When designers Monica Zwirner and Lucy Wallace Eustice founded MZ Wallace in Soho, New York, in 2000, they had a simple goal: Craft a range of premium bags and accessories that fit into the modern on-the-go lifestyle. “MZ Wallace started after searching for, and not finding, something that seemed so obvious and necessary—a bag that would allow for every aspect of our busy lives, that we could use all day, every day, all year round,” says Lucy.
The brand was early to recognize the importance of ecommerce, launching its first website in 2004 on a custom platform built entirely in-house. As online sales grew and the brand’s needs became more complex, MZ Wallace moved to Salesforce Commerce Cloud. “At the time, we wanted to move away from developing everything in-house to having a platform to invest in R&D and building that infrastructure on our behalf,” says Kevin Mogyoros, MZ Wallace’s COO and CFO.
But as the brand found out, Salesforce Commerce Cloud was difficult to manage, and the development costs associated with maintaining its website and adding new functionalities were prohibitive.
Since replatforming to Shopify Plus, the brand has:
- Reduced its total cost of ownership by 64%
- Increased its revenue by 22%
- Lifted ecommerce conversion rates by 40%
Challenge
The brand was founded with the idea of designing products that do more, and they wanted an ecommerce platform that shared the same ethos. Its existing platform was difficult for non-technical staff to manage, so implementing changes was both time-consuming and expensive, which undermined the flexibility and sophistication the platform claimed it had.
“We initially chose Salesforce Commerce Cloud because we wanted an established third party to take care of building new functionalities, rather than us having to build them in-house,” says Kevin. “But implementing any changes came with high development costs, which made them hard to justify.”
When the brand was left with the ultimatum to migrate to Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s latest version to get access to new features or support, the team decided to explore alternatives. “It was a situation where we needed to completely replatform to take advantage of newer features,” says Kevin. “It wasn’t a simple upgrade—we essentially needed to start from scratch, which required significant investment and development resources.”
"We were left with two choices: either migrate to Salesforce Commerce Cloud and absorb those implementation costs, or start fresh on another platform that’s easier, faster, and cheaper to customize," explains Kevin.
Solution
When left with the ultimatum, the team decided to explore the cost and timeline for switching to Shopify Plus. “What drew us to Shopify Plus was the depth and breadth of features that are developed and how easy everything is to implement,” Kevin explains. “Also, the number of people we need to manage the website is a lot less. What took a team of developers to implement before could be done out of the box with Shopify.”
MZ Wallace enlisted the help of Shopify Plus Agency Partner IM Digital to handle the migration from start to finish. “We were able to get our website up and running quickly and painlessly, for a fraction of what it would have cost us to upgrade to Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s latest version,” Kevin says. “I’ve been through these types of large-scale implementations before, and the speed and ease of switching over to Shopify Plus was surprising.”
"In my experience, migrating ecommerce platforms can be a drawn out process. It was important for us to keep downtime and costs to a minimum," explains Kevin. "Migrating with the help of a Shopify Plus Partner exceeded our expectations—we were up and running on Shopify Plus in just four months."
Results
Since migrating to Shopify Plus, MZ Wallace has been able to add new features and functionalities to its website while saving money. “Often, people outside of ecommerce don’t realize how difficult it can be to offer something that seems so simple, like gift cards or rewards programs,” Kevin explains. “It’s not always simple.”
But with Shopify Plus, the team is able to stay agile, since any new feature or functionality is straightforward to implement. "So much of it is ready out of the box,” says Kevin. “It’s user-friendly and intuitive enough to use that even non technical folks can do what they need and figure things out on their own without help. Being able to add functionalities without enlisting developers is great.”
Moving to Shopify Plus has freed up time and resources that allow MZ Wallace to move fast and proactively focus on attracting, converting, and retaining customers, rather than navigating developmental hurdles and budget constraints.
Since migrating from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify Plus, we’ve reduced our total cost of ownership by 64%. We’re spending less and driving sales more efficiently. It’s the best of both worlds.
