Scoring success: eCommerce revamp with Magento Commerce Cloud

Leeds United came to IDHL with a tight deadline to rebuild the eCommerce section of their website ready for the upcoming season’s kit launch. A project that placed collaboration at the forefront, we worked alongside Fantastic Media to implement their site design.

Assessing what larger Premier League clubs and fashion retailers were doing when it came to eCommerce, Leeds’ decision came down to two platforms: Shopify or Adobe Commerce. Experiencing extreme increased site traffic during the start of each football season when new kit and training ranges launch, the club needed a platform that could scale quickly to meet demand. It was imperative that fans shopping at these peak times did not experience saw slow load times. Reviewing their exact store requirements, Magento Commerce Cloud was selected.

Working to such a tight launch deadline, we leveraged our boilerplate theme to efficiently build the site’s foundations. Further flexibility was then added to the layout, with Page Builder used extensively to enable the whole site to be built out of components. This approach allows Leeds to feature different banners, video components, related products and cross-sell opportunities with ease to tailor their eCommerce site content.

Key to delivering ‘next level’ user experience, the custom kit builder allows users to personalise their kit selection with their preferred name and number, all while presented with a true-look preview.

With each letter and number stock managed, prior to the introduction of the new kit builder, stock control was a big issue. Now, while the user is shown a singular personalised item added to their basket, once the order is placed it is broken down into individual components for accurate stock management.

Created with flexibility in mind, Leeds can add new fonts or patches and change patch locations allowing the solution to be tailored to support future kit requirements as well as change the pricing of each item as required.

An international business with a multi-language, multi-currency and multi-payment eCommerce store, Global-e takes care of the checkout allowing Leeds to trade in real-time with approximately 90 different currencies. Allowing international customers to pay duties and taxes on-site, Global-e ensures hassle-free delivery as all costs are already covered which has increased international spend for the club. Accepting well-known payment methods like Klarna, Global-e was a complex integration presenting various challenges for the team to overcome.

Also requiring two-way integration with Medoc which powers their stores and epos system and Mosaic who handle their fulfilment, every time an order is placed updates are sent to both Medoc and Mosaic to ensure finance and stock management is synced.

A collaborative and streamlined process, the international purchase journey has been transformed into a hassle-free one. The customer is able to purchase in their chosen currency, Leeds United then receives payment in sterling before Mosaic dispatches the item to Global-e who fulfil it internationally.

Since go-live, there has been a significant reduction in customer complaints from those struggling to place online orders.

With more than one customer type to consider, an integration with a ticketing system takes a daily feed of season ticket holders to display the right online pricing to those users. If a customer is no longer a season ticket holder, removal from that customer group is also automated for easier management. The feed also allows Leeds to harness the customer group functionality in Magento, providing season ticket holders and members with a VIP experience, even giving specific customer groups priority access to buy new kit and training before the general public.

Hitting the go-live deadline ready for kit launch, the new Leeds United eCommerce store kicked off with great success, seeing more training kits sold in 48 hours than in the entirety of 2020.