Paul Smith refashions the cut of its ecommerce and digital wholesale, in partnership with Centra

Britain’s iconic design company, Paul Smith, is removing the boundaries between its online direct-to-consumer (DTC), digital wholesale and physical retail to create a seamless, global brand presence, in partnership with Centra, the specialist fashion and lifestyle ecommerce platform.

Paul Smith’s products are crafted with more than fifty years of design expertise led by designer Sir Paul Smith. Instantly recognisable, its Signature Stripe is the perfect example of the company’s colourful character and ethos with positivity, curiosity and creativity underpinning every design.

A British company with a global outlook, what began in a small shop in Nottingham, England, has grown to more than 130 stores globally, each as unique and bespoke as the other, with locations in over 60 countries. It offers a range of pieces from refined yet relaxed tailoring for men and women through to casual trainers and formal shoes, homeware and Paul Smith Junior pieces for children.

Paul Smith transformed its digital flagship in 2022, transitioning to a headless front-end designed by agency partner Limesharp, to create a striking online store which is rich with brand expression and story-telling that emulates the in-store shopping experience. However, beyond the product pages, the customer experience fell flat with a slow checkout while the Paul Smith team faced several challenges streamlining and scaling its business because of its existing ecommerce platform.

Originally looking for an order management solution (OMS) to facilitate multi-source inventory and global ship-from-store capabilities, the team realised this would present additional challenges as Hannah Bennett, Head of Digital at Paul Smith, explains:

“We were considering investing in an OMS software but realised we would still have to upgrade the platform and our development team would then need to build and support those features. We’re a fashion brand; we need to be integrating solutions not building and maintaining software.” Following an introduction to Centra, it became clear it’s out-of-the-box functionality, across both its DTC and digital wholesale solutions, solved many of Paul Smith’s challenges in creating limitless, agile and scalable digital channels.

“When considering Centra, its OMS which integrates third-party logistics and supply chain was the immediate win, but the total package - from operationally being able to consolidate how we could manage wholesale, grow markets with loyalty and VIP programmes as well as introducing new languages and currencies much quicker than we could ever do before and all from one site and centralised system - sealed the win,” explains Bennett.

The migration to Centra, which originally only focused on DTC, turned into a complete overhaul of Paul Smiths entire digital business – including digitising wholesale on the Centra Showroom. Paul Smith’s thousands of global wholesale partners can now access Centra’s inbuilt digital wholesale showroom, which modernises the buying process through a like-for-like DTC consumer shopping experience, including individual pricing, global tax calculations and shipping management. With all B2B orders now running through Centra and fast tracking the end-to-end process, Paul Smith can now redeploy development resources to focus on ecommerce development while its wholesale team can focus on enriching the buying experience for merchants.

Centra’s out of the box product information management (PIM) capabilities enable Paul Smith to get products to market quicker, allowing its product data team more time to focus on creating richer product descriptions and reconfigure core product attributions. Additionally, its rapid multi-market scalability means Paul Smith no longer needs to create a new store view for new markets, removing the duplication of content, and improving the customer experience through localised currencies, language and payment options.

Site speed and reliability has also improved, with Paul Smith experiencing no down time since taking its DTC channel live in April 2024, with the business now able to focus on maximising its sales periods without site crashes allowing maximum focus on improving commerciality.

Additionally, the replatforming has allowed the development team to move on from maintenance to enhancement, explains Bennet: “The team are no longer spending their time maintaining a platform. That was a huge challenge as it would take two or three months a year to just upgrade and manage systems. Now we are just focusing on new features and product enhancement rather than maintenance.”

Looking ahead, Centra’s OMS will be used to implement a global Ship-from-Store solution across its bricks-and-mortar network that will enable its customers to receive their orders from the nearest store as quickly and sustainably as possible.

Martin Jensen, CEO of Centra, commented: “Paul Smith is Britain’s leading independent design company with more than 50 years of design expertise. By partnering with Centra, Paul Smith now has a scalable and future-proof omnichannel retail operation that frees the brand team to focus on inspiring customers with its trademark maverick and colourful approach to design.”