La Perla Puts an End to One-Size-Fits-All Ecommerce with BigCommerce
See how customisable, cost-effective and reliable BigCommerce is and why we built it that way.
25%
of the total revenue in the period
3.38%
higher conversion rate
30%
higher AOV
Impact for users who clicked and converted from XGen Ai from 1st May to 13th June period (100% traffic, PDP in A/B test) in all active locales.
The timeless artistry of La Perla.
It all started in 1954, in a small workshop in Bologna, an Italian city renowned for its tradition of silk and textile manufacturing. Ada Masotti founded what became the iconic lingerie house using her talent as a skilled corset maker to create works of art that enhance the female form.Â
In the decades since, La Perla has been a source of feminine inspiration and innovation, worn by celebrities, influencers and fashion icons. Soon to celebrate its seventieth anniversary, the Italian brand stands now as a global leader within the luxury fashion and lingerie market, constantly evolving to stay as relevant as ever.
CHALLENGE
A competitive market on the verge of transformation.
La Perla was quick to understand the enormous potential of ecommerce — but wasn’t the only player to do so. In fact, the luxury goods market has proved resilient, taking to online shopping to expand across channels and borders, and building strong connections with younger demographics.
As Patrick Lallemand, Global Digital Director at La Perla, explained: “The business is definitely evolving, and the share of online is progressing. More and more brands within the luxury goods category are taking the lead to grow their business on their own brand website. Therefore, it’s important to have a robust solution that supports that growth."
“More and more brands within the luxury goods category are taking the lead to grow their business on their own brand website. Therefore, it’s important to have a robust solution that supports that growth.”
Patrick Lallemand  Global Digital Director, La Perla
SOLUTION
BigCommerce’s robust, flexible, and API-first platform.
For the last four years, La Perla has trusted BigCommerce to support their ambitious roadmap toward business growth and adaptability to market changes. “I've worked with other platforms before,” said Lee Longhurst, Head of Ecommerce Development at La Perla. “They’re always trying to patch things up or have had disruptions during the weekends. We don't get that problem with BigCommerce. It's always on. And that enables us to focus on the customer experience and on value-added development and experimentation, because we don’t have to work tirelessly just to keep the lights on.”
Additionally, the openness and accessibility of the code stack and APIs allow La Perla to be independent and reduce its time to market. Their in-house development team has built a semi-headless environment using a BigCommerce storefront on the front-end with a single custom theme used on 14 stores.
Finding new market opportunities across the globe.
When La Perla started working with BigCommerce, they shipped to about 40 countries worldwide, predominantly in the US and Europe. However, the brand was quick to realise its broader potential.
“BigCommerce allowed us to organically figure out where the demand was,” said Kasia Buttery, Head of Global Online Customer Experience at La Perla. “Before we start going into big marketing pitches, we can see where potential customers are. If there's an opportunity, we build on it. It’s what we did for Australia and South Korea. We launched them onto our global site, and when we saw the opportunities they represented, we took those stores and copied them, which is really easy and streamlined to do, and then repurposed them to adapt to each market specificity, in terms of language and seasonality.”
Localisation is key for La Perla, and the flexibility of BigCommerce allows them to AB test in-house — trying out things as simple as using decimal points instead of a full stop on currency and quickly implementing the preferred options.
Technology trends to reshape the experience.
All of La Perla’s efforts are designed to elevate their customer experience. “Client experience is our ability to move our brand from being just a beautiful product to becoming an emotion — or even a relationship,” explained Patrick Lallemand. “BigCommerce’s platform is enabling it by supporting the integration and the development of meaningful features for our clients, that we are constantly testing and improving.”
One great example is how the brand uses XGen Ai to elevate its product recommendations. “What I've really loved is that it's been so straightforward for us to get the coding onto the platform,” said Kasia Buttery. “This tool is actually offering product recommendations on key areas like our homepage or product pages, based on user behaviours on the site. It's not just showing you what we want you to see, it's tailoring pages to display what is relevant to you.”
