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Replatforming to Adobe Commerce: The First Step Toward Meeting BUFF’s E-Commerce Goals

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BUFF®, an outdoor apparel retailer headquartered in Barcelona, has been actively strengthening its direct-to-consumer (D2C) business by optimizing its e-commerce stores, including customer and user experience enhancements, and conversion rate and checkout optimization. Underpinning these efforts was the decision to move to a more powerful platform to support the company’s ambitious business and revenue growth plans.
 
In pursuit of a platform that would allow for a more data-driven D2C capability, better consistency in customer experience across channels and countries, and generally a more robust digital ecosystem, BUFF migrated from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure.

The Brand

BUFF developed its multifunctional neckwear more than 25 years ago. Today, the company is an industry leader for outdoor neck and head accessories.
 
Not only has BUFF become a favorite among outdoor sports enthusiasts, but it has also served as an inspiration for innovation in the industry. Other companies have developed similar products, but the brand has remained synonymous with seamless tubulars and multifunctional neck gaiters with the success of the original BUFF and popularity of its new designs.
 
BUFF has a presence in more than 70 countries worldwide where it has both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce stores.

The Story

BUFF was already successfully selling directly to customers through its e-commerce stores, but the company wanted to grow its D2C business even more. So, it looked for growth opportunities and identified blockers that needed to be addressed.
 
BUFF was on Magento Open Source, and it turned out that the existing platform and the support and resources available to the company were no longer in line with its new business roadmap. Adobe Commerce seemed to offer the best solution.
 
With Adobe Commerce, in addition to the scalable cloud service and the new platform, BUFF would have access to extended functionalities and support such as the Page Builder drag-and-drop content management tool, product recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei, content staging and preview, Adobe Target for automation and personalization, business intelligence, monitoring, and 24/7 support.
 
With a secure platform, cloud infrastructure, CDN, marketing and automation tools, strong SLA, and more, BUFF decided Adobe Commerce could easily take the company where it wanted to go.

The Decision-Making Process

The three main drivers of the decision for BUFF to replatform to Adobe Commerce were the cloud service, content tools and integrated features.
 
Enhanced security, server-side stability, rapid development and continuous deployment, better SLA, and reliable support and maintenance with Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure meant BUFF could concentrate on running the business and hitting its sales targets instead of being preoccupied with the maintenance and security of its e-commerce stores.

With Page Builder, managing content and building pages and campaigns would be easier. And integrated features like performance tools, a multisource inventory management system and AI-powered product recommendations would enable BUFF to have smarter and faster operations as well as provide better experiences to customers.

BUFF had already been working with Scandiweb for years on various ongoing e-commerce development and optimization projects, so the company tapped the same Adobe Magento agency for the replatforming project. The main goals were to migrate from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure with the ScandiPWA front end and implement new integrations. To help BUFF reach a final decision on the replatforming, the team at Scandiweb prepared a high-level overview of the company’s existing Magento e-commerce platform to outline the magnitude of the project and tackle important issues before starting with actual development work. It was going to be a massive digital ecosystem to rebuild with all the processes and integrations involved, but it was decidedly the solution BUFF needed to move forward.

Scope of Work

  • Migration from Magento Open Source to Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure with ScandiPWA front end
  • Full front-end redesign
  • Integration with:
    • Product information management (PIM) system
    • Return merchandise authorization (RMA) system
    • Marketing automation platform
    • E-commerce feed management platform
  • Drag-and-drop customization module with 3D models for tubulars
  • Various third-party integrations and custom modules to support business-specific workflow (e.g., Product Mix&Match to promote cross-selling)
  • User testing of new designs
  • CRO consultancy
  • SEO support

Technology Stack

  • Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure
  • ScandiPWA

The Result

BUFF now has ScandiPWA e-commerce stores with Adobe Commerce. The new platform on cloud infrastructure, which offers a scalable solution for a stable and reliable site performance, is currently home to 44 store views catering to 59 countries, with support for eight languages and multiple currencies. As part of the SEO strategy during migration, 120,000 301 redirects were created to ensure that organic traffic was not negatively affected.

After the migration, optimization work was done as part of the new roadmap BUFF had in place:

  • Monthly alignment of conversion optimization-focused deliverables between BUFF and the Scandiweb Growth Team
  • Checkout optimization program: checkout trends analysis, wireframing, development, tracking setup, post-launch analysis
  • Menu navigation optimization: data analysis and user testing, mapping out new menu in close collaboration with SEO team, wireframing and designs
  • Data tracking improvements: custom event setup and improved enhanced e-commerce implementation on Google Analytics

New features were also added to the e-commerce stores:

  • Product mix and match to promote cross-selling
  • Drag-and-drop customization for BUFF tubulars with interactive 3D models

New integrations and optimization projects are still ongoing to support the business and revenue goals of BUFF. With efforts focused on CX and CRO, BUFF is hopeful it will continue to deliver better and better experiences to its online customers as the company’s D2C business grows.