With 650+ stores across 14 countries worldwide, Jeff de Bruges stands as one of Europe's most established premium chocolate retailers, bringing French confectionery expertise to markets around the globe. For over a decade, their Canadian operation has been thoughtfully building a presence in North America, adapting their celebrated European chocolate retail model to local consumer preferences and behaviors.
As a master franchise operation where France has invested directly (rather than the traditional franchise model used in other international markets), the Canadian team has had the flexibility to adapt their approach for local success. This has enabled them to pioneer solutions for the unique challenges of building brand awareness and customer education in a market where consumers have different chocolate consumption patterns than in Europe.
The team's journey with Shopify began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of continuing to serve customers during lockdowns, then evolved into a comprehensive unified commerce platform when they began equipping their Canadian stores with Shopify POS.
Since then, Jeff de Bruges Canada has achieved significant operational improvements including:
- 220% growth online
- 25% improvement in email capture at POS
- 5% sales lift in stores within 30 days of launch
- Under one hour staff training time for new POS implementation
- Unified loyalty program connecting online and in-store customer experiences
The Challenge: Adapting to new markets
Jeff de Bruges Canada's journey to unified commerce began with a crisis that demanded immediate local innovation. During the pandemic lockdowns, the Canadian team recognized they needed to act quickly to support their Montreal franchisees. With two key locations—Eaton Centre and downtown St. Catherine Street—completely shuttered, the team took the initiative to develop local digital solutions that could keep their franchise partners in business.
The challenge extended well beyond crisis management. As a premium chocolate brand with a strong experiential retail component, Jeff de Bruges faces unique market adaptation demands in North America. Unlike France, where 85% of consumers recognize the brand, the Canadian market requires significant customer education and brand building in an unfamiliar market environment.
As they evolved, the team still struggled with operational complexity since they were managing separate systems for ecommerce and retail. This fragmented approach meant that customer data lived in silos, inventory required duplicate management across platforms, and accounting involved complex manual reconciliation between multiple systems—all preventing the team from focusing on the strategic work of building their brand in the Canadian market.
"We used to spend most of our time on non-value added tasks," says Xavier Chambon, VP of Jeff de Bruges Canada. "Things like exporting and importing customer profiles into the different systems is just one example." The team needed a unified system that would let them spend less time on menial tasks and more time on customer experience and growth.
The Solution: A unified architecture delivers operational excellence
Jeff de Bruges partnered with Shopify Plus Partner Retailogists on their transition to Shopify POS and true unified commerce. This partnership proved essential for navigating the technical requirements while ensuring the solution would eliminate integration complexity and provide the flexibility needed to adapt their premium retail model to North America.
The implementation demonstrates the power of a unified commerce approach. Rather than managing separate systems, the team now operates from a single platform that provides comprehensive functionality across all channels. "We have complete visibility into each customer's journey, whether they're shopping in our stores or online," says Xavier. "Our unified loyalty program works seamlessly across both channels, which helps drive more sales."
Working closely with the Retailogists team, Jeff de Bruges streamlined their entire technology stack, including accounting integration with QuickBooks. This eliminated the dual accounting system of the past, where bookkeeping details had to be manually transferred into a second system. The company's franchise model with multiple legal entities made the task even more complex. "We streamlined everything and integrated it with QuickBooks, and we added a middle layer in between to allow them to automate that whole process," says Vincent Younan, COO at Retailogists.
To further strengthen their data capabilities, Jeff de Bruges implemented Avia, Retailogists' retail analytics platform. Avia integrates seamlessly with Shopify POS to unify in-store traffic data with point-of-sale transactions, providing the team with deeper visibility into customer behavior and store performance. These insights are especially valuable for reporting back to the company's French headquarters, ensuring consistent, data-driven decision-making across markets.
I feel at home with Shopify. I have everything in one place. I can check QuickBooks, I can see all our data. For day-to-day operations, it's fantastic.
Staff adoption of Shopify POS proved remarkably smooth, requiring less than one hour of training. "I was a little bit afraid when you change the habits of people, but our staff didn't find that it was complicated at all," says Xavier, highlighting the intuitive interface and familiarity many employees already had with the Shopify ecosystem.
Shopify's cloud-based architecture is also a strategic advantage. Previously, checking inventory levels required calling staff or being physically present at the store, creating delays and inefficiencies. "Being cloud based, even if we're outside of the shop, if one of our reps texts us and says, 'Hey, do you need any of this?' We can log on real quick and just check inventory," says Xavier. This real-time visibility supports both immediate operational needs and strategic decision-making for their Canadian expansion plans.
The Results: The sweet taste of success
Shopify has delivered clear operational improvements that demonstrate how premium retail can successfully adapt to different market conditions. The platform has driven measurable improvements through enhanced customer insights, operational efficiency, and streamlined operations optimized for their Canadian market.
Operational efficiency gains are immediately visible. Tasks that previously consumed significant staff time—like inventory management and customer data synchronization—now happen automatically. "Instead of the team spending half of their day doing admin stuff and patching for tech that's broken, now they can spend that other half actually working on how can we grow the business," says Vincent.
The customer experience improvements are particularly significant for a brand focused on education and relationship building in an unfamiliar market. The unified loyalty program creates seamless experiences across channels, while integrated customer data provides staff with complete visibility into customer preferences and history. "For our loyalty program, it's easier for people because they have the same customer in stores but also online, and they can recognize them," says Xavier.
Strategic insights enable better local market adaptation. The platform's analytics, including cohort analysis and customer acquisition tracking, provide data-driven insights that were previously impossible. Combined with Klaviyo integration for localized marketing, the team can now track and optimize customer acquisition strategies with precision. "All the customers that you acquired in December, you can check how they're performing six months down the line, and you can filter them by acquisition channel," says Vincent.
Jeff de Bruges' Canadian success is being closely monitored back in France, where the operation is viewed as a strategic testing ground for potential expansion approaches across other international markets. The strong performance metrics and operational innovations developed in Canada are helping to validate the team's unified commerce approach.
Looking ahead, the foundation supports continued local growth. The team plans to open five additional stores within the next year while developing their B2B corporate gifts division with Shopify.
Retail is a science now, and we need tools that help us make good decisions. Shopify gives us those tools.