Who?
Holding a place in the top 500 Internet Retailers list, Ashford.com is a global company which has grown from the holder of luxury timepieces and watches, to one of the most notable luxury product retailers in the world.
The company, founded in 1997, pioneered the sale of luxury watches through the internet and has since gone from strength to strength - picking up over 1,000,000 happy customers since its inception. Today, the company is known not just for its luxury products but for its commitment to excellent prices, the expertise of luxury professionals who act as the company’s buyers, and of course the delivery of high level customer service.
The business in numbers
1,000,000+ happy customers
34 years in business (and counting)
143 luxury brands listed
The Project
The existing platform was considered too outdated and unstable to support the global expansion of Ashford.com, meaning that progress was slow as the business looked to roll out more sales across Taiwan, Korea, China and the US. A new ecommerce platform was required to enable the onboarding of additional markets, support customer integrations and customer service capability, and ensure that each market had the right local infrastructure in terms of payment, customs, and social commerce and advertising.
The AAXIS team was already engaged with Ashford.com as the company’s managed services partner, and so Ashford decided to expand their work with AAXIS Digital, bringing us in to vet and assess the best Digital Commerce solution for the rollout of a new site for the four international markets.
We were then tasked with creating a roadmap to launch the site in every market.
Our Approach
With the guidance of AAXIS, Ashford decided to proceed with an Adobe Commerce platform solution. Once this decision was made, the project was broken down into a series of key phases:
- We re-platformed the entire Ashford.com site from Oracle Web Commerce 10.1.2 to Adobe Commerce, with a global rollout to Taiwan, Korea, China, and US sites.
- We enabled a split-payment system through custom logic, as this feature is not yet supported in Adobe Commerce. This would enable simple and efficient payment systems for customers in all locations.
- Custom logic was also used to create and support promotions and coupons in different global locations and across the different versions of the site.
- The key integrations of the original site were converted into Adobe Commerce plugins to ensure consistency in the customer experience.
- The APAC business requirements were implemented, including Chinese customs and shipping methods, Hong Kong pickup, WeChat integration, and the integration of 8 different payment methods.
- The full Ashford.com catalog was tuned for Adobe Commerce.
The overall aim of this project was to present Ashford with an online site that supported its global expansion, delivering a localized experience to customers in different countries, and enabling the company to update and add new products and integrate into new countries and marketplaces seamlessly.
The Results
The first result that we saw following the project with Ashford.com was the modernization of their website, enabling the company to maintain its key functions and features while allowing for new integrations to support global operations and a broader rollout.
The speed of new products to market has vastly improved by leveraging Magento’s mature marketplace - thus allowing the business to bypass complex custom integrations and instead rely on the Adobe Commerce solution to efficiently build additional sites for new markets. For the team behind the scenes at Ashford.com, the move to a new platform has also streamlined operational costs, reducing licensing costs and cutting down the need for IT resources by maintaining a small team focused on key strategic initiatives.
In short, the new platform has improved the customer experience, enabled Ashford.com to grow and expand more effectively, and has reduced the call on company resources to consistently manage and update the different global markets.
AAXIS Digital is committed to delivering enterprise digital solutions that deliver the results you need. Get in touch for more information on how we can support your business and help your online presence thrive.