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CLIENT OVERVIEW

Ricki’s and Cleo, two well-known Canadian fashion retailers, were recently acquired by Northern Reflections as part of a strategic consolidation of retail brands under one corporate umbrella.

Each brand had its own legacy systems, workflows, and operational challenges, creating a complex environment that necessitated not just execution but expert-led alignment across platforms, vendors, and teams.

Northern Reflections engaged Fahrenheit Marketing to help unify and rebuild both brands’ websites on BigCommerce, streamline backend operations, and provide expert guidance during this significant transition.

Project Objective

This was not a traditional website redesign, but an enterprise-grade rebuild driven by a critical business consolidation. What made this "enterprise-grade" and distinct from a standard BigCommerce project included:

  • Scale and Complexity: It involved replicating and customizing a sophisticated BigCommerce theme across two distinct brands, while integrating with a shared, complex external rewards program and ERP system.
  • Interconnected Systems: Beyond simple plugins, the project required deep integration with a separate, custom-built middleware application that dictated loyalty and rewards logic, demanding advanced cloud architecture and DevOps skills.
  • High Standards: Being for multiple brands under a corporate group, the project demanded elevated standards for testing, accessibility compliance, security, and performance across various browsers, devices, and third-party services.
  • Custom Development: It involved building bespoke applications (e.g., Store Manager app) and implementing intricate custom logic within the checkout process (e.g., differentiated shipping prices based on user login status), functionalities far beyond typical BigCommerce offerings.

With minimal lead time, Fahrenheit Marketing was brought in to provide strategic guidance and robust technical solutions to:

  • Rebuild Two Enterprise-Grade BigCommerce Websites: Launch new, robust Ricki’s and Cleo e-commerce platforms in parallel.

  • Integrate Both Brands Into Northern Reflections’ ERP System: Enable unified inventory, fulfillment, and comprehensive reporting across the new, consolidated brand family.
  • Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Adapt UX flows to align with new fulfillment logic and evolving 3PL (Third-Party Logistics) operations.
  • Navigate a 3PL Consolidation: Streamline and optimize logistics across all three brands (Northern Reflections, Ricki’s, Cleo) for enhanced operational efficiency.
  • Provide Strategic Consulting: Reduce vendor friction, proactively identify operational risks, and streamline digital infrastructure to avoid costly missteps and manual deployments, ensuring a seamless digital transformation.

Design and Development Approach

We didn’t just build websites; we became the connective tissue between IT, Marketing, and Operations. As Northern Reflections navigated the complexities of merging three retail brands into a single digital and logistical system, our team provided stability, structure, and actionable guidance, emphasizing enterprise development best practices.


Website Rebuilds on an Accelerated Timeline

  • Designed and QA’d two custom BigCommerce themes in parallel. This parallel development was achieved through a dedicated project team, split into specialized sub-teams focusing on each brand, while maintaining a central communication hub for shared architectural decisions and core feature development. Agile methodologies with daily stand-ups and regular cross-team syncs ensured effective coordination and accelerated delivery.
  • Delivered both websites within 90 days of kickoff, which normally takes up to six months for similar projects, enabling the client to maintain crucial momentum during the acquisition.

ERP Integration & Back-End Support

  • Worked alongside the client’s IT team to map legacy systems and identify critical integration points.
  • Helped route product data, customer info, and order workflows into Northern Reflections’ unified ERP.
  • Flagged gaps in data formatting and third-party tools early, preventing downstream delays in the supply chain and order fulfillment processes.

Complex Middleware Integration

Both Ricki's and Cleo share the same rewards program, requiring connection to an external Symfony PHP middleware application hosted on AWS ECS using Docker containers. We replicated this enterprise-grade middleware for each store, creating separate, secure environments and making minor business logic adjustments for brand-specific needs.

3PL Consolidation & Fulfillment Optimization

  • Identified conflicting fulfillment rules across the brands’ legacy 3PL setups.

  • Collaborated with stakeholders to rationalize and streamline logistics workflows, focusing on efficiency and cost reduction.

  • Ensured the frontend UX, checkout flow, and confirmation processes precisely matched new backend realities, providing a consistent customer journey.

Vendor Management & Conflict Resolution

  • Surfaced incompatibilities between existing third-party tools (e.g., SearchSpring, Klaviyo) and the client’s consolidation goals.

  • Provided a prioritized action plan to guide internal conversations and vendor negotiations.

  • Advised the client on when to replace, adapt, or sunset vendor relationships to reduce complexity and improve vendor ecosystem management.

Custom Checkout Development

Issues with a merchant gateway (TD Online/TD Merchant) necessitated the development of a custom checkout application, which ultimately avoided ongoing licensing fees and provided greater control.

This included upgrading the BigCommerce checkout SDK and all related dependencies for compatibility and future-proofing.

Custom Features & Automation:

  • Store Manager App: We developed and integrated Fahrenheit's custom "Stores Manager" app, allowing store teams to upload CSV files with physical store locations. This enabled customers to find the closest store for in-store pickup during checkout, a crucial feature not standard in BigCommerce.

