How Samsonite Switched to Shopify Plus to Supercharge Latin America Sales

How Samsonite Pivoted to Shopify Plus in Latin America

In early 2023, Samsonite faced slow site updates and platform crashes across Latin American markets. With revenues on the line, the team set out to streamline management under one roof. They chose Shopify Plus for its intuitive dashboard, marketplace apps, and checkout customization tools.

Facing Complex Platform Challenges

Before Shopify Plus, Samsonite used a heavily customized VTEX setup. Every change demanded dev time, pushing new features to the back burner. Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic often overwhelmed the site, resulting in downtime that wiped out potential sales. This lack of performance put pressure on marketing teams and threatened growth plans for emerging markets.

A Faster, More Flexible Solution

Moving to Shopify Plus cut through this complexity. Teams now log into a single admin panel to update content, launch promotions, and sync inventory. They tapped into Launchpad to schedule campaigns across 12 sites, and used Shopify Flow to automate order tagging, email triggers, and fraud checks. Custom scripts at checkout handled local payment methods, shipping rules, and promotional bundles, reducing cart abandonment by smoothing out friction.

Swift Rollout and Improved Stability

In just 6-9 months, all 12 Latin American storefronts went live on the new platform. Page load times dropped significantly, and during peak sales the sites remained stable. The in-house team took back control of updates, cutting reliance on external dev resources. With a library of 6000+ apps at their fingertips, adding features like live chat and advanced analytics became a matter of clicks, not custom builds.

Measurable Business Impact

The results were immediate and clear. Conversions rose by 5-10%, as local shoppers found payment and shipping options that matched their expectations. Marketing could push flash sales with confidence that the checkout was bulletproof. Operational costs shrank as manual intervention fell away, giving the team room to focus on strategy rather than firefighting tech debt.

Key Takeaways

With a scalable cloud platform and built-in automation, Samsonite transformed its e-commerce approach in record time. Regional checkout customization and centralized monitoring delivered smoother experiences while protecting revenue during critical sales windows.