European wax center
Replatforming a Complex B2B Operation to Shopify Plus
European Wax Center is the first and largest chain of hair removal spas in the United States.
With over a thousand stores nationwide, EWC is a rapidly expanding franchise with complex requirements for their eCommerce storefronts.
The Project
Building a complete eCommerce ecosystem for rapidly-scaling national franchise
European Wax Center came to BlueSwitch in 2018 looking to revamp their eCommerce ecosystem. They were working from an outdated infrastructure and having difficulties scaling their B2B business. New franchises were opening weekly, but supplies were not arriving to the new locations efficiently. Franchisees were frustrated, as supply chain issues prevented them from receiving necessary supplies in a timely manner.
This frustration was being passed along to EWC’s corporate leadership, who understood that supply chain issues have a direct impact on customer satisfaction and brand reputation. With superior customer service being a core value within the EWC franchise, it became apparent that EWC needed to leverage eCommerce technology to overhaul their B2B ordering and fulfillment ecosystem.
UI/UX
Shopify Development
Shopify Plus Replatforming
B2B on Shopify
The Challenges
Custom Franchisee Ecosystem: Develop a unique front-end system to serve European Wax Center franchisees with specialized features beyond Shopify's core capabilities.Align business and technical requirements with the Shopify B2B framework
Special Pricing & Product Samples: Implement complex pricing structures and a product sampling system to help upsell franchisees on store supplies.
Multi-Location Franchise Management: Build an advanced system to allow franchise owners to oversee and track purchases across multiple store locations.Integrate with the client’s JD Edwards ERP system and customize the Shopify backend to align with this system
Vendor Integrations & Order Fulfillment: Integrate multiple vendors for order fulfillment, tracking, inventory management, and finance.
Scalable Architecture: Design the system to accommodate additional vendors post-launch, ensuring long-term scalability.
Netsuite Integration: Connect Shopify’s financial operations with Netsuite for seamless accounting and reporting.
our solution
Overcoming frontend challenges with custom B2B features
The challenge in building the European Wax Center B2B ecosystem was two-fold. The first challenge was in the frontend, building a B2B Shopify storefront designed to serve the franchisees. This was long before Shopify rolled out its robust set of B2B features, so to accommodate EWC’s requirements for this storefront, B2 would have to create a number of highly custom features that were not part of the core Shopify offering:
Special pricing for core products and a complex product samples system to encourage upsells and increased order volume.
Since some franchisees owned multiple stores, we developed an intricate custom management system so that franchise owners could keep track of their store manager’s purchases.
We developed a custom B2B account page to help franchisees track sales, orders, and manage their day to day business.
The second hurdle was to build custom 3PL integrations for multiple vendors for order fulfillment, tracking integrations, inventory management, and finance. Working from a complex, multi-level set of legal and business requirements, BlueSwitch leveraged the Shopify API along with Multify (our own custom middleware product) to split orders and pricing to the relevant vendors. Building with a scalable architecture was crucial, as more vendors were slated to be onboarded after the launch. Finally, the whole system would need to be tied into a Netsuite ERP integration so that the finance team could monitor and analyze financial data in real time.
Integrations for third party logistics and Netsuite ERP
Agile, strategic problem-solving to adapt to new neA scalable architecture for exponential growtheds as they arose
Over the years, countless updates were added to both the front and back-end systems that BlueSwitch created with EWC. Custom reporting, a franchisee/franchise management system, and an inventory threshold mechanism were all put in place over the next few years as the business evolved. Today, the system is a well oiled machine that powers European Wax Center’s B2B business. A valuable partnership with BlueSwitch saw years of success, as European Wax Center has since gone public and taken their business to the next level.