Case study
Paul Smith ‑ A Digital Flagship for an Iconic Brand
Iconic global brand, Paul Smith blends headless technology with brand expression to emulate their distinctive in-store shopping experience.
Iconic. It’s the first word that comes to mind when you think about Paul Smith stores. Whether it’s the pink wall in Los Angeles (aka the most Instagrammable spot on the planet), or the Domino Room in Mayfair, the brand is unmistakable, even beyond its Signature Stripe.
Paul Smith’s retail footprint is ever-growing, with flagship destinations in London, Paris, New York, Milan and Tokyo, 130 stores across 60 countries, along with thousands of wholesalers and franchises. Having celebrated 50 years in business in 2020, the brand’s focus is now on making the next fifty years “as creative, maverick and colourful as the first”.
The Widening Gaps of UX and UI
Previously hosted on Magento 2, Paul Smith’s in-house development team was so consumed with maintaining the site and building custom features within the platform that they didn’t have the time or the skill set needed to address the UX and UI gaps that were widening over time. As a result, frustrations grew in terms of how little the online store represented the Paul Smith brand. Limesharp was brought on board in 2020, entrusted with the task of re-designing the website, using brand expression and story-telling to emulate the distinctive Paul Smith in-store shopping experience.
The team at Limesharp understood the assignment, as Hannah Bennett, Head of Digital at Paul Smith explains:
If you’ve ever been to a Paul Smith store, each one has its unique personality, but there’s a common thread that runs throughout. Limesharp pulled out the colour, joy, and love of art that unifies the brand as a whole.
The look and feel of the new website was a work of art, and page performance had improved by 50%, but there were still major issues happening behind the virtual changing room curtains. Orders took too long to process, fulfilment from store was all but impossible, and adaptation to new markets was time-consuming and incomplete. Getting changes made had been painfully long-winded, which made it increasingly difficult for Paul Smith’s development team to respond to new market opportunities.
It became clear that Magento was no longer fit for purpose.
Regaining Control with Centra
Led by Hannah, the team carefully considered a number of ecommerce platforms, and chose to replatform to Centra for its out-of-the-box functionality across both DTC and wholesale.
Centra addressed many of Paul Smith’s challenges in creating limitless, agile and scalable digital channels.
Streamlining order management
With Magento, all logistics processes around labelling, carriers and WMS integration had to be developed either from scratch or heavily modified.
Bringing in new stock locations had also been a major blocker for the team, with issues around how orders go through the business’ ERP, WMS and shipping.
We’re a fashion brand. We don’t want to be building an OMS, we should just be configuring and using an existing one.
Head of Digital at Paul Smith
Thanks to Centra’s centralized OMS, order processes are streamlined, giving Paul Smith’s team the time and confidence to develop new solutions, all integrated simply using APIs.
Switching on localized experiences
While Paul Smith had been servicing a global audience with its Magento store, localisation was challenging because of the need to build out multiple storefronts and duplicate content. With Centra, switching on new currencies and payment methods is easy, so individual markets can enjoy a fully localized shopping experience.
Modernizing wholesale
Paul Smith’s global wholesale partners can now access Centra’s inbuilt digital wholesale showroom, which modernizes the buying process through a like-for-like DTC consumer shopping experience, including individual pricing, global tax calculations and shipping management.
B2B used to be the forgotten sister for our development teams. It never got the attention for new features, it just ticked over. What’s great is that Centra can look after wholesale features with their digital showroom and we can focus on the forward-facing piece from a development side.
Head of Digital at Paul Smith
Limitless promotions
Previously, if the brand was going into a sales period, newsletters used to have to be staggered over 12 hours, and the site would still regularly crash, even with this extreme level of segmentation. Now, with Centra, the team can better manage the complexity of running multiple sales events that vary from country to country, without having to worry about crashing their website. And Loyalty elements can now be built into the online store, something that was simply impossible before.
Headless, Not Faceless
Working with an ecommerce platform often means having to open help desk tickets, which can slow down progress for brands, when they need support the most. Ed Bull of Limesharp notes that Centra's platform architecture and hands-on approach was refreshing:
As lifelong Paul Smith customers, we approach every project with a deep sense of responsibility and a commitment to excellence. Centra provided our team with exceptional training, resources, and support; a refreshing experience compared to other platforms we’ve worked with. Our developers particularly appreciated Centra’s modern, headless architecture, which was purposefully designed rather than being a secondary consideration.
Director at Limesharp
Hannah notes that working with Centra is like having an extension of the brand’s own development team–a sentiment that’s been echoed by other brands, both big and small whose online stores are powered by Centra.
The team at Centra are very responsive and will usually come in to see us, as opposed to the previous all-online experience which would often simply not respond. This gives me confidence that we now have a voice in the room with Centra to influence new developments. They specialise in fashion which means we are in a supportive community with like-minded businesses.
Head of Digital at Paul Smith
Style and Substance
Initially launching B2B with Centra in less than 4 months, the team at Paul Smith wanted to launch DTC during the brand’s quieter period. The switch was seamless, go-live was on-schedule in April 2024. This means that the team can now use Centra to maximize opportunities for the upcoming peak sales season.
Since launching, the site has experienced zero downtime, and the team are now focused on launching new global initiatives such as fulfil-from-store, all while ensuring that the front end experience continues to evolve with the brand.
The team are no longer spending their time maintaining a platform. That was a huge challenge as it would take two or three months a year to just upgrade and manage systems. Now we are just focusing on new features and product enhancement rather than maintenance, and our roadmap looks so exciting.”
Head of Digital at Paul Smith
Now, Paul Smith’s digital flagship store represents the true essence of one of the most legendary brands over the past 5 decades - that is style and substance.
Paul Smith’s current ecommerce tech-stack on Centra:
