For more than two decades, AG Jeans has defined itself as a leader in the premium denim market, developing innovative fabrics and luxury retail experiences. With a heritage of technical innovation, from pioneering stretch and four-way stretch denim to performance fabrics, AG Jeans serves customers seeking both luxurious quality and contemporary appeal.
The brand's evolution required a commerce platform that could match their operational sophistication. After years of managing fragmented systems—Salesforce Commerce Cloud for ecommerce and Lightspeed for retail POS—AG Jeans made the strategic decision to unify their operations on Shopify, transforming how they serve customers across all touchpoints.
Since switching to Shopify's unified commerce platform, AG Jeans has achieved:
- 1.5 point conversion rate increase, driven by improved checkout processes and overall site performance
- Doubled clienteling penetration from 15% to 30% of total business through Endear integration with Shopify POS
- Multi-location POS deployment executed with unprecedented ease compared with previous system implementations
- Single ERP integration pipeline replaced over a dozen complex system connections
- Seamless omnichannel fulfillment including buy in-store, ship to home and online returns in-store
The Challenge: Complex ERP integrations limit luxury service delivery
AG Jeans' rapid growth as a premium brand created increasingly complex operational challenges that tested their existing platform infrastructure. With their ERP system serving as the source of truth, they faced the costly reality of maintaining dual integrations for both their Commerce Cloud ecommerce platform and Lightspeed POS system.
"We encountered significant challenges in pricing, inventory management, and SKU creation, resulting in double-work and other inefficiencies that hindered our ability to meet our customers' expectations," says Graham McCulloch, Director of Ecommerce & Brand Marketing at AG Jeans.
The fragmented approach created service gaps that conflicted with AG Jeans' luxury positioning. "My goal has always been to make clients feel like they're in a luxury environment from the moment that they're walking into the store to the moment that they leave with their jeans," says James Bishop, Director of Retail at AG Jeans. However, when customers called for support, representatives had zero visibility into in-store purchase history, while store associates couldn't access ecommerce customer data. This lack of unified customer visibility made it impossible to deliver the sophisticated, personalized service expected by their clientele.
Technical limitations compounded these operational challenges in that the brand's ERP did not easily integrate with their solutions. This created integration failures and required constant maintenance of multiple data pipelines, with automated processes running continuously in the background to keep different systems communicating with each other.
Most critically, this fragmented infrastructure prevented AG Jeans from capitalizing on omnichannel opportunities that would drive both revenue and customer satisfaction. The brand needed a unified platform that could support their luxury service standards while providing the technical foundation for future growth.
The Solution: Unified platform architecture delivers luxury retail transformation
Unified platform architecture
AG Jeans' transformation began with a strategic decision to make Shopify their single source of truth for all commerce operations. Rather than managing multiple integrations between their existing ERP and separate ecommerce and POS systems, they established a streamlined architecture with Shopify at the center, maintaining a single integration pipeline to their ERP.
"Everything related to ecommerce could integrate directly with Shopify and Shopify only. This was pretty seamless. Then, so long as we focused on the integrity of our integration between Shopify and our ERP, we had the freedom to adjust our ecommerce tech stack as needed, without having to take into account the limitations of the ERP. This made us significantly more agile," says Graham.
Seamless implementation and launch
The implementation demonstrated Shopify's enterprise-grade reliability. AG Jeans began working with Shopify Plus partner DYODE at the end of 2022, and in less than a year went live with Shopify online, followed by POS implementation across all of their 15 stores at the time.
The POS deployment was remarkably simple. "We handled it completely internally with our own IT team, but essentially it was as easy as shipping them the iPads and telling them how to turn them on and set them up the correct way. We literally flipped a switch and we were live," says James. "We obviously set up other POS in the past, some with difficulty and some are easy too, but nothing like this," says James, highlighting how Shopify POS exceeded all expectations for ease of implementation.
Mobile POS transforms store experience
Shopify POS introduced mobile flexibility that revolutionized the in-store experience at AG Jeans. "It's really easy for a sales associate to hop on the mobile POS, ring someone up even at the dressing room, walk them out of the store, make the whole experience super seamless," says James.
This mobility proved valuable across all store formats, with smaller locations benefiting as much as flagship stores. The system enables associates to provide luxury-level service anywhere in the store, eliminating traditional checkout bottlenecks and enhancing the premium shopping experience.
App ecosystem integrations enable customer service improvements
Shopify's flexible app ecosystem enabled AG Jeans to enhance their operations without custom development. The integration of Endear, an AI-powered clienteling platform, quickly made an impact, with James reporting: "We probably saw an immediate 10-15% increase in our clienteling transactions."
Additional tools including Gladly for customer service and Loop Returns enabled AI agents to handle routine inquiries while providing complete customer visibility, allowing staff to focus on complex customer needs and streamlining returns processing across all channels. "When CX and Returns tools have direct access to customer and sales data by integrating with Shopify, this allows our agents to provide a significantly faster and improved experience for our customers," says Graham.
The Results: Revenue growth and improved customer satisfaction
Enhanced agility boosts conversions
Shopify delivered immediate improvements in efficiency and customer experience. Ecommerce conversion rates increased by 1.5 points, driven by a faster checkout and better site performance. Content management became more agile, allowing AG Jeans to respond quickly to market opportunities. And the streamlined integration architecture eliminated the overhead of managing multiple data pipelines.
We've established a robust connection between Shopify and our ERP, eliminating the need for multiple pipelines simultaneously. For instance, an integration like Loop Returns, which previously would have required integration with our ERP, now seamlessly runs through Shopify, enhancing its reliability.
Clienteling performance breakthrough
The integration between Shopify POS and Endear created major improvements in clienteling effectiveness. AG Jeans saw substantial growth in clienteling across stores, marking a significant shift in customer engagement. Unified customer data has enabled not only improved customer service but significant sales growth.
Going from an average of about 15% of our total business coming through clienteling software to now around 30% in a year is a huge success, and that speaks to the ease of use of both Shopify and Endear and how well the two entities work together.
Unified experiences lead to improved customer satisfaction
Shopify removed the visibility gaps that once limited customer service. Store associates now have complete access to ecommerce customer history, while online representatives can see in-store purchases and preferences.
"The store associates have full visibility into an ecommerce customer that walks into their store for the first time," says Graham. This unified view enables the sophisticated, personalized service that AG Jeans' luxury customers expect, regardless of how they choose to engage with the brand. Customer satisfaction scores improved since the Shopify implementation, driven by faster response times and comprehensive support across all channels. "We've seen our CSAT consistently improve, and we equate a reasonable portion of that to unifying our view of customers with Shopify and POS," says Graham.
Omnichannel capabilities drive revenue
Omnichannel fulfillment options have helped transform the shopping experience at AG Jeans and boost revenue. "Buy in-store, ship from our warehouse have revolutionized our business," says James. "It made it easy for a customer to walk into the store, see two colors of a jean on the shelves, buy those two, and buy the eight other colors that we can then show him off the website and all put in a box and shipped to his house in two days." Online returns in-store also became seamless, with processing that doesn't affect store daily totals. "The process became much quicker and simpler than we ever imagined, and store associates were no longer discouraged by it," says Graham.
With Shopify, AG Jeans has more ways to ensure every customer finds what they are looking for, regardless of where they are. The migration has delivered speed, clarity, and confidence, resulting in a seamless experience for customers and new growth opportunities for the brand.