USA
Growing IT Ecosystem to Meet Business Expansion Goals
We helped the United Repair Centre scale the Order Management platform with B2B portals and a novel B2C sales channel to efficiently support their business expansion into new European markets
Customer:
B2B Clothing Repair Service Provider
Business need
Our Client aimed to broaden the reach of sustainable fashion initiatives by entering new EU markets. They had a clear business vision for scaling yet needed the right technical strategy to bring it to life. Thus, they engaged our team to help extend their IT capabilities.
Result
We extended the Client’s Order Management Platform with 10 B2B portals to keep up with the needs of the URC’s growing customer base. Also, our team helped them open a new B2C sales channel, improve customer communication workflow, and provide ongoing support for future growth plans.
Their expertise has played a key role in the success of our projects, and the team continues to deliver reliable support and innovative solutions.
Collaboration overview
Key facts
The United Repair Centre (URC) provides B2B clothing repair services, extending the life of leading brands’ garments and promoting sustainable fashion. The Client planned to expand into EU markets and needed to ensure the IT ecosystem could handle an increasing client base and order count. Thus, the URC engaged us to help prepare for the upcoming business growth.
One of the priorities for the expansion was to ensure the URC IT ecosystem is hardened against potential attacks. So, we helped the Client run a security audit and meet the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmark requirements first. Next, we moved to the development phase:
- Extended the Repairing Order Management platform with 10 more B2B portals for Patagonia, Lululemon, Rapha, The North Face, and other brands
- Created a new B2C portal to unlock an additional revenue stream from direct-to-customer repairs
- Enhanced the decision-making process by integrating analytics and data visualization tools
- Improved customer communication workflow to promptly notify users about their order status.
B2B Portals Development
As a part of the onboarding process, the URC creates a dedicated service portal for each brand on their MS Power Pages-based platform. Yet, the growing customer base pushed the platform to its limits, requiring a more robust setup to keep up with expansion.
Our team elaborated a new technical strategy for scaling and suggested extending the platform with B2B portals on top of MS Power Apps. This way, we could swiftly launch portals and streamline the onboarding. The Client liked the idea, so we built 5 B2B portals and decided to add 5 more for future needs. It turned out right, as 8 portals are already in use by the URC partners.
- Created a structure for each portal based on the individual brand preferences, customer flow, and requests
- Connected portals with brand websites to enable routing repair orders from their own websites
- Integrated Google Analytics and Power BI dashboards to visualize key metrics and track portals’ performance
- Implemented bulk editing feature to update, modify, and manage large amounts of data, ensuring its consistency.
B2C Portal Development
Initially, the URC’s service flow relied solely on in-store staff who placed repair orders through B2B portals on behalf of their customers. The model worked well, but as the business grew, the URC decided to extend it with a new sales channel for end-customers to order their services directly.
Thus, our next focus was on building the very first B2C portal for Gore-Tex customers. We used MS Power Apps to streamline its development, and now the portal is already in use. It offers a full self-service experience for users, allowing them to place orders, choose a delivery option, and pay for services online. Apart from that, our team:
- Automated MS Outlook email communication with customers to notify them about their order status
- Integrated the SendGrid service to prevent the URC emails from being marked as spam
- Configured API keys for payment system integrations for secure and smooth transactions
- Introduced a custom invoice export feature to ensure efficient payment tracking and financial management.
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Testimonials
Sigma Software has been flexible and efficient when dealing with our development requests. The team understood our clients’ needs and turned projects around for us in the expected time with good communication throughout.
Supporting the URC in aligning their business goals with the right technical strategy was a truly rewarding experience. We're glad that the solutions we delivered helped the Client successfully expand into new markets. Our collaboration continues, and we are ready to help the URC implement their future growth plans.
Let us discuss how our team can contribute to your success