OSPREY LONDON is renowned for its luxury, high-quality bags, small leather goods, and accessories. While the former website was functional, it lacked a distinctive brand identity and storytelling that could elevate the brand and provide a unique customer experience. The goal was to create a website that is both immersive and highly functional.
The key objectives of the project were:
We chose Centra primarily because of their specialised focus as "the fashion e-commerce platform". Their deep understanding of the unique requirements and challenges of the fashion industry ensures that they consistently reinvest in functionalities that are highly relevant to retail. This focus allows us to stay at the forefront of e-commerce within our sector. In contrast, larger e-commerce platforms often cater to multiple industries, which can lead to one-size-fits-all solutions that may limit flexibility and innovation. Another key factor is the Centra team itself. They are experts in fashion and operate as an extension of our team, fostering a closer relationship with our brand. This proximity has enabled them to gain a deeper understanding of our mission, goals, and requirements.
From the initial concept through to the launch, the Centra team worked collaboratively with us to bring our vision to life. From a technical perspective, we selected Centra for its headless commerce capabilities. This architecture allows us to develop unique and innovative front-end features, enhancing the customer experience and helping our brand stand out in a competitive market. It also offers the flexibility to integrate seamlessly with best-in-class third-party solutions, such as Depict for merchandising and Ingrid for fulfilment, further improving our operations. Additionally, Centra's strong focus on building solutions for international and wholesale markets aligns perfectly with our growth strategy, making it an ideal partner for the next phase of our expansion.In addition to Centra, we utilised:
Ingrid:
Aside from its seamless integration with Centra, we chose Ingrid for its ability to provide flexibility and convenience to our customers. Each customer has unique preferences and requirements, and Ingrid is an excellent solution for offering diverse delivery choices. We are soon launching their transport management and returns solution, which will enable us to offer options such as nominated day delivery and pick-up points, providing greater flexibility for customers who may not be close to our stores. Additionally, Ingrid’s post-purchase solutions will allow customers to effortlessly make returns and exchanges, ensuring a smooth experience and helping to avoid disappointment.
Depict:
One of the key objectives for this project was to improve product discovery. With a vast range of beautiful products, it can be challenging on a digital platform to inspire customers and showcase the full range, as we can in-store. Depict provides us with the tools to merchandise our digital storefront, either automatically or through curation, based on website behaviour or the products we want to highlight. From an operational perspective, we have a relatively small team, so tools that enhance efficiency are vital. Depict’s AI features allow us to automate optimisation, enabling our team to focus on tasks that bring our products to life and enhance their presentation.
Storyblok:
The primary advantage of Storyblok is its efficiency. Its modular CMS design allows us to rapidly design the frontend and repurpose content across various storefronts, including different markets and wholesale. This capability enables us to scale our content and go to market more efficiently, saving time while maintaining consistency.
The project was completed within the expected timeline, thanks to structured planning and clear communication among all stakeholders.
The integration process involved mapping workflows, configuring systems, and conducting thorough testing to ensure all components worked seamlessly together. Tom, who managed the project at Frog Stack, played a pivotal role in its success. He demonstrated a deep understanding of our business objectives and existing data infrastructure, translating these into clear integration requirements. By providing well-defined processes and timelines, and maintaining effective communication with our partners, he ensured the project progressed efficiently and smoothly. Frog Stack’s expertise enabled us to achieve one of the fastest Centra integrations, completing the project in just six months.
We chose Frog Stack because of their proven track record in implementing successful e-commerce solutions. Centra is a relatively new platform and so we required a partner who was able to grasp their concepts quickly and be proactive in finding answers to ensure the project kept moving. Their expertise in managing complex integrations, such as ERP systems, third-party tools, and headless commerce architecture, was a key factor in our decision.
In addition to their technical skills, Frog Stack came highly recommended within the industry for their collaborative approach. Their commitment to delivering high-quality solutions and working closely with clients to achieve their goals made them an ideal partner for our project.
Working with Frog Stack was an excellent experience from start to finish. They provided clear guidance, resolved challenges efficiently, and ensured all integrations were completed to a high standard. What really stood out was their partnership approach. They took the time to understand our business and offered solutions that went beyond the original project scope, adding real value. Their commitment didn’t end at launch either, their support since launch has been just as impressive, quickly addressing any minor adjustments to keep everything running smoothly. I can’t recommend Frog Stack highly enough. Our other partners involved in the migration were equally complimentary about the organisation, clear communication, and professionalism that Tom and his team brought to the process. Frog Stack played a key role in the successful launch of our new website, and we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to other businesses taking on a similar project.
Understanding the various Centra data objects was an initial challenge. Some of their names are more unusual and different to some of the standardterminology used on other platforms (e.g. Displays, Campaigns).
The product/variant/size structure is also strictly defined in Centra and ensuring you’re using it correctly was key. The input of Centra/Grebban to advise on at which level data should exist was key. There were also some learnings on specific parts of those data objects which we’re glad to have flushed out.
The order and payment flow also took some learning. As Centra is commonly used by continental European fashion brands, it tends to be configured to capture payment upon despatch. That isn’t always how a retail business here in the UK tends to work and so we had to work with the Centra and Grebban teams to ensure the order and payment configuration were correct to allow it to capture up-front, but still ensure shipment data synced correctly.
Frog Stack also we also included logic to handle potential fraud and payment failures and to ensure only captured orders hit the ERP for processing.
It was one of the first Centra implementations in the UK and from Frog Stack's perspective establishing a defined connector for Centra was exciting and powerful. We’re now in a position to put in place data integrations between Centra and other key retail systems used by UK SME retailers (e.g. NetSuite, SAP B1).
Making use of the Centra graphQL API (as opposed to some of the older Centra APIs) was extremely useful. Specific data retrievals and precise data upserts/mutations allowed us to build a fast, precise and complete set of retail integration data flows.
Secondly, setting up to receive data from the Centra event stream (rather than the older Centrawebhooks) was both crucial and beneficial. There are a number of advantages over standard webhooks, such as being able to filter and define the data received. The Centra team were also extremely supportive in assisting on this. As new functionality is added in Centra the event stream is where it will become available, so we’re also keen to future-proof our integration points for as long as possible!
We're looking forward to exploring the wholesale functionality and associated data integrations available within Centra, as well as working on implementing some of the internationalisation features.
Also on the radar is a adding integrations for a transport management, returns and tracking tool, provided by Ingrid.
We're also keen to add multi-channel functionality by integrating with Sitoo POS (e.g. click & collect, order in-store for delivery).
