How KARL LAGERFELD Migrated from Salesforce to Shopify and Built Far More Granular Merchandising

As part of a strategic move to increase agility and business autonomy, KARL LAGERFELD migrated from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify.

During the move they wanted to get ahead of a common hurdle that enterprise retailers often face when migrating: Having to manually rebuild their entire product logic.

Instead, KARL LAGERFELD looked for a solution that would keep their complex merchandising rules intact when moving to Shopify, without heavy implementation or relying on developers.

There was only one logical option: Kimonix.

The Migration Partner: Domaine Europe

Purpose-built for ambitious & beloved brands

As the migration partner for Karl Lagerfeld, Domaine Europe delivered an enterprise-grade transition from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify with a strong focus on preserving business-critical functionality. By working closely with Kimonix, a clean separation between platform and merchandising was architected. Domaine Europe delivered the Shopify commerce foundation, while Kimonix handled advanced merchandising logic, thus eliminating the need for custom code or middleware. The result? A successful launch that ensured merchandising is a business lever: lower costs, faster change cycles, and full flexibility across markets without ongoing developer dependency.

For enterprise migrations like this, success depends on the ecosystem. Because we’ve partnered with Kimonix for years with consistently strong results, we were confident in their ability to support Karl Lagerfeld’s merchandising complexity. What stood out was their smart, elegant architecture — keeping stores high-performing without adding unnecessary complexity. It’s exactly the kind of partnership we value at Domaine.

 — Bob Rockland, Founder Domaine Europe

About KARL LAGERFELD

KARL LAGERFELD is a global fashion brand known for modern, bold design inspired by the creative vision of designer Karl Lagerfeld. The brand offers ready-to-wear fashion, accessories, and lifestyle products for men, women and children.

Because KARL LAGERFELD manages a large, fashion-driven catalog across multiple markets, product order and category structure are critical to how the brand is presented online. This need for faster, more flexible category and merchandising control was a key reason for moving from Salesforce to Shopify.

But before moving, they had a big merchandising challenge to cross.

The Salesforce-to-Shopify Merchandising Challenge

On Salesforce, KARL LAGERFELD had relied on complex product sorting and category rules that required heavy technical setup to manage. Every adjustment meant pulling in IT or external developers.

When moving to Shopify, those same merchandising rules did not exist by default and risked being lost entirely. The challenge was:

• Shopify's native Smart Collections couldn't support their complex merchandising data hierarchy
  

• Their previous setup had merchandising logic stuck in middleware
  

• Product ranking had to work both globally and per local market

• Frontend merchandising tools risked slowing down site performance
  

• Strong visual control was required for hero products and fashion sets
  

• Preserving product order and visual presentation without creating new developer dependency.

They also needed to consider that:

The solution?

An Automated Merchandising Solution with Full Control

With Kimonix, KARL LAGERFELD was able to handle complex product sorting and category logic directly inside Shopify, without custom code, middleware, or frontend tools.

How Kimonix’s Automated Merchandising Platform Supported the Migration

As soon as the product catalog was imported into Shopify, KARL LAGERFELD's team started building collections in Kimonix. They had previously managed categorization business logic in middleware and desperately wanted to move away from that setup.

Their team rebuilt all categories and product-ordering rules in Kimonix, from scratch. The process proved to be smoother and quicker than expected.

This allowed the Shopify site to launch with correct product order and around 100 category pages live from day one, without manual fixes or developer support.

Advanced Backend Merchandising Logic for Shopify Migration

Kimonix provides advanced backend merchandising logic that automatically controls how products are ordered and shown in Shopify collections. It uses:

• Real-time performance
  

• Stock
  

• And customer behavior data
  

to keep product ranking up to date without manual work or custom code. This logic runs fully in the backend, so merchandising can scale without affecting site speed or visual design.

Here are its backend merchandising features:

• Collection Sorting
  

• Dynamic Merchandising Rules

• Marketization (market-specific rankings)
  

• Product Pinning (hero products)
  

• A/B Testing for Collections
  

• Listing Page Analytics (CTR, engagement)

Why KARL LAGERFELD Chose Kimonix over Other Platforms

We’ve had a very positive experience using Kimonix. It’s easy to set up, integrates smoothly with Shopify, and saves us a lot of manual work on merchandising

 — Bob Rockland, Founder Domaine Europe

Kimonix stood out for four key reasons:

1. It matched their existing merchandising complexity without rebuilding it from scratch. This meant that their merchandising team could carry over advanced sorting logic they already relied on, instead of simplifying or redesigning categories after the migration.
   

2. It supported global fashion direction while allowing local differences. KARL LAGERFELD could therefore keep global hero products consistent, while still letting rankings adapt to how shoppers behave in different markets.
   

3. It fits a premium fashion setup without forcing frontend compromises. Because merchandising logic stayed in the backend, they could avoid performance issues and allow the site’s visual presentation to stay clean and on-brand.
   

4. It provided design flexibility for a premium brand. The Kimonix team customized the merchandising module design to align with KARL LAGERFELD's premium visual identity.
   

The Results

Thanks to using Kimonix as part of their Salesforce to Shopify migration, they:

• Had ~100 category and listing pages live at launch
  

• And gained visibility into listing page performance (CTR metrics)
  

After launch, KARL LAGERFELD's business team could continuously manage merchandising themselves across markets with consistent results and no performance issues. They can now:

• Adjust merchandising without IT or developer support
  

• A/B test sorting strategies to optimize results
  

• Group coordinated items (suits, sets) to automatically merchandise together

• Offer different assortments with market-specific rankings in different markets (Germany vs. UK, for example)
  

• Handle collection logic without being dependent on middleware

The data-driven recommendations are clear and actionable, helping us make better day-to-day decisions and improve overall performance.