For over 35 years, PARSA Beauty has stood for exclusive, innovative and high-quality beauty tools and accessories that enable everyone to discover their personal discover their personal uniqueness and emphasize their individual beauty. As the leading beauty brand in Central Europe, they stand for first-class quality and innovation, driven by the team's boundless passion. At their headquarters in Sinsheim, a team of beauty enthusiasts work with great dedication and creativity to develop new products for an excellent beauty experience for Parsa customers.
Pia Hummel and Eva Schläfer told us in an interview what challenges Parsa had to face, what requirements the new store had to meet and how Latori was able to help.
Table of contents
- The Parsa Beauty brand - values and commitment
- The challenges: Why the change was necessary
- The wishes, the goals and the design
- The Shopify solution: how the store system impressed
- Reaching the goal with the right partner: how Latori implemented the migration for Parsa
- The new store: What has changed since the migration and what else is planned?
Are you also thinking about switching to Shopify? We will be happy to help you with the implementation! Simply get in touch with us and we'll talk about your project without obligation.
The Parsa Beauty brand - values and commitment
PARSA Beauty is a German family business with headquarters in Sinsheim, Baden-Württemberg, and has stood for exclusive, innovative and high-quality hair and beauty tools and accessories for more than 35 years. With a product range of more than 5,000 items, over 100 million products sold annually and a presence in over 30 countries, the company is the European market leader in its sector. PARSA Beauty offers innovative and sustainable beauty aids with high product quality in the Hair, Face, Nails, Home Spa and Trend segments in the core distribution channels of drugstores, specialist retailers and food retailers. This meets the demand to support people at all times and in a needs-oriented manner in discover and emphasize their individual beauty.
The challenges: Why the change was necessary
Problems with the old store system
The brand's old store was running on Shopware. As support for Shopware 5 expires in August 2024, Parsa was faced with the decision of whether to upgrade to Shopware 6 or look for alternatives. The following problems with the old system were ultimately the deciding factor in their decision to look at alternative store systems:
No support for Shopware 5 from August 2024
High administrative effort in maintenance and management
No modular, future-proof tool architecture
Old content management system
Partially no available processes/tools for specific services such as newsletters or loyalty programs
No up-to-date analysis of e-commerce and marketing key figures possible
Reading tip: Migrate from Shopware to Shopify: What you should keep in mind.
The wishes, the goals and the design
As the brand relaunch was imminent, the new store needed to be live to drive the brand forward and make the store "state of the art". The online store acts as the linchpin of all marketing measures, among other things to be able to measure activity. The architecture of the store should also support a campaign-oriented strategy, as the focus is on the customer. A modular and expandable concept was important here. Compatibility with Plentymarkets, the multi-channel-software, was also necessary.
Headless commerce was also an important factor for the beauty brand in order to gain more flexibility and be able to react quickly to trends in the future. The easy scaling of content and functions as well as the good performance were also arguments in favor of a headless architecture.
The design of the new online store needed to stand out from the standard Shopify themes. As a beauty brand, Parsa attached great importance to this also being reflected in the store design.
"The company website and shop were to be airy, modern, friendly and inviting. Mobile first, to make it easy for our customers to purchase our products," says Eva Schläfer, Head of Corporate Communications.
The time available for the migration was also crucial. The switch to Shopify had to be completed within just 6 months.
Reading tip: Shop design: How to create a good design for your Shopify store.
The Shopify solution: how the store system impressed
As Shopware 5 support was coming to an end and the store was already outdated, the brand looked into other systems. The choice then fell on Shopify, as the store system is the industry leader and provides a good connection to Plentymarkets and SAP. Shopify also offers...
...a high-performance and secure SaaS system with state-of-the-art availability for the front and back end
...GDPR compliance
...integration into modular headless architecture with simple connection to Plentymarkets
...responsive design for mobile and desktop
...secure and proven payment solutions (Shopify Payments)
...simple and intuitive operation
As Shopify was able to meet all of PARSA Beauty's requirements, the brand opted for a complete rebuild in a new system.
Reading tip: Shopify vs. Shopware: We show you the differences between the two systems.
Reaching the goal with the right partner: how Latori implemented the migration for Parsa
To ensure that the switch from Shopware went as smoothly as possible, PARSA Beauty looked around for a suitable partner for the migration. Latori's many years of expertise as a Shopify partner, its transparent and fair negotiation phase and its promising references were particularly convincing. The collaboration took place both in weekly meetings and via a Trello board. Pia Hummel, e-commerce manager, summarizes this as follows:
"The Latori project manager and the PARSA Beauty team were in weekly contact. The project coordination and the exchange via the Trello board were very clear. During the individual phases of the project, we had direct contact with designers and programmers."
As part of the migration, all data, including customers and products, was transferred to Shopify. In addition, the responsive store design was discussed and created. Individual elements, including the brand icon in the shopping cart, were developed for this purpose.
Various systems were also connected, including Plentymarkets as the multi-channel-software and Storyblok as the headless CMS. Latori also developed further elements for this. Usercentrics was also used as a cookie consent solution.
Reading tip: Storyblok and Shopify - how to benefit from headless CMS.
The new store: What has changed since the migration and what else is planned?
Since the marketing campaigns surrounding the brand and store relaunch, the conversion rate has increased significantly. In addition, sales have tripled since then.
The integration of SAP and a newsletter are planned for the future. Pia Hummel also says:
"What we are actually aiming for again this year is that we continue to grow - especially in the online area."
We would like to thank Eva Schläfer and Pia Hummel for the interview and look forward to continuing our good cooperation!
Would you also like to take the plunge and switch to Shopify or Shopify Plus? We would be happy to support you! Simply contact us without obligation and we'll talk about your project.
