BigCommerce Helps Bohemian Traders Sell More in Style

It must have been the jacket

Imagine loving a jacket so much that to get the one, you’re willing to purchase 10. That’s exactly what Emily Berlach did. The bohemian jacket she had her eyes on was sold out and the store did not plan to restock it. But, instead of disappointment kicking in, tenacity did.

Emily searched until she found another supplier of the jacket. But there was one big hitch: she had to purchase nearly a dozen. Undeterred, that was the day Emily became the proud owner of 10 bohemian jackets.

She launched her first online store on BigCartel, an ecommerce platform for artists and creatives, and promoted the extra nine jackets on her blog, The Beetle Shack. She sold out in two hours, and that was the start to what tens of thousands of customers have come to know as Bohemian Traders, headed by Emily and her husband, David. 

Bohemian Traders originally started as a digitally native, direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Under its umbrella today are two brick and mortar stores as well as independent and larger wholesalers, including David Jones, the well known Australian/New Zealand department store.

Challenge

Experiencing limitations

Although Bohemian Traders' start was simple enough, its ecommerce journey, prior to BigCommerce, was not. Rapid growth proved to be too much for the company’s first ecommerce platform as multiple crashes slowed business progression. The store was moved to Volusion, but limitations and antiquated technology led them to change again.

“There were a lot of things we couldn't do on Volusion that seemed pretty easy on other platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify. Volusion was quite restrictive in what we could do with integrations. The development architecture of the site was limited as well,” said David Berlach, Bohemian Traders Managing Director.

Solution

Making the trade to BigCommerce

Bohemian Traders officially launched on BigCommerce in 2015, bypassing Shopify for a platform it considered to be more stable, flexible and able to scale with the company.

“BigCommerce is a platform that lets developers build whatever they want. We can build customized solutions and plug them straight in with really strong APIs that create a lot of scope for brands like us. And strong APIs and integrations enable us to extend functionality beyond the platform,” said Berlach.

Several app integrations help Bohemian Traders get the most from the platform while enhancing the customer experience. From email communications with Klaviyo to advertising shopping campaigns with Google Shopping by Sales & Orders, Bohemian Traders takes full advantage of the vetted apps found on BigCommerce’s ecommerce app marketplace.

“At the moment Klaviyo is our biggest driver of revenue. We're bringing in between 35-50% of our revenue through our mailing list,” said Berlach.

And that online revenue is coming into Bohemian Traders’ coffers through a number of top payment processors, including Braintree by PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay, Zip, Afterpay and Klarna.

Then there are those apps like BackOrder by GritGlobal that enable back-in-stock product planning and notification, and Rewind Backups to automatically backup business-critical store and customer data. Starshipit provides both the customer and the company order status and tracking details.

“We’ve always offered international shipping. So customers can shop with us from just about anywhere in the world. We ship to the United States, Europe and Asia on a regular basis,” Berlach said.

Results

Building a business exactly as you please

In comparing the company’s most recent Q1 metrics (2022) to its first Q1 metrics (2016), Bohemian Traders’ average order value (AOV) grew by 68%, site visits increased by 138% and revenue increased by 151%.

Not only is there Bohemian Traders, but there is a second completely separate store, OUTLET | Bohemian Traders, operating on Bigcommerce as well. The company finds it simple to manage both stores from the BigCommerce dashboard. “We log into the back end of BigCommerce and jump between stores. That’s it. It’s just that simple to manage two stores.”

“BigCommerce is a really good platform to build an online business in the manner we like to build. There are a lot of possibilities with integrations. Collectively, BigCommerce is part of the framework that allows us to use integrations between our DTC and wholesale channels, as well as our brick-and-mortar shops,” Berlach said. 

Looking Ahead

Expanding into new geo and technological territory

Bohemian Traders is excited by what it plans to accomplish this year. “We're starting our first big concerted push into the United States. We've shipped internationally from the beginning of the brand, but we've never intentionally focused on an area outside of Australia,” Berlach said.

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is on the horizon for Bohemian Traders this year as well, particularly as its wholesale business expands. “There's just a whole lot more structure that sits behind those relationships with wholesalers. And as it expands, I can see it being necessary to integrate an ERP,” said Berlach.

At the end of the day, Bohemian Traders is interested in ensuring the totality of the customer journey is a pleasant and consistent experience. 

“We want people’s experiences to be consistent wherever they come across us. Our aim is to ensure they experience the same quality of shopping across our BigCommerce stores as they do in our brick and mortar shops. Shopping should be an easy process, but also one where our customers can expect quality and that includes the online experience. BigCommerce helps us do that,” Berlach said.

Published: May 2022