Sustainable denim brand, Nudie Jeans has partnered with headless commerce platform Centra to develop a unique Ship-from-Store solution that enables its customers to receive their orders from the nearest store as quickly and sustainably as possible. The new solution enables Nudie to provide a service that will give manufacturer brands and their bricks-and-mortar retailers a competitive advantage over Amazon and other giant eCommerce marketplaces.
Nudie Jeans wanted to prevent its bricks-and-mortar retail partners being side-lined as online sales picked up speed, and to continue to offer a compelling service instore from store runners who are experts in curating and presenting brands, knowing the products and talking about them with conviction.
The Ship-from-Store model complements Nudie Jeans’s long-held commitment to sustainable practices, explains Nudie Jeans Tech Lead, Melker Lindstrom: “As a brand we really strive to be sustainable in all areas and the existing system was just not a sustainable way to work.” He continued, “We wanted to present the brand in the way we wanted and develop that front-end with our partners.”
The company shared Centra’s view that conventional eCommerce was not sustainable. “eCommerce was built for online multi-brand retailers shipping from a few huge warehouses. It was not designed for brands with an existing and complex retail network of wholly owned stores, franchises and wholesale partners. It was also logistically absurd and environmentally negligent,” explained Centra CEO, Martin Jensen.
Nudie Jeans partnered with Centra to build an eCommerce business that integrated all sales channels, ultimately creating a new kind of fulfilment ecosystem where a customer can order online but have it picked, packed and delivered from a local bricks-and-mortar store. And returned there, if needed. As back-up, the item is reserved from the main warehouse if no local stores can fulfil the order – so the customer gets what they want far more quickly and delivered in a far more sustainable way.
This operating model creates a healthier, more holistic business that does not feed on itself in an act of commercial cannibalisation, and also delivers a huge service and sustainability win.
“How can it be that you order a pair of jeans that might actually be in stock in a store a five-minute cycle away,” says Jensen, “but end up being delivered, by air, from a completely different country? And if they don’t fit, they get shipped right back. It’s bad for the environment and you have to wait longer for the product to arrive.”
Centra and Nudie began by rolling out a workable version, starting with wholly owned stores before connecting wholesale partners and franchisees.
In order to connect hundreds of wholesale customers into the new system, Centra had to work across and around many different point-of-sale (PoS) systems and ensure that it was easy to understand and use. It also incorporated multiple local taxes and customs capabilities as well as many different last-mile logistics.
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