What do you do when you’re a leading nationwide fashion retailer? You re-brand yourself, of course. At least, that was the goal of Foreign Exchange. Based in Santa Fe Springs, California, Foreign Exchange operates over 30 apparel stores throughout California, Texas, and Minnesota. Although the company offered men’s attire, its online branding had been geared exclusively to female customers. As its business evolved, however, Foreign Exchange recognized an opportunity to broaden its customer base to include men. Serious re-branding would be needed to overcome its females-only image.
To pull off this colossal re-branding effort, Foreign Exchange selected SILK Software to re-design its website. The choice was based on SILK’s world-acclaimed expertise with Magento and managed services for e-commerce websites.
Objective
When SILK entered the picture, the Foreign Exchange website divided male and female lines with two separate URLs.  It didn’t help that the link to the men’s site was virtually impossible to spot. SILK’s mission was to transform the website so that it displayed both lines united in a single brand image.
Managed Services Workflow
To ensure smooth communication between both partners, SILK appointed a project manager to provide status updates and progress reports to Foreign Exchange. When updates were needed, Foreign Exchange utilizes SILK’s sophisticated ticketing system to request modifications. The requests are then fielded by SILK’s development team.
Prior to pushing modifications to the live site, SILK tests and re-tests the updates on a staging site for accuracy. Once verified, the new feature is published. Nothing is pushed live until it has been approved.
Recent Work
Using an initial mockup provided by Foreign Exchange, SILK’s in-house designer made several modifications to enhance the design’s impact and user-friendliness. Once the design was approved, SILK’s development team began the process of transforming the visual concept into a functioning, re-branded website. Naturally, the new site would have to be responsive, offering easy access via mobile devices as well as conventional PCs.
Along with a unified brand, Foreign Exchange wanted significant improvements to the user experience. With this goal in mind, SILK’s developers drew on their expertise with Magento to incorporate a number of experience-enhancement features into the website.
Results
SILK delivered exactly what was needed. Completely updated for mobile, the new website enabled Foreign Exchange to achieve its objective – a re-branded online image that seamlessly offers both men’s and women’s lines to a fashion-conscious customer base.
The re-branding effort was a definite success. Shortly after the transformed website was launched, Foreign Exchange saw an increase in sales.
Today, Foreign Exchange continues to rely on SILK for Magento support through our Managed Services program. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with Foreign Exchange.