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Case Study: The Conran Shop

Conran Shop Conquers Digital Transformation with Akeneo PIM

Akeneo was crucial to our Magento 2 migration and to the catalogue expansion that has fueled omnichannel growth.

Rachel Morris, Head of eCommerce

Challenges

  • Accelerate digital transformation and catalogue expansion processes to fuel growth.
  • Control eCommerce platform migration costs without sacrificing efficiency.
  • Outdated product data management solutions, structures, and processes led to poor-quality product data.

Benefits

  • Sped up internal workflows, expanding the size of its product catalogue and helping to drive omnichannel growth.
  • Cut product data enrichment and Magento migration costs while accelerating time-to-market.
  • Improved product information quality to deliver exceptional online product experiences.

The Challenge

The Conran Shop is a well-known brand with a proud history of design and innovation. Founded in 1974 by Sir Terence Conran as the “best-of-the-best” products from his world-renowned Habitat store, the company developed a reputation for classic and cutting edge designs with stores in London, Paris, Tokyo, and many other cities around the world.

The company sought to replicate its success in the brickand-mortar sphere by working to recreate a similar shopping experience online. Its physical retail locations were known for their unique layout and diverse offering of products, including “everything from £1 drinking glasses to £10,000 sofas,” according to Rachel Morris, the company’s head of eCommerce.

What’s more, while the company’s long and proud history meant that customers respected and trusted the Conran Shop, it also was forced to deal with outdated product information management tools and processes. This resulted in a slow time-to-market, which hampered the ongoing efforts to expand its digital catalogue.

To address these challenges, as well as to help ensure a successful migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2, the Conran Shop decided to implement a PIM solution.

 

We knew having a PIM would help with our Magento 2 migration, both from an operational and cost perspective.

Rachel Morris, Head of eCommerce

The Solution

Conran Shop reviewed several different PIM solutions before selecting Akeneo PIM, Morris said, noting that two main factors drove the company’s decision.

“The first was the user interface…having something that both looks and feels both accessible and modern really helps us get buy-in from the people we expect to use the PIM,” she said. “The other big drivers were the similarities between the ways Akeneo is structured and the way Magento is structured.

Thanks to this high level of buy-in from the Conran Shop’s employee base, support from implementation partner Logicspot, and Akeneo PIM’s easy to understand user interface, the company was able to train more than two dozen employees to use the PIM within a matter of weeks. The company also quickly integrated Akeneo with its Magento web store in order to accelerate the migration to Magento 2 and improve product data quality.

With Akeneo implemented and the team trained, Conran Shop got to work on using PIM to accelerate its enrichment workflow and expand the company’s digital catalogue, helping to expand its product catalogue.

 

 

 

We wondered how we ever managed to enrich and manage product information without Akeneo PIM.

Rachel Morris, Head of eCommerce

The Result

Magento migration made easy

Akeneo PIM was a “life-saver” during the migration process, Morris said. She noted that thanks toAkeneo, Conran Shop was able to make the move to Magento 2 easily and efficiently, saving time and resources on the import/ export process thanks to Akeneo’s “plug-and-play” interface.

 

Efficient catalogue expansion

Akeneo PIM has also allowed the Conran Shop to say goodbye to its catalogue expansion woes. Akeneo’s automation features, bulk editing, business rules engine, workflow capabilities, and other tools helped the company add more of its unique and diverse products to its online offering, expanding the company’s catalogue to include roughly 10,000 different products.

 

A better product experience

Modernising the company’s product information management technologies and processes also allowed the Conran Shop to improve its product information by replacing incorrect, inconsistent, or outdated product information with dynamic product descriptions, enticing digital assets, and more.

 

A special thanks to our partners who supported this project:

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