Carmen Steffens takes runway to Oracle Cloud
“I've worked in ecommerce for about 12 years, and I've never before seen any platform able to clone an old commerce site and stand up a new one as fast as Oracle CX Commerce.”
Business challenges
Founded in 1993, Brazilian designer label Carmen Steffens makes high-end women's shoes, handbags, clothing, and accessories, sold at 507 physical stores in Brazil and another 53 stores in 19 other countries worldwide.
Despite multiple attempts to translate its store experience online, the company struggled to provide a consistent brand look and feel across its retail, wholesale, and outlet commerce websites. Carmen Steffens also couldn't reconcile its physical inventories with purchases made on its websites, letting customers order items that couldn’t be fulfilled.
Furthermore, mobile shoppers complained of sluggish site performance, while the company’s four-person IT team scrambled to change site layouts, fix checkout errors, and upload “image widgets” that displayed the latest fashion collections.
If an item isn’t in stock at a store, a salesperson can order it from a mobile phone or a tablet on Oracle CX Commerce and still get the commission. This is how we’re going to keep our physical retailers happy. They won’t have to carry excess inventory so they’ll be able to operate a lot more profitably.
Why Carmen Steffens Tetration Chose Oracle
Carmen Steffens chose Oracle CX Commerce, part of the Oracle Cloud CX suite of customer experience applications, to run its retail, wholesale, and outlet websites, and then link them all to its warehouse management system, distribution center, and finance system.
Such integrations were key to the company’s decision, as it also connected the Oracle platform to its point-of-sale systems at 480 franchisee and 80 company-owned retail stores.
Results
Carmen Steffens is now able to update its inventory status immediately after each store or website purchase, so that company franchise managers, executives, and shipping and customer service personnel know at all times exactly where products are located and how many are available for sale.
This real-time information is particularly important because most of the company’s customers want to purchase the latest fashions the instant they’ve hit the runways.
Because Oracle CX Commerce provides Carmen Steffens’ online shoppers with a faster user experience, 63% of the company’s online sales are now being generated from mobile devices, up from less than 30% before the platform migration.
During its initial Oracle CX Commerce pilot in Brazil, Carmen Steffens increased total sales by 16%, boosted mobile conversions by 34%, and extended the length of time shoppers spent on its web pages by 165%.
Oracle Commerce Cloud has also made it easier for the company to upgrade its commerce sites in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and the US—all based on the same standards, using the same layouts, and delivering the same high-quality customer experience as the pilot commerce platform in Brazil.