  • Dynamic Shipping Pricing: Implemented custom logic for different shipping prices based on whether the customer was logged in or checking out as a guest, strategically encouraging account creation.

  • CI/CD Pipeline: Avoided costly missteps from hard-coded solutions and manual deployments by implementing a well-structured GitLab CI/CD pipeline. This automated testing, building, and deployment across AWS and BigCommerce ensures faster, more reliable updates with fewer errors and promotes DevOps efficiency.

UAT Guidance & Cross-Functional Collaboration:

Led UAT testing sessions to validate new checkout flows, loyalty logic, and ERP-connected workflows.

Provided structured feedback cycles and rapid iterations to address QA issues in real time, ensuring solution quality.

Served as the bridge between stakeholders, helping marketing, development, and operations stay aligned in a complex organizational landscape.

challenges

This project was considered enterprise-level due to its inherent complexity, significant scale, and the intricate web of interconnected systems.

  • Parallel Enterprise Rebuilds: Simultaneously rebuilding two distinct e-commerce sites (Ricki's and Cleo) on an aggressive timeline, while deeply integrating them into a shared corporate infrastructure, presented substantial coordination and technical hurdles for our project management and engineering teams.
  • Complex Systems Integration: Integrating with an existing ERP, an external Symfony PHP middleware for loyalty programs, and various third-party vendors (Yotpo, SearchSpring, Klaviyo) required a deep understanding of diverse systems and extensive DevOps and cloud architecture expertise to create secure, isolated environments for each brand.
  • Vendor Conflicts & Delays: Navigating persistent issues with third-party vendors (e.g., SearchSpring delays) and resolving conflicts with legacy systems (e.g., merchant gateway issues leading to custom checkout development) added layers of complexity and necessitated proactive vendor management.
  • Maintaining Brand Identity within Shared Architecture: The delicate balance of leveraging a common theme and backend for efficiency while rigorously preserving each brand's unique look and feel required precise styling guidance and rigorous quality assurance (QA).
  • Tight Deadlines & Business Continuity: The urgency of migration (due to high Salesforce costs exceeding $25,000 per week) necessitated rapid deployment, meticulous change management (e.g., communicating warehouse transition impacts), and proactive solutions to minimize business disruption and ensure operational resilience.
  • Outdated Architecture (Cleo's specific) & Transition Planning: For Cleo, addressing an outdated site architecture and ensuring a fully responsive, mobile-friendly design within the compressed timeframe was a particular hurdle. The cutover from old systems was managed through a meticulously planned phased approach, involving extensive data migration, pre-launch UAT, and a rapid, low-downtime go-live strategy to ensure a smooth transition for customers and backend operations.

System Architecture Overview

The unified digital ecosystem for Ricki's and Cleo on BigCommerce operates on a robust, integrated architecture designed for efficiency and scalability:

  • Front-End (BigCommerce Storefronts): Both Ricki's and Cleo run on customized BigCommerce themes, sharing a common base template for efficiency but with distinct branding elements (logos, colors, fonts) to maintain unique brand identities. This provides a flexible and scalable presentation layer.
  • E-commerce Platform (BigCommerce): BigCommerce serves as the central e-commerce engine, managing products, categories, orders, customers, and core checkout flows. Its inherent scalability supports high traffic and transaction volumes.
  • ERP Integration: A critical component is the integration with Northern Reflections' unified ERP system. This integration ensures consistent synchronization of inventory data, order information, and customer details across all three brands, providing a single source of truth for back-office operations. This is achieved through defined API endpoints and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes to harmonize data.
  • Custom Middleware (Loyalty Program): An external Symfony PHP middleware application, hosted securely on AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) using Docker containers, manages the shared loyalty and rewards program. Each brand has its own dedicated, isolated environment within AWS ECS, communicating with BigCommerce and the loyalty system. This highly available, scalable middleware handles real-time loyalty point accruals and redemption.
  • 3PL Integration: Direct integrations with Third-Party Logistics (3PL) providers streamline fulfillment. This ensures orders placed on BigCommerce are efficiently routed to the correct warehouse for processing and shipping, optimizing logistics and supply chain management.
  • Third-Party Applications: Essential tools like Yotpo (reviews), SearchSpring (site search), and Klaviyo (marketing automation) are integrated via BigCommerce apps or custom API connections, enriching the customer experience and supporting marketing efforts.
  • Custom Applications: Fahrenheit's proprietary "Stores Manager" app (for in-store pickup locations) and custom checkout logic are integrated directly into the BigCommerce ecosystem, providing bespoke functionalities.
  • DevOps Pipeline (GitLab CI/CD): A well-structured GitLab CI/CD pipeline automates the deployment of BigCommerce themes and middleware updates to AWS, ensuring continuous integration and delivery with high reliability and minimal manual intervention.

This interconnected architecture ensures operational efficiency, data consistency, and a unified customer experience across the Northern Reflections family of brands.

