From evening wear to wedding dresses to jewelry, Badgley Mischka brings a modern touch of elegance to classic looks.
And because the apparel is typically exclusive to department stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, reaching customers who prefer ecommerce was the next move for the business.
Katie Ouaknine, the owner of Badgley Mischka Web—the online licensing arm of the brand—was on a mission to transcend Badgley Mischka’s looks on the runway and bring them to life in an ecommerce experience that was both user-friendly and luxurious.
The fashion house needed more control over their site design, the ability to make site-wide updates on-the-go, and less dependence on external partners for custom-coded customizations. The brand had to keep moving quickly.
“We had hired three or four web development and design agencies for page updates on our old backend system, and knew we wanted freedom from that dependency.”
— Katie Ouaknine, Owner of Badgley Mischka Web
To gain design control, Katie first migrated the site from Pulse Commerce (formerly Go E Cart) to BigCommerce.
And while BigCommerce was powerful, Katie realized post-migration that customizing themes still required some code.
They weren’t out of the woods just yet.
A page builder solution to pair with BigCommerce would allow Katie’s team to optimize the site on their terms, create new landing pages in minutes instead of weeks, and ensure on-brand content—without reliance on development with BigCommerce alone.
The search was on for an intuitive visual builder armed with features that would propel Badgley Mischka’s online growth.
Katie had her ecommerce solution criteria set. Any builder she went with needed:
During her search, she came across Shogun. She could start building custom ecommerce site content instantly and create elevated shopping experiences worthy of the Badgley Mischka name.
“I’ve been really surprised by the things I’ve accomplished with Shogun,” says Katie. “If you send me any webpage [layout], I can recreate it in Shogun pretty well. Like, these big-name brands with elaborate websites—I can do that in Shogun. It’s taken some practice—and I’ve learned a lot—but I can do it, which is big. I don’t have to pay anyone extra, and it’s an affordable solution.”
For example, the Wedding Shop page is a beautiful hub for all things Badgley Mischka bridal.
Katie created this custom page—augmenting BigCommerce—using Snippets and other Shogun elements like video, images, tabs, and columns.
What’s more, Katie can iterate and optimize pages as quickly as fashion trends change. No waiting for custom development; everything is DIY.
Gaining this kind of in-house flexibility is major for Badgley Mischka as they expand their online presence and drive customers to this channel:
“When any promos come up or special holidays or whatever, we have the agility to pop in certain things and feel good about designing our own web pages, which is really cool.”
Plus, with a smaller team, being able to update the site as needed—without compromising on quality and consistency—is imperative.
“We don’t change things up as often as other brands might, but we do try and give the site a fresh look every month. Design changes or customizations like this would be a large lift for any agency if we were constantly changing our homepage, like, every month.”
With Shogun, Badgley Mischka has more control over how they build luxe site content. They can take BigCommerce site design to new levels, all while including unique page elements to convey their brand ethos and product quality.
“Shogun has allowed us to constantly evolve and stay on top of best practices for UX,” says Katie:
“We’re constantly tweaking small aspects of the site and updating our content to stay fresh and new and deliver the best experience to our customers. [With Shogun] We can do that without relying on frontend development. We can make these small but significant changes in-house on the fly.”
Badgley Mischka now has the flexibility to keep up with ever-changing fashion trends and seasons thanks to drag-and-drop visual building.
By making site-wide changes quickly and easily without custom development, the brand can ship consistent ecommerce experiences faster as an agile team.
As a result of the perfect pairing between Shogun and BigCommerce, Badgley Mischka has saved roughly 145 development hours on homepage updates alone and countless hours on updates throughout the site.
The team has built over 100 pages using Shogun—from staples such as their About Us page and FAQ pages to their interactive Red Carpet photo gallery.
“A lot of ecommerce managers get overwhelmed by the idea of building web pages because it involves coding and design skills,” says Katie. “I tell people you can drag and drop [to create pages], and they’re like, ‘Wait, what?! I need that.’ Coding and page building can get complicated quickly, and you look at what you can create in Shogun, and it’s a no-brainer.”
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