Toms links with Astound to boost digital capability

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
May 9, 2022

Big changes for Toms. The ethical casual footwear brand has partnered with digital commerce agency Astound Commerce to oversee a big to-do list: attract a younger demographic, continue to service a loyal customer base, deliver an improved e-commerce experience and drive its digital business forward.

Admitting it had an ageing customer base, the retailer has undertaken a brand repositioning, a site re-platform and redesign to deliver an improved e-commerce experience.
 
“While shifts in fashion characterise commerce generally, no sector is more sensitive to changing tastes than footwear and accessories”, said Toms. 

Core to the changes was Astound overseeing the migration of the e-commerce experience to Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA), “allowing for best-in-class customer experience, thoughtful and up-to-the-moment merchandising, and personalised content and product recommendations”.
 
Meanwhile, Astound’s customised implementation of Page Designer “allows for easy content management and provides Toms flexible ways to highlight many new partners addressing mental health, increasing access to opportunity, and ending gun violence.”
 
The SFCC implementation also included key integrations to support customer loyalty (CrowdTwist), personalisation, product recommendations and reviews (Einstein, PowerReviews), customer data insights (Custora), and a variety of flexible payment options (PayPal, ApplePay, Klarna, AfterPay, and Clutch Gift Cards). 
 
The new Toms e-commerce experience “is powerful, flexible — and fast, allowing Toms to deliver its bold new initiatives”, said Toms. It noted average page load time fell by about 22% for the new site.

Astound Commerce has a big team based in London who were involved in the consulting and development of the project.
 
Marie Thomas, VP Global Technology, commented: “Astound’s depth of experience has been invaluable as we navigated critical decisions involving the selection and implementation of Salesforce solutions that fit our objectives.”