Case Study: The Cambridge Satchel Company returns to profitability and cuts platform costs with Shopify Plus

The Cambridge Satchel Company, saddled by millions in platform costs, focuses again on fashion not tech

The Cambridge Satchel Company, the British fashion brand founded by Julie Deane, faced crippling ecommerce costs and heavy development overhead on its previous platform (Salesforce Commerce Cloud) that were driving roughly £3 million in annual losses and distracting the team from product and manufacturing. To regain focus and profitability, the company selected Shopify Plus as its commerce vendor.

Replatforming to Shopify Plus in 2017 streamlined the tech stack, replaced £30,000 custom integrations with affordable plugins, enabled multi-currency storefronts for the U.S., U.K. and Europe, and allowed the team to bring dispatch operations in‑house. Those changes cut costs dramatically, reduced the need for a large dev team, unlocked features like AR for better online shopping, and put The Cambridge Satchel Company on track to break even by the end of 2019 — outcomes directly enabled by Shopify Plus.

The Cambridge Satchel Company

Julie Deane

Founder and Chief Executive Officer