How Samsonite Migrated Eight Brandsin Nine Months
Red Van migrated eight Samsonite brand sites onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud in nine months, delivered on time, in scope, and on budget. A lean internal team now manages every brand from a single platform, with revenue, conversion, and average order value all increasing since launch.
Who is Samsonite?
Samsonite is a global travel and luggage business operating eight distinct consumer brands.
The portfolio spans Samsonite US and Canada, Gregory Packs, Hartmann, Lipault, American Tourister, High Sierra, and eBags. Each brand has its own identity, price position, and audience. The ecommerce team responsible for all of them is deliberately lean, which makes the cost of managing eight separate experiences the defining constraint on the business.
What problem did Samsonite need to solve?
Samsonite needed to scale growth across eight brands while preserving each brand's identity, and its legacy Salesforce Commerce Cloud setup could not do both with a lean internal team.
The legacy setup lacked the flexibility to easily differentiate front-end experiences or manage back-end operations efficiently across multiple brands. Resource constraints made it difficult to keep pace with evolving digital expectations and business goals. Samsonite needed agility, simplified operations, and a platform its team could actually run, so brand elevation and digital growth became possible across the full portfolio rather than for whichever brand had attention that quarter.
Requirements that defined the architecture
- Migrate eight brand sites without losing brand identity
- Differentiate front-end experiences per brand
- Manage back-end operations efficiently across all sites
- Make the platform maintainable by a lean internal team
- Deliver a fast, seamless customer experience
- Support future global expansion and multi-brand marketing
How did Red Van solve it?
Red Van migrated all eight brands onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud using its Autobahn platform, whose mobile-first Storefront Reference Architecture extension and low-code configuration approach let Samsonite roll out sites quickly and maintain them without heavy development.
Samsonite chose Red Van for its Salesforce leadership, its team, and a complete solution built around Salesforce rather than a generic implementation practice. Autobahn's low-code configuration is what makes eight brands maintainable by a lean team: differentiating a front end becomes a configuration exercise instead of a development project. Samsonite used Red Van's Roadside Assistance services to implement the sites and to provide support and training throughout launch.
What the platform includes
Eight Brands, One Platform
All eight Samsonite brands migrated onto a single Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform, so the team manages one environment rather than eight disconnected ones.
Autobahn Low-Code Configuration
Autobahn's mobile-first SFRA extension and low-code configuration approach, which allowed rapid site rollout and differentiated front ends without a development project per brand.
Payments and Checkout
Cybersource (Visa), Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal deployed through Autobahn's pre-built third-party integrations.
Order Management and Tax
Salesforce OMS and Aptos OMS integrated alongside Avalara for tax, connecting commerce to the operational systems behind it.
Marketing, Reviews, and Experience Tools
Emarsys, BazaarVoice Reviews, Google Tag Manager, Rokt, Tangiblee, Content Square, and Yotpo deployed through Autobahn's pre-built integrations.
Roadside Assistance Implementation
Red Van's Roadside Assistance services covering implementation, support, and training throughout the launch process.
Technical Account Management
A Technical Account Manager (TAM) augmenting Samsonite's in-house Salesforce team for ongoing development, QA, and environment management, plus Value-Driven Customer Success providing strategic ecommerce expertise.
What were the results?
Red Van migrated Samsonite's eight commerce sites in only nine months, delivering the project on time, in scope, and on budget. Samsonite's team now manages all of its sites on a single platform, greatly simplified by Autobahn. Since launch, key indicators including revenue, conversion, and average order value have increased. Samsonite is looking to increase its Salesforce investment across both current products and additional integrations.
- Eight commerce sites migrated in nine months
- Delivered on time, in scope, and on budget
- All brands managed on a single platform by a lean team
- Revenue, conversion, and average order value increasing since launch
- Differentiated front-end experiences preserved per brand
- Back-end operations simplified across the portfolio
- Full payments, OMS, tax, marketing, and review integrations live
- Foundation set for global expansion and multi-brand marketing alignment
Samsonite is now working with Red Van on how Salesforce can support a broader global presence for its brands and align multi-brand, multi-site marketing. The nine-month migration is the headline. The more durable result is that a lean team can run eight brands without a development queue in front of every change.
What services did Red Van provide?
- 01Discovery and Architecture
- 02Salesforce Commerce Cloud Implementation
- 03Multi-Site Migration
- 04Autobahn Platform Deployment
- 05Payments Integration
- 06Order Management Integration
- 07Marketing and Experience Tool Integration
- 08Roadside Assistance Support and Training
- 09Technical Account Management
- 10Value-Driven Customer Success
Frequently asked questions
How do you migrate multiple brand sites at the same time?+
By building the differentiation into configuration rather than code. Red Van migrated eight Samsonite brands onto one Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform in nine months using Autobahn's low-code approach, so each brand keeps its own front-end experience while the team maintains a single environment.
How long does a multi-site Salesforce Commerce Cloud migration take?+
Samsonite's eight sites took nine months, delivered on time, in scope, and on budget. That pace came from Autobahn's pre-built integrations and configuration-driven site rollout rather than custom-building each brand. Timelines scale with catalog complexity, integration count, and the number of operational systems involved.
Can a lean ecommerce team manage eight brand sites?+
Yes, if front-end differentiation does not require development. That was Samsonite's core constraint: a legacy setup where differentiating experiences and managing back-end operations across brands both consumed scarce resource. Autobahn's low-code configuration moved most of that work out of the development queue.
What happens after a multi-brand migration goes live?+
Samsonite added a Technical Account Manager to augment its in-house Salesforce team for ongoing development, QA, and environment management, plus Value-Driven Customer Success for strategic ecommerce guidance. Eight sites generate continuous change, and staffing for that from day one is cheaper than absorbing it into a lean team.