Case Study: How Swanky Migrated Fishpools’ Furniture Store to Shopify With a Custom Swan ERP Integration

TL;DR

• We migrated Fishpools from a legacy custom platform to a brand new furniture store on Shopify Plus.
• Our integrations team built a bespoke integration between the Fishpools site and Swan ERP to enable data syncing.
• The new store design included multiple different product page templates to incorporate various levels of customisation between different product types.
• Fishpools’ internal team can now easily update segments and merchandise products with new flexible sections.

About Fishpools

Hertfordshire-based furniture retailer Fishpools takes a hybrid approach to DTC sales, with a big presence both offline and online. It boasts an impressive 62,000 sqft showroom – one of the largest independent showrooms in the South East – where customers can explore its product offering in-person. Meanwhile, its ecommerce site allows shoppers to peruse its extensive catalogue at their convenience.

As the brand approaches its 125th anniversary in 2024, Fishpools sought to improve its online shopping experience to support growth in digital sales.

Moving away from a custom platform

Prior to migrating to Shopify, the Fishpools online store was over 10 years old, built on a custom platform with complex code. As a result, the Fishpools team found it very restrictive in terms of customisation, with any content changes needing to be managed via a change request. This created a lengthy and expensive process, and made managing new product launches, promotions and merchandising difficult and costly.

Meanwhile, with such a large array of products on offer, creating a seamless on-site experience was another key driver for Fishpools’ store migration. Customers needed to be able to more easily navigate the store and locate the furniture that they have spotted and liked in the showroom.

A flexible new online furniture store on Shopify

With increasing online sales, Fishpools needed a scalable, future-proof ecommerce platform. Shopify, with its extensive ecosystem of third-party integrations and customisable store designs, became the clear choice. Brands can choose from thousands of ever-evolving plug-ins and tools, allowing them to easily adapt to new market demands. They can also incorporate new technologies without the need for heavy custom development.

Swanky designed Fishpools’ new Shopify Plus store to give the internal team full control over content management, allowing for easy updates without developer intervention. Our designers created flexible content sections, which can be selected or moved around whenever the team wants to change page layout or publish new content. We also created a range of different landing pages that the merchandising team can update based on whichever products they want to promote.

This flexibility enables Fishpools to quickly promote seasonal products and keep the site fresh for returning customers.

Telling the brand story

In addition to core collection and product pages, Swanky designed pages that narrate Fishpools’ rich history, communicate its core values and promote its offline presence.

The Fishpools team are incredibly proud of the company’s heritage, and eager to share this with shoppers. An interactive, image-based timeline feature walks users through the story of Fishpools, from its shopkeeper roots to the present day. This is a great way to immerse consumers in the Fishpools brand and convey its position as a highly experienced retailer – thereby helping to establish trust.

A dedicated “Why Fishpools?” section highlights key selling points like its carbon-neutral practices, displayed through easily digestible icons. Online shoppers are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, and so it’s important to reassure them that they can buy from you responsibly.

Additional pages showcase the showroom and cafe, encouraging customers to visit the physical store. This can be an effective way for hybrid retailers to bridge the gap between online and offline commerce, whilst creating a community feel around a brand.

Meanwhile, an interior design service page showcases the portfolio and experience of its interior designers, and has a form where customers can directly book their services.

Streamlined navigation

To enhance navigation, Swanky designed collection landing pages that link directly to different collections. This creates a smooth product discovery experience for new users, making them more likely to find the product they want, and not leave the store.

At the top of each collection page we added a collections section with eye-catching, large imagery to help guide shoppers through different sub-collections. The Fishpools team can use this section to add their most popular collections at the top, enabling them to merchandise products easily.

We also built a “Get the Look” section, using lifestyle images to help customers visualise furniture in a home setting. This is particularly important when selling furniture online, since the customer cannot touch and feel the products they’re interested in. Customers can also see how different products are paired together, and are able to instantly add complementary products to their basket to create the look.

Check out some of our other advice for designing an online furniture store.

A bespoke Swan ERP integration

A significant part of the project was integrating Fishpools’ Swan ERP software with Shopify. This required a highly bespoke integration, due to the complexity of Swan Retail System (SRS).

All product and stock information is held in Swan ERP, and must be synced to the Shopify store to pass information back and forward as orders come in from the store and stock levels are adjusted.

Swanky’s in-house API integration team built the SRS <> Shopify integration, creating a middleware to allow data to flow between the two systems correctly.

One complexity in building this integration was the number of variants linked to each product. Sofas, for example, have variations linked to size and shape – two seater, three seater, armchair etc. – as well as multiple colour options for the feet, over 40 fabric choices, and different cushion combinations. Product pages need to have all the attributes and metafields in order to display each product variant in a dynamic way. The challenge was therefore in showing all the possible combinations while organising the data architecture in a structured manner.

Complex product description pages

With so many product configurations available, product description pages were a key component of the store build.

Fishpools offers both “unit” products, which are in stock and ready to ship, and “catalogue” products, which allow customers to customise items according to factors such as fabric, style and size.

On the product page, customers can select the in-stock version (e.g. blue with silver legs), or they can choose to customise by selecting a fabric, cushion type, etc., and have their product made to order. Certain products are unit-only, whilst others have both unit and catalogue versions, and yet others are only available to be purchased in-store.

Some product configurations are fairly simple, whilst others are highly complex. For beds, for example, customers can select the bed frame, headboard, drawer configuration, mattress type, and legs. Each of these variations we presented as slide drawers, to make the process as streamlined as possible for the customer.

As a result, Swanky developed 16 different product page designs to accommodate various product types and customisations, each with its own layout and logic. We carried out multiple rounds of QA testing to ensure everything worked smoothly, especially when pulling in metafield data from Swan into Shopify.

A fresh new look

Fishpools timed the launch of the new ecommerce store with a brand refresh. Its old logo and guidelines were outdated and it was time for a fresh new look to accompany its new online experience.

A new store launch is a great opportunity to consider a rebrand. It allows you to design your store with your new brand guidelines in mind, reducing the need for redesigns later. For your customers, it is a clear transition to a new look and a new store experience, and creates a fresh, unified brand identity across all your customer touchpoints.

Ultimately, it helps present a cohesive, modern brand that improves both aesthetics and performance.

Results and future optimisations

Fishpools’ new Shopify Plus website serves as both a sales platform and an online catalogue for its customers in the South East. Looking ahead, Fishpools plans to add features like Wishlist functionality and advanced badging managed through Shopify metafields.

“We’re very pleased with the support Swanky provided during our migration to Shopify. The integration team was instrumental in delivering the project successfully, navigating the complexities of integrating with our existing ERP system.

“Now that we’re part of the Shopify ecosystem, we’re excited about the platform’s scalability, security, and reliability. Shopify gives us the flexibility to make content and solution changes internally, tap into its vast library of apps, or seamlessly partner with any third-party specialists. Swanky’s expertise made this transition smooth, and we’re confident in our new setup moving forward.

“Based on our experience, we can confidently recommend Swanky to other businesses looking to make the move to Shopify.”

George Petrou, Head of Marketing at Fishpools

Need help integrating Swan Retail System with Shopify Plus?

With over 14 years’ experience, and over 100 Shopify Plus stores built (including beautiful, functional websites for Naturalmat, Aeris and Olivia’s), Swanky is well placed to help furniture brands launch on Shopify Plus. As part of our tried-and-tested migration process, we specialise in building complex integrations between Shopify and Swan Retail System, Netsuite, Sage, and other third-party platforms.

Get in touch with our solutions team to request more information or to arrange an initial call to discuss your project.