John Smedley has a rich and celebrated history. Since its establishment in 1784, the John Smedley business has manufactured luxury knitwear for men and women, basing its operations at its headquarters in rural Derbyshire – the oldest manufacturing factory in the world.Â
But thriving in the modern age is all about successfully operating across all mediums. Combining the company’s sense of tradition with modern efficiency is key to John Smedley remaining the major market force it has been for centuries. Â
An ecommerce website delivering an excellent user experience is key to this. But John Smedley found itself stuck on a Magento 1 website and needed to take a step forward. Â
Challenge
- Outdated website running on the Magento 1 platformÂ
- Limited site functionalityÂ
- User experience not as optimised as it could beÂ
- Outdated designÂ
Solution
- Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 CommerceÂ
- Embrace Magento Commerce platform toolsÂ
- Integration with Prima and other business systems to enhance functionalityÂ
- New customised designÂ
Results
- Enhanced user experience across websiteÂ
- Greater global reachÂ
- Optimised online business operationsÂ
Smooth Migration to Adobe Commerce (Previously Magento 2)
With Magento 1 end of life fast approaching, the John Smedley team made the decision to work with Williams Commerce’s expert ecommerce team to migrate their website to the Adobe Commerce, previously Magento 2 Commerce platform. Â
Part of the migration also included shifting John Smedley’s Open Source stores to Commerce.Â
Functionality and CustomisationÂ
The move to Magento 2 Commerce, now Adobe Commerce, enables John Smedley to capitalise on the various tools the Magento Commerce platform offers.Â
The John Smedley team chose to take advantage of the platform’s reward scheme, customer segmentation, content staging and visual merchandiser capabilities for example. Â
The Magento Commerce Page Builder tool now makes it easy for the John Smedley team to build custom pages in as little as 10 minutes thanks to its easy-to-use drop design. Â
The Williams Commerce team also enhanced the Magento platform core with third party modules. This helped provide extended functionality, with promotions, search and filter upgrade helping to make sure John Smedley’s admin team have more control over the configuration of these tools. On the customer side, modules include live chat, delivery and postcode look-up tools to support a positive visitor experience. Â
The site also underwent a new design, driven by our expert design team. This has helped revitalise the John Smedley website’s aesthetic appeal and maintain the iconic presence the company enjoys. Â
Incredible Integration Â
Integration was a major part of the project. For example, John Smedley’s products, stock and several price books are located within the Magento front-end. Thanks to Prima integration, customer orders are sent back to the Prima ERP software system. This ERP system stays on top of a variety of elements required for order fulfilment. Â
Once Prima has processed the order, it updates Magento with a new ‘completed’ status and provides a tracking number for the client so they can monitor their purchase’s progress and keep tabs on when it will arrive.Â
Integration with the systems of other companies John Smedley works with also helps to optimise their online business. This includes integration with systems from the likes of Feefo and Ometria.Â
Global Reach
With a rich heritage and celebrated history, the John Smedley has a global appeal. Customers around the world want to purchase the brand’s incredible clothing. Â
To accommodate for this worldwide customer base, the John Smedley Magento 2 Commerce site features multiple stores through its country select option. Â
The team at Williams has done a great job
We are very happy with our new website. The team at Williams has done a great job with all the complex integrations we required, and we feel we have really optimised our operational efficiency and embraced the Adobe Commerce platform tools. We have a very rich history and the design team have done a good job to revitalise the website’s...
