How Oroton Doubled Site Performance and Grew Global Sales with BigCommerce

Introduction

Oroton is one of Australia’s oldest and most respected luxury leather goods brands, with a legacy dating back to 1938. Known for exquisite craftsmanship and a loyal clientele, Oroton recognized that its digital storefront needed to evolve to match the elevated in-store experience. By 2019, the team decided its legacy platform no longer offered the flexibility, speed, or global capabilities required to fuel future growth.

Digital Transformation Goals

The Oroton leadership team set clear objectives: modernize the front-end design, strengthen omnichannel consistency, and empower marketing staff to launch campaigns without relying on IT. They also aimed to support multiple currencies, localize product catalogs, and integrate seamlessly with best-in-class vendors across CRM, CMS, search, and payment solutions.

Challenge: Outgrowing a Legacy Platform

As traffic and product lines expanded, the previous ecommerce solution revealed serious limitations: slow page load times, rigid theme customizations, and a lack of robust API support. Each design tweak or promotional rollout required a developer’s intervention, causing bottlenecks and lost opportunities during peak seasons.

Need for Agility and Scale

The marketing team wanted autonomy. They needed a platform that balanced ease-of-use with enterprise-grade performance. And they wanted it to deliver consistent brand storytelling across web, mobile, and in-store touchpoints, preserving the heritage while embracing modern commerce techniques.

Solution: BigCommerce as a Unified Platform

Oroton selected BigCommerce for its headless-ready architecture, robust API catalog, and intuitive control panel. The platform’s Multi-Storefront feature allowed the team to manage localized storefronts from a single dashboard, while GraphQL and server-side APIs unlocked custom data flows for personalized customer journeys.

Intuitive Store Management

Without touching code, marketing specialists designed seasonal landing pages, deployed flash sales, and updated banners to align with cultural and regional events. This in-house agility shortened campaign launch timelines from weeks to hours, ensuring Oroton could strike while customer interest was at its peak.

Custom Experiences Powered by APIs

Leveraging Shogun for flexible page building, Contentful for headless CMS, and Searchspring for AI-driven search, Oroton crafted custom widgets like a holiday gift finder that guided shoppers through tailored recommendations. These bespoke experiences deepened engagement and lifted conversion rates.

Seamless Localization and Global Expansion

With BigCommerce price lists and geolocation rules, the site automatically presents region-specific catalogs and currencies. UK visitors see GBP pricing and local promotions, while Australian shoppers enjoy AUD listings. This intelligent routing removed manual work and ensured compliance with regional merchandising strategies.

Integrated Payment Ecosystem

BigCommerce’s out-of-the-box payment options let Oroton rapidly enable PayPal, Afterpay, Google Pay, and Apple Pay. Each integration was straightforward to configure and could be tweaked without code changes, giving checkout a frictionless and familiar feel for shoppers worldwide.

Partnership-Driven Execution

Oroton’s small in-house team leaned on agency partner Matter Design for strategic planning and complex development tasks. This hybrid model combined internal speed with expert support, ensuring a stable, scalable architecture that minimized maintenance overhead.

Results: Fast, Flexible, and Future-Ready

Since launching on BigCommerce in 2019, Oroton has achieved consistent year-over-year ecommerce growth, handling spikes like Black Friday with ease. They doubled overall site performance, reducing page load times by over 50%, and shifted focus from maintenance to optimization—improving conversion rates across campaigns.

Looking Ahead

Oroton continues to explore Catalyst for a modern frontend layer and deploys AI tools via Searchspring to refine personalization. Their ongoing vision is a truly omnichannel ecosystem where in-store and online data unite to deliver seamless, personalized experiences at every customer touchpoint.