Badgley Mischka Makes a Fashion Statement with BigCommerce

35 Years in Style

For over three decades, Mark Badgley and James Mischka — the founders of renowned global fashion label, Badgley Mischka — have been touted by Vogue as one of the “Top 10 American Designers.” Since launching in 1988, the enterprise brand has undoubtedly made a statement in the fashion world with its timeless evening wear and accessories.

Badgley Mischka is sold in some of the most prestigious stores in the world — from the likes of Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman to Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom — and the award-winning fashion label has even caught the attention of celebrities such as Madonna, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez and Sarah Jessica Parker.

But Badgley Mischka’s success hasn’t stopped on the runway. With an international presence in over 200 countries, the 35-year-old fashion label is also making waves in the digital space, too.

CHALLENGE

Functionality and agility gaps.

In 2015, Badgley Mischka launched its direct-to-consumer (DTC) online store on Pulse Commerce (formerly GoECart). Unfortunately, the fashion company found that, as an all-in-one solution, Pulse Commerce didn’t offer the functionality or agility they needed to thrive and expand.

Badgley Mischka found that their growth outpaced Pulse Commerce's merchandising capabilities, marketplaces, plugins and integrations — so they decided it was time to make a change.

“Pulse Commerce was very limiting, and it was hard to create products, to merchandise products and to expand to different marketplaces,” said Katie Ouaknine, owner of Badgley Mischka Web. “They didn't have all of the plugins or integrations we needed, so we were really looking for what programs outside of our ecommerce platform that would plug in and who they plugged in with the most."

SOLUTION

Plugged in with BigCommerce.

In their search for a new ecommerce solution, Badgley Mischka knew it was crucial for their platform to provide the capabilities and integrations needed to remain agile. As a growing brand, Badgley Mischka needed plug-and-play apps to future-proof their business with scalability and flexibility.

After considering both Shopify and BigCommerce, Badgley Mischka found that BigCommerce best suited the size of their business.

“BigCommerce takes the cake and covers most of everyone's needs,” said Ouaknine. “There have been very few partners that we've reached out to that didn't integrate with BigCommerce, so we haven't been limited by choices — and that was a huge factor. We knew we wanted to plug in a bunch of different integrations, and BigCommerce was the way to get that done.”

Apps and integrations to stay on trend.

Turning to BigCommerce’s expansive app marketplace, Badgley Mischka has found just the right tools to dress up their website’s capabilities.

As a dropshipper with inventory in 20 different locations, Badgley Mischka utilizes Duoplane for its order management software. This app helps the business take in orders, split orders throughout its various warehouses and ship products out to customers.

Shogun, a drag-and-drop page builder and visual content management system, helps the business take web development and design into their own hands – rather than relying on a design team to make quick website changes.

“And how do I forget Bolt?” Ouaknine exclaimed. “We partnered with Bolt, and along with them have one-click checkout. They really help us with fraud prevention, and we just love Bolt.”

However, one of the apps that has been most profitable for the fashion label has been Feedonomics, a full-service data feed management platform. “Only two months in with Feedonomics, and holy cow, they are changing our lives a little bit,” Ouaknine said.

After a slow start launching on Amazon through a different feed provider, GoDataFeed, Badgley Mischka partnered with Feedonomics to help drive sales. Although Badgley Mischka was already selling on Instagram Shop, Facebook Shop, Amazon and even TikTok Shop, at the advice of a BigCommerce Omnichannel Growth Manager, the fashion brand decided to launch a new marketplace: Google Shopping.

“I was expecting similar results to our Amazon feed — a few orders a week, nothing too crazy,” said Ouaknine. “But our business absolutely exploded the second we got on Google Shop…It was way more growth than I was ever anticipating.”

Plus, with Klaviyo as its email service provider, Global-e for shipping and fulfillment and Gorgias for its CRM, Badgley Mischka has truly dressed out its suite of apps, allowing the business to continue growing and moving in the right direction.

RESULTS

Driving growth with a team of ecommerce experts.

When defining what online success has looked like for Badgley Mischka, Ouaknine doesn’t hesitate to admit: “It's been a rollercoaster ride.”

But with the help of Americaneagle.com — a global digital agency and BigCommerce development partner — the fashion brand was able to seamlessly replatform and equip themselves with the tools they need for ecommerce success. From SEO and marketing strategy to web design and development, Ouaknine explains, “For anything that goes wrong with the site, Americaneagle.com is there to help us fix it.”

And while the global pandemic was a bump in the road for many ecommerce businesses, since then, Badgley Mischka has only seen a steady upward growth.

“We're breaking our own records month after month,” said Ouaknine. “We've increased marketing, and we have a ton of integrations with a lot of your partners that have just made our business and our customers more happy, so we're finding a lot of success.”

In fact, when comparing 2022 performance metrics over 2021, the company has experienced a 61.21% increase in revenue, a 18.62% increase in conversion rate and a 31.1% increase in average order value.

LOOKING AHEAD

Continuing to build an international presence.

For Badgley Mischka, the future is all about one thing: growth. From increasing site personalization to refining online marketplaces to expanding globally, Badgley Mischka is doing “anything and everything we can to grab as many customers out there as possible,” says Ouaknine.

And that includes expanding globally. Partnering with Global-e as its cross-borders solutions provider, Badgley Mischka does business in 272 countries, with the US, Canada, the UK and Australia as its top regions.

“Last month we sold to 46 different countries,” said Ouaknine. Clearly, Badgley Mischka is well on its way to growing its international presence — and with BigCommerce powering its ecommerce engine, the fashion brand looks forward to what’s next in store.

“The great news is that BigCommerce is on its way to developing a lot of features natively,” says Ouaknine. “I'm excited that BigCommerce is growing every day, and that they're working to find solutions to everyone's problems — always growing, always expanding.”

Published: February 2023