Introduced in 1966, the K-Swiss Classic was the first all-leather tennis shoe. The K-Swiss Classic quickly gained worldwide acclaim and became a style statement both on and off the court. More than 50 years later, K-Swiss' modern brand mission is to outfit and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. These young leaders are at the forefront of today's culture, influencing and inspiring young people around the world.
Los Angeles, California
Footwear & Apparel
When K-Swiss made the jump to the Shopify Plus platform, we discovered that the native Shopify design tools had some limitations in that, they weren’t the best for responsive design.
We figured there had to be better tools on the platform for design. I tested one that looked OK at first glance, but it wasn’t extensive enough. Having a subpar mobile experience or being slow to launch new campaigns didn’t fit with the way we do things at K-Swiss.
We’re driving traffic from unique campaigns on social. It’s all mobile, and it’s all customers coming expecting a unique and relevant experience to them. We have to create new content and micro-sites on the fly for these campaigns to be as effective as we need them to be. Product might land on Monday and we need to launch it globally by Friday. Things move fast in the fashion industry. We might have to produce a full campaign quickly and make sure it’s effective and doesn’t break.
Shogun seemed like a no-brainer with all the positive reviews and features. I told the IT team to get me this as soon as possible and I’d show them what I could do with the right toolkit. K-Swiss ultimately decided to embrace the Shogun platform because of the speed it gave them to launch new campaigns.
I can come up with a design and have it done in the next 15 minutes. If you’re making mockups and specs — that used to take days. If I have an idea I make it happen on the fly and have it approved within the hour using Shogun.
K-Swiss has seen a big shift in operational efficiency after starting to use Shogun. We’ve been able to cut our development time from three months to two weeks when launching new markets.
We’re always running promotions with a variety of products, in-line and collaborations. The more we can take on internally, the quicker we can deploy campaigns to meet the demand that’s being driven by our customers and the fast pace of technology and shopping culture.
Support has been a huge value-add for the K-Swiss team since starting with the Shogun platform. I had an issue with mobile design on one of our important product pages. Shogun helped me figure it out before launch and keep things humming along smoothly. The live chat feature is also great when you're in a crunch for time.
The design team at K-Swiss collaborated with NYC-based illustrator Amber Vittoria on a collection that focuses on celebrating women. We had to turn around the artwork from Amber pretty quickly. I wanted to make something that was easy to read and played with the colors that she uses. The result was a colorful blend of art that showcases the unique collaboration.
Shogun has allowed K-Swiss to be proactive with its campaigns. In the age of social commerce, speed is everything. The site merchandising and marketing team are able to iterate quickly and not wait around for a development resource to makes things happen.
Since embracing Shogun and the Shopify platform, we've seen a 10% increase in conversion rate. Shogun has made our design team 90% more efficient, which has saved us approximately $100,000 every year in development costs alone. Shogun has completely changed the way we launch campaigns.
