#028 : Insight __ how Barkers capitalise on omnichannel with Adobe Commerce, Klaviyo & Algolia.
Barkers has been the store of choice for New Zealand men since 1972, outfitting them for daily life, unforgettable milestones, and everything in between. Barkers pride themselves on prioritising the good stuff like quality, understated style and true value as much as the day they started. All of their stores nationwide boast a carefully considered range of quality apparel, footwear and accessories - everything you need, nothing you don’t.
Barkers is here for your first job, that ultimate promotion, your big day, and your morning after. You can go to them for everything from that handsome winter coat (the best way to look respectable) to those track pants you wear every Sunday. They have new gear and old favourites dropping regularly, so stop by and see them at any of their brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, or shop online without even leaving the couch.
Feel like Barkers has been around for ages? They’ve been using their know-how to fine-tune the wardrobes and lifestyles of men around New Zealand since 1972, when founder Raymond Barker opened “Raymond’s”. It was a time when Kiwi blokes were waking up to style (sideburns and the colour brown were popular) and their spot on Auckland’s High Street was one of the first stores in New Zealand dedicated to men’s fashion. They’ve come a long way since then - especially their sideburns. That store may be ancient history, but one of their newest flagships sits proudly across the road.
Overdose. has a long relationship with Barkers dating back to 2017 when the historic Magento 1 site was built.
As part of this project, the Overdose. team worked with Barkers to rebuild their Adobe Commerce Magento 1 site to the Magento 2.4 Commerce Cloud Platform to leverage the feature-rich core functionality. There were set intentions to improve specific functionality of the site to optimise the user experience such as flexible delivery options, provide visibility of physical store stock availability and the loyalty program and simplify the operation of the solution where possible for creating and managing website content and product data.
Integrations
As part of this project, Overdose. integrated the Adobe Commerce platform with Ontempo Retail, Barkers’ ERP solution. This integration was extended this to include integrations with Ontempo loyalty system, promotions engine and coupons, and to sync both offline/online transactional data, allowing Barkers to leverage this key business information across Adobe Commerce and other integrations.
The site also boasts a bespoke Algolia implementation with custom indexes to make all content across the site including promotional tiles, products, categories, CMS pages, stores, blog posts and FAQ's searchable.
Ensuring a great customer experience for delivery was important for the Barkers team so Overdose. created a bespoke Click and Collect integration to include an endless aisle, the ability for customers to shop from their local store and check stores' stock levels.
The site also utilises the powerful personalisation tool, Nosto, to provide targeted product recommendations to users based on their behaviour or purchasing history.
Overdose. also implemented an integration with The Market that ensures that external orders placed on The Market will be created as regular Magento orders which are then also created in the ERP which streamlines the fulfilment process immensely as all orders (in-store, online or external) are fulfilled through OnTempo.
Lastly, Overdose. integrated the site with Klaviyo. The integration allows for customers' loyalty points, Loyalty Tiers, Ontempo Coupons and in-store transactional data to be integrated into Klaviyo's marketing automation and create consistency between their in-store and online orders.
CHALLENGE #001 : Simplify and streamline processes
Create a solution that simplifies daily operations for creating and managing website content and product data.
SOLUTION : Logic was implemented to use existing product data to control the product-specific content that displays on the website to minimise the required manual input. The implementation also supported pre-orders based on dedicated pre-order stock levels.
Online orders are pushed to OnTempo and any updates are fed back into Adobe Commerce. Logic was implemented to support split shipments based on the availability of product stock in the warehouse and in physical stores.
Additionally, we created a custom solution to allow the user to view each category either in the context of available online stock (across all physical stores and warehouses) or in the context of available stock in a specific physical store using Adobe Commerce's MSI functionality. The solution for click and collect was implemented based on the endless aisle concept. Customers are notified when the ordered items are available for pickup from the desired store.
CHALLENGE #002 : Stock availability at physical stores
Allow users to view store stock availability.
SOLUTION : Overdose. created a custom module to display the availability of products at the physical stores at the product level. This is based on the product inventory data retrieved from OnTempo via the integration.
Additionally, we created a custom solution to allow the user to view each category either in the context of available online stock (across all physical stores and warehouses) or in the context of available stock in a specific physical store using Adobe Commerce's MSI functionality.
CHALLENGE #003 : Custom Klaviyo integration
Ensure customer loyalty and in-store order data is available to be used for email communications.
SOLUTION : Overdose. implemented a custom integration between Adobe Commerce and Klaviyo to sync in-store order data as well as loyalty data such as available coupon codes, loyalty tier and points balances to allow Barkers to utilise this data for target email campaigns.
领英推荐
CHALLENGE?#004?: Outlet store solution
Visually highlight outlet/clearance products to users.
SOLUTION : Based on the product life cycle data in OnTempo outlet products are automatically assigned to relevant outlet categories. These categories feature a unique design to highlight outlet products.
Testimonial
"Barkers, Max and Overdose. have a long history of working together to achieve our digital vision. The Overdose. team have been there every step of the way guiding us through scoping and ideation, helping us to look forward to what’s needed in a future-proofed digital platform. Overdose took the time to understand our brand and customers’ needs, which shows in the amazing user experience we have created. Ultimately, we’ve created a beautiful space to showcase our brand, while providing a fun and functional platform that’s translating into happy customers.”
Josh Cragg,
Group Digital Manager
- Max & Barkers
Insights
All metrics below are from 2 months post-launch compared to 2 months pre-launch.
UX/UI
Barkers is an iconic New Zealand men’s brand that has been the store of choice for daily life, unforgettable milestones, and everything in between. You can find their stores nationwide, everywhere from Newmarket to New Plymouth. With their strong store offering, it was critical to ideate on how we can tie the online and in-store experience together.
By allowing a user to ‘shop their local store’ from a category level, a user has a clear understanding of the product availability at their selected store without needing to navigate to individual product pages to check stock availability. With the inclusion of pulling through the ability to pick up at a selected store at a product page level, we’ve reduced friction by clearly highlighting to a user the availability for that item earlier in the buying journey, rather than at a later stage in the checkout.
Overdose. & Chill
#114: Chill __?Jamie Whiting, the Managing Director @?Barkers Men's Clothing?+?Max!
As the managing director of Barkers, Jamie knows a thing or two about appealing to the masses. Whiting’s background includes years at?Hallenstein Brothers?where he started aged 17, and worked his way up from the shop floor to general manager. Later he progressed to running sister company?GLASSONS LTD, after which he became the MD at Max before taking the Barkers’ position in 2010. At the time, he wasn’t shy about identifying the brand as “generic” and needing fresh ideas.
"I love the challenge of setting big goals and dreams, then setting about putting strategies in place to execute and achieve these goals. I don’t like sitting still waiting for things to happen, you have to get out there and make it happen yourself. Retail is such a dynamic and exciting industry — it never stops, and there is always a new challenge, new opportunity or something that needs sorting out."