Luxury Swiss watchmaker Breitling has rolled out a headless ecommerce platform and has revamped its order management system as it looks to capitalise on recent growth.
Last Christmas was a bumper year for the watch seller, with third-quarter sales of £272.6m in the 13 weeks to January 24. That’s 5.7% up on the same time last year. UK sales of £186.1m were 1.5% up on last year – including a 121.1% rise in ecommerce sales. In the US, sales of £86.5m were 19.2% up on last time, with ecommerce delivering “according to plan”. Watch sales grew by 10.2% in the third quarter, while luxury jewellery sales were down by 20.1%.
To capitalise on this and as part of Breitling’s growth strategy, the decision was made to replace its order management platform with a modern “headless architecture”, so they were future ready to support peak season and growth, all while improving customer experience.
Immediate benefits for Breitling, and their customers, include the ability to open and manage orders from every sales channel and coordinate the fulfilment process across all customer touchpoints.
The rollout of the Fluent Commerce Distributed Order Management System has provided Breitling with real-time inventory, so the company knows exactly which products are selling and where. Additionally, customers can see what products are in stock before they visit a store or buy online.
Today, Breitling customers now have more delivery options, including home delivery (from warehouse or the boutiques) and click and collect. They can also choose when they receive their order.
Breitling Chief Digital and Technology Officer Antonio Carriero explains: “Digital has changed the way the business needs to respond to customers. The Fluent deployment to our key markets in less than four months is a tribute to the fact that Breitling has the ability, and the agility, to move fast — from the vision to delivering superior solutions and experiences to all our customers, making our watches always available where they are. Any channel, anytime.”
“Agile principles and a full DevOps approach of our combined teams made it possible to go live with Fluent Commerce in record time, including the integration with the newly activated ERP SAP S/4HANA. With Fluent Commerce, we will further accelerate our e-commerce and retail solutions. Our products and customers are at the center of our technology transformation,” adds Rajesh Shanmugasundaram, Head of Omnichannel & System Integration, Breitling.
“I’m delighted to see such an iconic brand as Breitling roll out Fluent Commerce to its customers in Switzerland and North America. The strength of the platform and the quick time to market has demonstrated exactly what we can do to support businesses with their ecommerce strategies during this global pandemic, giving them the flexibility to adapt and add additional revenue streams, whilst also providing more delivery options to customers,” says Graham Jackson, CEO, Fluent Commerce.
Shine Mathew, CEO & Founder of AyataCommerce, concludes: “Breitling is transforming their systems to meet the high expectations of the growing customer base. We’re proud to be part of the project team empowering the organisation as fast as we did. It is a testament to the leadership, IT and business users to make decisions in a swift and responsive manner that has made this possible”.
