We chose Ampersand Commerce to deliver multiple international sites as we had confidence in their ability to deliver the technical back office integration that was so important to our operation. Matt Jeans, Head of Ecommerce, Bench.
Established in Manchester during the dynamic late 80’s, Bench make innovative, fashionable clothes inspired by real people and the real lives they lead.
Bench previously relied on a proprietary system for their ecommerce solution, but as part of the business strategy for 2012, the Bench team had open source in their plans. The business needed a long-lasting solution that could scale with growth and integrate with their current systems. The Bench team decided to re-platform on Magento Enterprise, and called on us to implement it.
Switching from a proprietary system to an open source system requires starting from square one. Through meticulous project management, thorough planning, and open communication between agency and customer, the UK and German Bench sites were launched on Magento Enterprise, on time and within budget.
The Bench project was quite technically challenging, involving multiple integrations including product and stock management and multiple payment gateways. Thanks to our integration framework, all of this was quite a straightforward process with the added benefit of allowing the customer to monitor every interaction with their third party systems down to the finest detail.
Bench prides itself on a two-way relationship with its loyal customers, so an online experience that keeps customer engagement strong is essential to multichannel success. The powerful merchandising, marketing and personalisation tools native to Magento Enterprise enabled Bench to keep the same personal touch online as in-store.
The multinational Bench stores launched within budget and on time for the marketing push of the spring line that Bench customers were waiting for. The success of this project is a testament to how a tough decision—such as a re-platform—can be made confidently with the right support and tight deadlines can be met with a combination of trust and partnership between agency and customer. We continue to strategically support and develop for Bench as the brand extends its ecommerce presence internationally.
To add value to Magento Enterprise for Bench, we integrated with industry partners. Among these is the innovative Adobe Scene 7, a cross-media publishing platform for delivering dynamic content to any channel, a custom WordPress module for Magento which allows the Bench team to have control over content; and an integration with Navision, a top of the line ERP software.
To process payments in both the UK and Germany, Bench integrated with two different payment gateways, SagePay for the UK and WorldPay for Germany.
| Dynamic Media | Adobe Scene 7 |
| Enterprise Resource Planning | Navision |
| Blog & Content Management | WordPress |
| Payment Gateway UK | SagePay |
| Payment Gateway DE | WorldPay |
