Case study
Luca Faloni boosts time on site by 12% with Centra
Luca Faloni crafts a new tech stack and cuts complexity from its digital flagship store with Centra.
Luca Faloni is a brand that truly embodies what slow fashion is all about—craftsmanship, sustainability, and a commitment to creating pieces that last a lifetime.
Founded in 2014 by Luca Faloni himself, the Italian luxury menswear brand is renowned for its expertly crafted pieces, focused on daily essentials made from the best materials, all proudly made in Italy. With flagship stores in the world’s fashion capitals including London, New York and Milan, as well as Miami, Munich, and Zurich, Luca Faloni marked its tenth anniversary in 2024 by opening its tenth store in Paris.
Stacked up and slowing down
Luca Faloni’s online store was originally built on Shopify. While the brand achieved impressive growth and international expansion, its Shopify theme had become increasingly complex, requiring the in-house development team to implement workarounds in order to maintain a high-performing global store. Faced with a choice—either split storefronts into separate markets on Shopify or adopt a more streamlined yet flexible solution—the team looked for a better alternative.
Following a partner’s recommendation, Luca Faloni explored Centra for its fashion-focused capabilities and saw an opportunity to simplify operations with a headless approach.
Most platforms we considered could support online sales, but we also needed to assess how easy it would be to onboard additional software partners and manage daily operations. Another key factor was cost. Centra checked all the boxes.
COO at Luca Faloni
Headless ecommerce: flexibility over complexity
For Philipp Mensch, COO at Luca Faloni, the move to headless wasn’t a daunting shift but an opportunity to gain the flexibility, scalability, and design freedom the brand had been looking for. Centra’s built-in tools offered the core functionality needed to manage a scaling fashion brand.
Headless is just a different approach to ecommerce. One of the advantages that Centra has over other platforms is that it’s not a completely naked toolbox, it already comes with integrations that are ready to use out of the box, which gives a sense of comfort for brands that have never done headless before.
COO at Luca Faloni
The team collaborated with CloudNine to migrate Luca Faloni to Centra, using Next.js as the store’s new front-end framework. The replatforming project followed a hybrid work model, with CloudNine training Luca Faloni’s development team on the Centra platform. After the launch of the new digital flagship store, the internal team fully transitioned into managing the site independently, alongside their in-house UX designer.
There’s a lot of flexibility in the front end, and freedom in design, where you can do whatever you want. With a smart design approach, complexity becomes manageable—and the flexibility outweighs any challenges.
COO at Luca Faloni
Optimized for performance, built for scale
Having one system at the core of the global digital flagship store turned out to be a game-changer for Luca Faloni. For Simon Nieuwland, Digital Project Manager, the switch to Centra provided the flexibility to streamline operations and support future growth.
In switching platforms, we grew up as a company. With Centra we can explore other best of breed systems that we can add-on to make our store better. Everything became more organized and structured for us, whereas with Shopify we were running it with a very basic setup from the start. Centra provides a more advanced and scalable foundation—it's a grown-up setup.
Digital Project Manager at Luca Faloni
Full speed ahead
Site speed is a key driver of conversion rates, SEO, and how customers engage with a brand. Since migrating to Centra, Luca Faloni’s site scores above 90 across all four Google Lighthouse categories on desktop (Performance 92, Accessibility 92, Best Practices 96, SEO 100) —a significant performance milestone. Faster load times, offering a smoother shopping experience, minimizing friction and improving the user experience.
More time for discovery
With pages loading significantly faster, the average time spent on site has increased by up to 12%. Luca Faloni’s customers can now spend more time browsing for products, adding items to their baskets, and engaging with the brand’s story—contributing to a more immersive shopping journey.
Data-driven design
With the support of their in-house UX designer and Centra’s robust reporting features, Luca Faloni can now fully leverage A/B testing approach to continuously fine-tune the digital flagship store. Winning tests can be implemented quickly, allowing for rapid iteration and ongoing improvements.
We’ve started A/B testing in a very structured way to see where we can improve. Now, we can do whatever needs to be done with a headless setup, without slowing down or impacting on the customer experience, since that’s something that wasn’t always possible.
COO at Luca Faloni
Creating personalized shopping experiences
Centra’s powerful native features and a strong network of integrations firmly in place, the team is now focused on continuously refining the customer experience.
Delivering the right content at the right time
Luca Faloni is enhancing its content through localization, leveraging Centra and Depict to tailor the digital flagship to different markets, cultural preferences, and seasonal shifts. With 15 currencies already supported, the team is also expanding its language options, including Dutch and Swedish, and going granular by localizing the site for US and UK English.
The team is also working on launching an Arabic version of the store to tap into a new market, using hyper-localization to provide an authentic right-to-left experience for shoppers.
Experience-led loyalty
Points and credits will always be part of Luca Faloni’s loyalty program, but now the brand is focused on building a richer, experience-driven connection with customers. With a growing network of ten retail stores, Centra enables a true omnichannel loyalty experience that goes beyond traditional rewards—offering exclusive perks such as made-to-order services, VIP event invitations, and special access to premium offerings.
Dedicated support and development
Replatforming isn’t a one and done project—it marks the beginning of a brand’s relationship with its ecommerce platform. With Centra, the team at Luca Faloni is backed by a partnership that ensures continuous support and fashion-focused innovation.
It used to take an infinite amount of time to get an answer about something whereas with Centra, it’s very quick to get answers. We’re not a number, there’s a personal relationship there. Every feature that Centra releases is for fashion which makes a big difference. And given that all Centra customers have similar needs, we are confident that whatever comes up will be taken into consideration as new features are developed.
Digital Project Manager at Luca Faloni
With a digital foundation built on Centra and the flexibility of headless ecommerce, Luca can easily scale, optimize the customer experience, and enter new markets more efficiently— while staying committed to its core values of quality, craftsmanship, and timeless style.
Luca Faloni’s tech stack
| Ecommerce platform | Centra |
|---|---|
| Front-end framework | Next.js |
| CRM | Voyado |
| POS | Sitoo |
| Deliveries | ShipEngine |
| Payments | Adyen |
| CMS | Storyblok |
| Search and Merch | Depict |
| ERP | Bluecherry |
| Returns | Yayloh |
| Helpdesk | Dixa |
