Dresses can’t be late to the wedding.
Allure Bridals
Case Study
Allure Bridals is a category leader for bridal gowns, bridesmaids dresses, and formal wear for men and women. In a business where timing and availability are everything, Allure Bridals is known in the wedding industry for their product availability and on-time delivery. They needed a B2B website with a strong customer experience and availability information to be an extension of the brand and customer service. It is easily to imagine how important availability is to a bridal customer since missing the big day is not an option.
They had been relying on a legacy enterprise system’s web portal that had a cumbersome user experience with slow page load times which resulted in fewer online orders, and increased time spent by customer service to process phone orders. Allure’s primary goal was a B2B website that would reduce overhead and create a self-service environment for their customers. These customers prefer purchasing online and need real-time inventory availability and accurate shipping delivery dates.
Enter Mercutio. Using BigCommerce and a custom integration with Allure’s Apprise ERP, we were able to create an easy to use shopping experience while also allowing customers to shop by availability of product for months into the future and across multiple future delivery dates. Along with providing availability information for future deliveries, we provided Allure customers the ability to lookup on-hand inventory in real time for products available to ship the same day. The combination of features allows customers to view product availability in real time and for future production schedules resulting in a dress that can be ordered today and delivered in six months just time for their big day. Aligning of production schedules with real-time inventory results and online purchasing empowers customers to make informed product selections resulting in lower product returns.
Native BigCommerce drove faceted search and filtering of products as well as using the optimized checkout for strong mobile support and ease of use. Customer groups and price lists create the ability for pricing specific to a customer.
The ability to customize a dress is expected functionality for bridal customers. Utilizing native BigCommerce we created the ability to add customizations to a dress as well as associate price changes per modification. Custom products also have a different delivery schedule from standard products which is all clearly communicated to the customer at the time of purchase.
To wrap it all together, the brand experience needs to feel like Allure. The new site design matches the Allure branding while also streamlining the shopping funnel with a mobile first approach.
The site is live and Allure’s customers are shopping but our work is not complete. New features to be released in the upcoming weeks and months to help retail customers access their account status, invoicing and order history.
