Orlebar Brown’s tech transformation: sun, swimwear and seamless shopping

Orlebar Brown SS25

Premium resortwear brand Orlebar Brown’s products cater to a certain type of shopper.

Its signature tailored men’s swimming shorts, for example, were created to smartly dress its customers while holidaying in luxurious hotspots around the world. Designed by founder Adam Brown, the concept takes the wearer seamlessly from the plane to the pool, from the beach to the bar, or from a sun lounger to a sunset soiree.

Since 2018, the British brand has been part of the Chanel group, and now has more than 50 stores around the world, building on the success of giving this exacting customer exactly what he wants: a simple yet stylish holiday wardrobe that is uncomplicated and hassle-free – allowing him more time to relax and enjoy his sunny getaways.

This customer expects the same from his shopping experience – easy, luxurious and hassle-free. Thanks to a technology transformation project and new unified commerce strategy kicked off in October 2023, Orlebar Brown is now delivering on both fronts.

“Supporting our customers’ shopping journey – which can begin at a store in Sydney, continue online from their home in New York, then end with a purchase from a store in Saint-Tropez – is always our priority,” says Jamie De Cesare, chief technology officer at Orlebar Brown. “We’re very determined to serve the customer wherever they are. So, we’re elated if there’s digital activity that drives an in-store purchase, as we find those customers come back over and over again.”

With sales split 50:50 between online and offline, the business knew it was important to unify both shopping channels and remove any friction between the two to build on this loyalty from its channel-hopping shoppers. To do this, it worked to transform its shopping experience into a seamless and personalised, channel-agnostic setup, with a simplified technology solution that could fully integrate CRM, checkout and website datapoints, while also helping it to manage multiple currencies and taxes across all the brand’s international stores and websites.

Prior to this new strategy, the brand faced integration challenges because of a complicated and fragmented backend architecture. One significant hurdle stemmed from the reliance on multiple systems to feed into the point of sale (POS) in stores, while online, the website operated on a different platform. This disconnect led to variations in customer data, and without a single view of the customer, it was difficult to fully understand them and provide an optimal, personalised experience.

Jamie De Cesare, chief technology officer, Orlebar Brown

With over 70% of sales made internationally, Orlebar Brown also faced the challenge of separately managing the legal entity of each country it operated in, creating a complex web of technology and business structures. This setup made it time-consuming to manually update prices and show local currency in online storefronts.

Wasting time and resources, De Cesare says, “something had to change”. Focusing on this unified commerce strategy, the team evaluated a range of solutions in search of key criteria, including easy app integrations, a simplified tech stack and streamlined operations. They identified the Shopify platform as a contender.

Orlebar Brown introduced Shopify POS, which has helped unify the brand’s online and offline sales channels, providing a single view of inventory. This has reduced the risk of overselling or running out of stock, and has improved order management.

This new POS has given store employees a user-friendly interface that streamlines the checkout process and enables them to offer customers a more seamless, digitally connected shopping experience. For example, sales associates now have access to customer data, can recommend items based on their preferences or previous purchases, and can process payments from anywhere in the store.

The digital team can now also manage multiple international digital storefronts from one platform, making global selling easier and faster. With localised pricing, languages and payment methods, the Shopify Markets solution has helped unify the shopping experience for customers, wherever they are shopping – and holidaying.

Orlebar Brown has also switched to a new, integrated payment system – Shopify Payments – which has streamlined payment processing, allowing for a more efficient and user-friendly checkout experience. Following this implementation, online basket-to-checkout conversions have increased 66%, and customer complaints about the checkout experience have reportedly decreased to almost zero.

Orlebar Brown also identified that 44% of its customers were existing Shop Pay users, which is the checkout and payment method developed by Shopify. This combination has facilitated a frictionless experience, as returning customers are able to checkout in one click.

Orlebar Brown store

“There’s a clear link between site speed and web conversion, and Shopify’s checkout process is exceptional in its performance. And Shop Pay is among the most popular choices for customers, this allows them to transact effortlessly,” explains De Cesare.

The new system has also given Orlebar Brown access to many easy-to-use apps that now easily integrate, which means the team can be iterative when rolling out new releases, test and optimise the online experience, and quickly integrate new apps to continuously improve the shopping experience.

As well as the 66% increase in online conversion rates, the new unified system also contributes to a 30%-40% saving in operational costs, De Cesare says. For example, now that the business can integrate POS and website data, the team no longer needs to update information across sites and price books. This consolidation, along with streamlined processes, simplifies deposit tracking and tax management, cutting costs.

Now, the brand can also track and organise stock across online and in-store sales channels, through the integration of OneStock, which serves as its order management system (OMS) and provides real-time inventory levels – a critical component of any unified omnichannel strategy.

De Cesare says this now ensures that the brand’s customers receive the products they want, whenever, however and wherever they prefer: “If a customer visits an Orlebar Brown store and an item isn’t available, we can easily fulfil it from the POS on an iPad, since our inventory is now unified. We can take their payment and ship it to their hotel the next day. It’s quicker, better, and offers more value than ever before.”