Leeds-based Onstate launches e-commerce site for Alexa Chung's fashion label

Onstate, the Leeds-based internet marketing agency, has launched the first e-commerce site for fashion designer, entrepreneur and model, Alexa Chung.

In January of this year, Onstate was appointed as the digital e-commerce partner to build and launch Alexa Chung’s new site.

Onstate has developed and launched a multi-currency based site with worldwide shipping across the UK, USA, Europe and rest of the world. The site went live as Alexa Chung presented her debut collection to the world at a launch show held at the Danish Church of Saint Katharine in the heart of London.

Since launching in the summer, the site has had over 291,921 visitors and 9,228 customer registrations.

Andy Jamieson, Onstate lead architect, said: “We knew that given Alexa’s prolific following across social media channels that just one tweet or Instagram post had the potential to drive a huge spike in traffic. We therefore chose Amazon Web Services to provide highly scalable, durable and cost-effective hosting.”

Richard Day, creative director at Onstate, commented: “This was an intensive and challenging project which required a very personal yet solid solution. In meeting the brief, we were asked to reflect the personality of Alexa Chung on the site, which we achieved programmatically in support of the striking site aesthetics.”

When building the site, Onstate factored in a complete scalability from the onset to cope with sudden bursts of high volume traffic and provide continuity during these busy times.

Automated deployment was built-in to multiple servers for site updates and, because of the need for global multiple store fronts, two payment gateways, Braintree and SwipeZoom, were installed.

The site is fully integrated with ICT partner, Becosoft, which handles the catalogue and link to the product distribution centre, based in the Netherlands.

Richard Day added: “Going live at the same time as Alexa Chung’s debut collection launch, the Onstate team successfully streamed the launch fashion show and then co-ordinated site activation at the precise culmination of the show on the same URL so that it was fully operational instantly.

“This was the first time we had delivered a project as time critical as this and everything ran like clockwork. This is the initial phase of our partnership with Alexa Chung and we are looking forward to delivering on equally exciting and ambitious e-commerce projects.”

Edwin Bodson, managing director at ALEXACHUNG, also said: “Onstate has proved to be an incredible partner for our brand. With ease, they dealt with many unknown factors in order to create a functional website which can withstand high levels of traffic and continual transactions.

“Chris Marshall and his team have been key factors in delivering the most adequate platform and e-commerce solution.”