The Challenges

MZ Wallace had been shipping internationally for some time but knew that their global website experiences could be better optimized for international customers. Duties and taxes weren’t calculated prior to shipping, creating customer confusion and resulting in significantly higher costs and lower conversion rates. This uncertainty resulted in a high volume of customer service communications from international shoppers seeking to clarify the costs related to their order including tax, duties and shipping costs to their home country

Moreover, the legacy solution did not allow the brand to control its own consumer experience. Shoppers were redirected from MZ Wallace's site to an external shopping cart, creating an inconsistent and confusing checkout process. While consumers were able to transact, there was no personalization or local currency displayed. The brand was not able to localize anything during the checkout experience which resulted in a disjointed customer journey.

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For the MZ Wallace team, coordinating the fulfillment of international packages was also complicated—and expensive—involving multiple touch points to ship an order.

There were also challenges with the company’s wholesale business. Due to a lack of visibility, wholesale rates were sometimes misaligned with prices for individual items on the company’s own website, creating friction with their wholesale partners in key international markets.

MZ Wallace knew that to bolster their global success, they needed an international partner focused on growth, with a full stack solution. By offering the most flexibility at the best price, Flow was able to accommodate MZ Wallace’s complex use case and provide a high-efficiency, hubless solution.

Optimizing our international e-commerce was a key facet of our 2018 growth plan. Our strategy included more expeditious acquisition of new international customers and boosting our conversion rates, while creating a tailored and highly localized experience for every country we ship to. When we reviewed Flow’s full offering, we immediately realized the impact they could have on our business, enabling us to attain our goals much more efficiently.

– YuJin Yong, Director of Digital, MZ Wallace

Problem

• Increased international traffic strained MZ Wallace’s operational administrative resources.
• Duties and taxes calculated post-purchase resulted in a high volume of customer service communications.
• Unoptimized international shipping strategy caused inefficiency and unnecessary expense.

Solution

• Fully localized checkout and shipping in over 130 markets.
• International duty, tax and shipping cost calculated automatically for customer.
• Easy-to-use and flexible Flow console improving cross-functional collaboration and providing one centralized point for management of international orders and returns.

The Solution

Seamless Localization

Flow enabled MZ Wallace to create over 130 customized experiences providing customers in 130 countries with localized versions of MZ Wallace’s site. Each local experience calculates duty, tax and shipping for customers in those specific countries, displays the correct product catalogue for that country and provides the locally preferred payment methods. This would have been a burdensome task for MZ Wallace’s streamlined international e-commerce team, but Flow’s centralized console made this extensive market expansion effortless.

Exclusive Shipping

Flow’s console also updated the international shipping process, resulting in considerable cost savings for MZ Wallace. Flow was able to switch over and transform the shipping strategy without any effort on MZ Wallace’s part. Shoppers are now presented with clear, localized shipping options and accurate delivery times, communicated pre-purchase, ensuring that customer expectations are met.

Greater Visibility for all Teams

Various departments involved in the international order process can now easily operate in unison. Flow’s cloud-based solution enables everyone from digital, customer service, logistics and operations to access international orders, download all data, manage refunds and returns, and make changes or updates, all in one place.

Exchange Rate Monitoring

To respond to the brand’s challenges around the price discrepancy for wholesalers and individual shoppers, Flow designed a solution that enables internal teams to quickly see if individual prices have fallen below wholesale prices that week due to changes in exchange rates. MZ Wallace can now. monitor prices for their products across all locales and prevent inconsistencies within their catalogue, while avoiding any possible conflicts with wholesalers

A Global Outlook

MZ Wallace is now able to reach more markets more effectively, enabling better customer experiences in major markets, as well as in long-tail markets where there is demand for their products. They are happy to report that their customer service team now receives far fewer questions regarding transactional problems or administrative issues relating to tax, duties, payments and international shipping. This boost in efficiency and increased cost savings means the MZ Wallace team can now spend less time fielding operational and administrative questions, and more time focusing on executing their global strategy.

As they embrace their business growth, MZ Wallace is launching successful international marketing campaigns in support of their global expansion into fast-growing markets like Australia, Canada, the U.K., and most recently, Japan.

Flow continues to be very responsive to all of our questions, and they are constantly adding features to the platform to adjust to our latest needs and business requirements.

– YuJin Yong, Director of Digital, MZ Wallace