Results

Ricki’s and Cleo now operate on modern, scalable BigCommerce websites fully integrated into Northern Reflections’ digital ecosystem. Through our advisory role and comprehensive approach, the client successfully achieved significant business transformation and operational excellence:

  • Unified Technical Integration: Legacy systems were successfully connected to the modern BigCommerce platform, creating a unified and efficient digital ecosystem.
  • Data Preservation: Complete customer and business data migration was achieved, preserving decades of valuable information without loss or corruption.
  • Infrastructure Modernization: Ricki's and Cleo's outdated technical stacks were replaced with scalable solutions, positioning both brands for future growth and innovation.
  • Operational Continuity: Business operations were maintained throughout the transition, with minimal downtime and proactive management of potential disruptions.
  • Future-Ready Platform & Scalability Planning: The solution is inherently designed for future growth. BigCommerce's robust, cloud-based infrastructure can easily handle increased traffic and transaction volumes. Our shared theme architecture provides a flexible foundation for adding new features or brands efficiently. The custom middleware on AWS ECS is designed for horizontal scaling, allowing for increased capacity on demand. Furthermore, our implemented DevOps practices ensure that future updates, enhancements, and expansions can be deployed rapidly and reliably, supporting long-term business scalability.
  • Cost Avoidance: Proactive solutions like the custom checkout prevented ongoing licensing fees and costly missteps associated with hard-coded solutions and manual deployments.
  • Enhanced Customer Experience: Through improved checkout performance, robust loyalty module functionality, streamlined account creation, effective in-store pickup resolutions, and updated fit guides across both sites.

Performance Improvements

Our focus on optimized code, efficient integrations, and leveraging BigCommerce's platform capabilities resulted in significant performance gains for both sites:

  • Improved Checkout Performance: Updates (versions 0.1.3 and 0.1.5) specifically targeted and improved checkout translation and loading performance, leading to a smoother and faster conversion funnel.

  • Optimized Resource Loading: As part of the rebuild, we delivered significant performance gains for both Ricki’s and Cleo. Ricki’s saw its Speed Index reduced by nearly 50%, dramatically improving how quickly users see content. Cleo’s Largest Contentful Paint improved by 600ms, enhancing SEO and perceived load speed. These weren’t surface-level improvements—they were engineered outcomes, achieved through optimized architecture, streamlined assets, and a future-ready BigCommerce implementation.

Perhaps most importantly, Fahrenheit became a trusted advisory partner, not just a vendor. Our outside-in perspective, proactive communication, and hands-on consulting helped Northern Reflections navigate a major digital transition with confidence, clarity, and significant cost savings, cementing our role in their digital strategy.

Ricki’s: From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs

  • Cut overall visual load time nearly in half, dramatically improving perceived speed and user engagement.
  • Improved Largest Contentful Paint, making key content appear faster and boosting SEO signals.
  • Optimized resource loading and theme architecture, eliminating bottlenecks that previously inflated rendering times.
  • Streamlined third-party integrations, reducing overhead without compromising functionality.

Despite added integrations, interactive media, and richer visuals, we slashed Ricki’s Speed Index by almost half. Why does that matter? Because it means users are seeing usable content twice as fast. We achieved this by optimizing the BigCommerce theme architecture, aggressively streamlining assets, and improving render prioritization.

Custom Features & Automation:

  • Store Manager App: We developed and integrated Fahrenheit's custom "Stores Manager" app, allowing store teams to upload CSV files with physical store locations. This enabled customers to find the closest store for in-store pickup during checkout, a crucial feature not standard in BigCommerce.
  • Dynamic Shipping Pricing: Implemented custom logic for different shipping prices based on whether the customer was logged in or checking out as a guest, strategically encouraging account creation.
  • CI/CD Pipeline: Avoided costly missteps from hard-coded solutions and manual deployments by implementing a well-structured GitLab CI/CD pipeline. This automated testing, building, and deployment across AWS and BigCommerce ensures faster, more reliable updates with fewer errors and promotes DevOps efficiency.

Cleo: Replacing Fragility with Future-Readiness

  • Improved Largest Contentful Paint, making primary content appear faster and enhancing both SEO and UX.
  • Upgraded from brittle, outdated architecture to a fully responsive, mobile-first experience.
  • Modernized infrastructure to support scalable features, third-party integrations, and long-term platform stability.
  • Enabled a future-ready digital foundation, positioning Cleo for ongoing enhancements without rework.

The Cleo rebuild wasn’t just about speed—it was about creating a stable, modern foundation. We improved the Largest Contentful Paint by 600ms, making key content load faster and strengthening SEO performance. More importantly, we delivered a fully responsive, mobile-first experience supported by modern infrastructure built to scale with the brand.

What We Loved About This Project

This project was an exciting opportunity to showcase our expertise in enterprise-level e-commerce development, complex systems integration, and advisory services.

We loved being the "connective tissue" that enabled Northern Reflections to effectively integrate Ricki's and Cleo into their 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 and digital innovation.

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