provided accelerated design QA, responsive design expansion, accessibility consulting, and real-time feedback loops to keep the project moving, reinforcing our role as a strategic partner.
Shared Architecture, Unique Branding: We reused the robust Northern Reflections theme as a base, significantly reducing development time. However, meticulous attention was paid to maintaining Cleo's distinct branding through custom logos, color palettes, fonts, and specific UI adjustments. The overall layout and core features remained consistent, but smaller details were tailored to preserve Cleo's unique style and customer experience.
Custom Checkout & Store Manager App: A key custom feature was the integration with Fahrenheit's proprietary "Stores Manager" app. This allowed Cleo to easily upload a CSV file with physical store locations, enabling customers to find the closest store for in-store pickup during checkout. This custom solution also supported differentiated shipping prices based on whether the customer logged in or checked out as a guest, encouraging account creation.
Middleware Integration Expertise: Cleo, as part of the Northern Reflections family, share the same rewards program. This necessitated a complex integration with an external Symfony PHP middleware application hosted on AWS ECS using Docker containers. We meticulously replicated this middleware for Cleo, creating a separate environment for security and data isolation, and made minor business logic adjustments to cater to Cleo's specific needs.
Proactive Problem Solving & Automation: Our philosophy is centered on flexibility and reusable code instead of relying on hard-coded solutions. We implemented a well-structured GitLab CI/CD pipeline for automated testing, building, and deployment across AWS and BigCommerce. This automation ensured faster, more reliable deployments with fewer manual errors, allowing for quick updates and consistent performance across environments.
Key challenges
The project presented significant enterprise-level complexities due to its scale, the number of systems involved, and the parallel nature of the rebuilds.
Complex Integrations: The most complex integrations involved the shared ERP system and the external middleware for the loyalty program. Replicating and fine-tuning the Symfony PHP application for Cleo, ensuring secure and isolated environments, demanded extensive DevOps and cloud architecture expertise.
Vendor & System Conflicts: Navigating issues with third-party vendors, such as SearchSpring delays and initial incompatibilities with the merchant gateway (TD Online/TD Merchant), required proactive management. The payment gateway issue, for instance, necessitated the development of a custom checkout to ensure full functionality.
Tight Deadlines & Business Continuity: The urgency of migration due to high Salesforce costs ($25,000 per week) meant a compressed timeline. We provided change management support by communicating potential order delays during warehouse transitions and ensuring business continuity with measures like banners for in-store pickup stops.
Maintaining Brand Identity within Shared Architecture: The challenge was to keep Cleo's unique brand identity while leveraging a shared template and integrated backend systems with Northern Reflections and Ricki's. This required precise styling guidance and rigorous QA.
Outdated Architecture & Mobile Responsiveness: Addressing Cleo's outdated site architecture and ensuring a fully responsive, mobile-friendly design was a key challenge, particularly within the tight delivery window.
Results
Cleo successfully relaunched on BigCommerce in under 90 days, fully integrated into Northern Reflections’ digital ecosystem. This project achieved significant outcomes:
Reduced Operational Overhead: Unified systems and vendors, leading to cost savings (e.g., avoiding ongoing vendor licensing fees for custom checkout).
Improved Fulfillment Efficiency: Streamlined 3PL operations through a rationalized workflow.
Maintained Brand Fidelity: Cleo retained its unique brand personality while benefiting from scalable, modern infrastructure.
Accelerated Time to Value: An enterprise-grade site launched in approximately 90 days, reinforcing momentum post-acquisition. Similar projects can typically take up to six months to complete.
Strategic Partnership: Fahrenheit Marketing became a trusted strategic partner, providing outside-in perspective, proactive communication, and hands-on consulting, helping Northern Reflections navigate a major digital transition with confidence and avoid costly missteps like hard-coded solutions and manual deployments.
Custom Checkout Enhancement: Deployed updates that improved checkout performance, loyalty module functionality, account creation, and 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 an exciting opportunity to showcase our enterprise-level e-commerce development and strategic consulting expertise.
We loved being the "connective tissue" that enabled 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 and operational efficiency truly highlighted our team's capabilities and commitment to long-term client success.
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