RIANI

Since 1968, RIANI has been selling high-quality women's fashion with the mission of conveying a very special outlook on life to every customer, regardless of shape or age.   Prior to the shop launch, RIANI only had a corporate website presenting samples of their collections, which meant potential customers had to visit a local store in order to make any actual purchases. To accommodate the genuine demand for an online brand shop and gain more insight into their consumers, the company set off on opening a new sales channel through digitalisation.

At the outset of the project, the top priority was to integrate scalability and flexibility into the existing business. “The main aim of our project was to create a high degree of scalability and flexibility in line with our revenue and readiness to invest", explains Sarah Ouis, Business Development Manager at RIANI.

First B2C online shop for RIANI based on Shopware 

With their newly set target and the anticipated customer demand in mind, they managed to bring a new B2C online shop live within only five months. Opting for Shopware as their eCommerce solution was a relatively easy choice. The system won them over with its open source code, flexibility due to various integration options and internationalisation capabilities, which are now even simpler and more diverse with Shopware 5.5.  “It was very important for us to invest in a product that could grow with our requirements. This is a given with Shopware’s contractual model, making it an ideal solution for us”, emphasises Sarah Ouis.

They worked with two experienced Shopware partner agencies to implement and support the project Portaltech Reply took care of individual customisations as well as the integration of third-party systems via interfaces, and the company continues to be responsible for the ongoing development of the shop.

As a premium brand, RIANI attached great importance to showcasing the shop, which is why the decision to invest in its own UX design was made early on in the project. Then theygot UX and frontend specialists KOMMERZ on board, who implemented the entire CI-compliant design of the new shop.

Agile project development based on Scrum 

The project was developed using the Scrum methodology, resulting in exceptional agility and a short time-to-market. This meant that the sprint before going live on 18th September 2018 took just five short months. The many advantages of the agile project methodology were, however, accompanied by some challenges. An existing supplier had problems with the agility and speed of the project, as this clashed with their normal method of operation. In the end, concerted efforts meant that all challenges could be resolved without endangering the launch date. 

“The cooperation of all parties involved went very smoothly. The cooperation with Portaltech Reply, in particular, was a complete success. We were continuously within budget and worked on the basis of an open and agile error culture. KOMMERZ too was an excellent partner, who understood and interpreted our brand correctly from the outset”, says Sarah Ouis.

Lookbook and Instagram Integration for #RIANISTAs

Fashion-conscious women can choose from over 350 products in 13 different categories in the new RIANI online shop, with the number of products set to rise. Notable features of the shop are its clean, comprehensive design and the use of high-quality visuals.

The fashion companyutilises some of Shopware's own functions such as Product and Customer Streams as well as the Advanced Promotion Suite. Customer Streams are used to identify customers who qualify for the company’s Loyalty Program, which offers benefits and premium services, such as invitations to closed events. Further personalisation options are also planned for the near future. 

Next to the rich shopping experience, the shop also offers a lookbook that aims to inspire customers with four different themed worlds, each with a different colour selection and style to invite customers to start browsing.Customers can then use the “Shop the Look” function to add select items to their shopping cart. 

With around 16,000 followers keeping up with RIANI's colourful happenings on Instagram, the integration with the social media platform is another important feature in their new online shop, as it allows customers to scroll through their profile, go directly from an image to the product detail page, and purchase the product if desired.

Cross-channel approach and other future projects 

There are four RIANI stores in Germany. The flagship store is located in the town of Schorndorf, followed by stores in Munich, Münster and Sylt.The fashion companyintends to expand its multi-channel strategy, with further offline and online networking planned for the future. Jointly coordinated promotion and content planning across both channels is already taking place, with the aim of intercepting the customers' buying intentions as and when they occur.

Other projects are also in the pipeline. “We are working on numerous projects. Optimising new processes is our priority for now. We then want to work on internationalising the shop even further from mid-2019. We also see further potential in the integration of MAM and CRM systems”, says Mona Buckenmaier, Head of Business Development, giving her outlook for the future.