How Orlebar Brown Cut Costs and Boosted Conversions with Shopify

Overview

Orlebar Brown launched in 2007 to redefine men’s resort wear, starting with the Bulldog short—the first tailored swim short you can actually swim in. As the brand grew under the Chanel Group and opened direct stores in London, Paris, New York and beyond, they faced a fractured tech stack: separate systems for the website, CRM and point of sale. That meant duplicated data, inconsistent customer profiles and wasted developer time. The team, led by CTO Jamie De Cesare, decided to move everything onto Shopify’s unified commerce platform to eliminate friction, streamline operations and offer personalized experiences anywhere in the world.

The Challenge

With online and offline each driving roughly half of revenue, Orlebar Brown needed a single view of customer data across channels. Disparate back-end systems made personalization guesswork and added manual processes for managing currencies and taxes across 70% of sales coming from outside the UK. Updating price books in multiple countries was time-consuming, and building a large dev team to stitch systems together wasn’t sustainable or cost effective. The goal was clear: simplify the technology so the team could spend hours crafting tailored experiences, not debugging integrations.

The Solution

After evaluating several platforms, the team chose Shopify. It offered an ecosystem of ready-to-install apps, out-of-the-box multi-entity payment handling, and built-in global selling tools through Shopify Markets. Moving to Shopify Payments removed the need for a separate gateway and unlocked Shop Pay for return customers—less dev work, better UX. In stores, Shopify POS gave associates real-time access to customer profiles, purchase history and inventory. They could walk the floor with an iPad, show personalized recommendations, take payment and even ship orders directly to a customer’s hotel.

Results

Within weeks, site performance improved and checkout complaints fell almost to zero. Key metrics included:

• 30–40% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership by removing redundant systems
• 66% lift in basket-to-checkout conversions using Shopify Payments
• 44% of customers recognized as returning Shop Pay users

Inventory sync via Shopify POS and OneStock cut oversell risk and sped up fulfillment. The lean architecture shifted developer focus from patching APIs to refining customer journeys—like creating web personalization based on in-store activity.

What’s Next?

Orlebar Brown plans to bring more online data into stores, so associates can tap into customers’ browsing patterns, wish lists and on-site behavior in real time. They’re also building advanced web personalization tools to serve tailored content, offers and product recommendations. Every interaction—online or in person—will aim to feel like it was designed just for you.