And this innovative use of artificial intelligence technology to build a frictionless online journey is already showing impressive results.
Tech Stack:
Shogun Page builder is used as the primary CMS and is supplemented with HTML and custom page templates in Stencil/Handlebars and Javascript/React to develop interactive features
BigCommerce storefront APIs/GraphQL is used to power a product switcher and create the illusion of colour options on a PDP
Attraqt/Fredhopper for PLP merchandising, inline content spots, and search
DotDigital eCRM for email sign-up forms
XGen Ai for product recommendations
Global-e mutation observers are used to override prices where dynamic multi-currency pricing is required
Global-e checkout is used in place of BigCommerce checkout for all domestic and international orders — La Perla accepts over 40 payment methods across 93 countries
BigCommerce store admin is used as a PIM and to develop a suite of automated tools and custom applications on PHP/MySQL to maintain feeds and product synchronisation across all 14 stores
ERP and OMS run on legacy AS400 and Oracle-based systems. La Perla has used BigCommerce management APIs to develop its own connectors to update prices and inventory, retrieve orders, and feed them to the picking system
Microsoft Azure DevOps for CI/CD to build and release BigCommerce theme updates to all stores with additional use of Azure for API management and to host tools and apps
"BigCommerce allowed us to organically figure out where the demand was. Before we start going into big marketing pitches, we can see where potential customers are. If there's an opportunity, we build on it.”
Kasia Buttery  Head of Global Online Customer Experience, La Perla
“Client experience is our ability to move our brand from being just a beautiful product to becoming an emotion — or even a relationship. BigCommerce’s platform is enabling it by supporting the integration and the development of meaningful features for our clients, that we are constantly testing and improving.”
PATRICK LALLEMANDÂ GLOBAL DIGITAL DIRECTOR, LA PERLA
RESULTS
Tailored experiences increase engagement and conversions.
Since 2021, La Perla has launched in over 100 countries and now ships to 125 countries. They’ve noticed the positive impact of using innovative, third-party solutions that work easily with BigCommerce. Comparing users who clicked and converted from an XGen Ai-generated product detail page (PDP) to all traffic on all markets from May 1 to June 13 2023, they noticed these users generated 25% of the total revenue in the period, a 30% higher average order value (AOV), and a 3.38% higher conversion rate than other users.
"We've managed quite successfully with 14 separate stores, and at the moment, it's relatively straightforward for us to spin up a new store. We had South Korea and Australia running within two weeks.”
Lee Longhurst  Head of Ecommerce, La Perla
LOOKING AHEAD
A future yet to be composed.
As Lee Longhurst remembered, “I started using BigCommerce when it was run by a couple of guys based in Australia called Eddie and Mitch. Since then, it's grown beyond recognition. It's not the same system now that it was in 2009. It's grown to maturity and is suitable for enterprise use. It’s a robust, stable, expandable, extensible, composable platform.”
BigCommerce has become a solution that’s meeting and exceeding the complex needs of enterprise brands, providing a valuable balance between robustness and flexibility.
The platform's ability to evolve also resonates with La Perla. “I'm quite keen to see how the capabilities of BigCommerce develop on multi-storefront and multi-geography,” explained Longhurst. “We've managed quite successfully with 14 separate stores, and at the moment, it's relatively straightforward for us to spin up a new store. We had South Korea and Australia running within two weeks. But we’ll be able to do so much more with a single catalogue in a single store, in a single storefront, and perhaps grow even faster in new markets where we want to improve search engine optimisation.”
La Perla is shifting toward a more composable approach — something that’ll help Patrick, Kasia, and Lee create outstanding experiences for their customers across the globe. As Patrick Lallemand concluded, “We are always looking into ways to enrich the client experience and in the future, it’ll be about creating more synergy between 3.0 brick and mortar stores, online channels and dematerialised products.”
Published: September 2023
"[BigCommerce]’s grown to maturity and is suitable for enterprise use. It’s a robust, stable, expandable, extensible, composable platform.”
Lee Longhurst  Head of Ecommerce Development, La Perla
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