Virtual CTO and SmartSaaS Platform Unlock 4x Revenue Growth for Multi-Brand Retailer
FAST FACTS
Industry:
eCommerce & Retail
Specialty:
Multi-brand fashion, lifestyle, and off-season retail
Solution:
Platform rebuild under Virtual CTO leadership
Users:
Merchandisers, inventory teams, marketing, CX, and executive leadership
ABOUT THE PROJECT
A luxury ecommerce operator managing multiple retail brands was struggling to grow. Their legacy tech stack had become a bottleneck—product data was unreliable, inventory syncing was inconsistent, and adding new brands required months of custom dev work. Every change required technical involvement. Internal teams were overwhelmed and external resources were costly.
PROJECT IDEA
- Redesign the ecommerce architecture to enable rapid brand onboarding, centralized merchandising, and supplier-linked inventory feeds.
- Reduce reliance on internal tech resources by shifting to a SmartSaaS platform with modular capabilities.
- Deliver a stable, scalable solution that supports long-term growth in brands, traffic, and product complexity.
PROJECT CHALLENGES
- Legacy System Bottlenecks: Custom-coded systems were fragile, slow to change, and didn’t support modern ecommerce demands.
- Manual Workload: Inventory sync, product entry, and promotions required constant technical or operational intervention.
- No Brand Scalability: Each new store or SKU line required weeks of configuration—making growth expensive and unsustainable.
- Underutilized Talent: The tech team was too busy maintaining bad systems to build features that mattered to customers or merchandising.
RESULTS
- 4x increase in revenue following multi-brand platform expansion.
- 4 new ecommerce brands launched using the same SmartSaaS infrastructure.
- Significant reduction in internal tech staffing requirements without loss in delivery velocity.
- Improved inventory accuracy and product availability through real-time supplier integration.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
The client had built a strong presence in the off-season retail and luxury overstock space—but their backend couldn’t keep up with growth. SKUs were entered by hand. Supplier feeds were pulled via spreadsheets. Promotions required dev support. And every time leadership considered launching a new brand or product category, the platform said “no.”
Meanwhile, customer experience was suffering: items were shown out of stock, sizing information was outdated, and order routing logic broke often. The company wasn’t short on ambition. But every part of the business—from merchandising to ops—was being slowed down by its own systems.
WHY ECOMMERCE BRANDS TRUST COGNATIV?
Cognativ helps ecommerce companies turn tech debt into tech leverage. Whether you're operating one brand or ten, our SmartSaaS architecture enables fast brand deployment, automated fulfillment workflows, and centralized control over product, pricing, and performance. We reduce manual overhead, eliminate vendor sprawl, and help your team deliver better customer experiences with less stress.
LEGACY SYSTEM BOTTLENECKS
The platform was held together by outdated integrations and custom scripts that broke regularly.
MANUAL WORKLOAD
Teams spent hours updating products, fixing feeds, and troubleshooting fulfillment gaps.
NO BRAND SCALABILITY
Adding a new site or store required manual work across dev, design, and merchandising—often taking months.
UNDERUTILIZED TALENT
Engineering was consumed with bug fixes, blocking innovation and growth initiatives.
SUPPLIER SYNC ISSUES
Inventory data from brands and warehouses was out of sync, causing customer service headaches and lost sales.
HIGH COST-TO-MAINTAIN
The platform was expensive to support, with poor ROI on both internal and outsourced tech labor.
THE SOLUTION
Cognativ stepped in as Virtual CTO, aligning business goals with platform capability and leading a full-stack ecommerce transformation.
- Phase 1: Conducted a systems audit and operational discovery. Identified friction in inventory logic, order routing, merchandising workflows, and brand launch procedures. Prioritized quick wins and systemic fixes.
- Phase 2: Migrated the business to Cognativ’s TotalCommerce SmartSaaS architecture. Rebuilt the product catalog, inventory sync layer, pricing engine, and customer experience stack. Launched 4 additional brands using a templated, modular brand shell framework.
- Architecture: The new system is fully composable and API-native. Business users control merchandising, brand theming, SKU onboarding, pricing rules, and marketing workflows—without developer involvement. Updates and launches happen in hours, not weeks.
HOW RAPID WAS USED...
"“The challenge wasn’t ambition—it was architecture. RAPID gave us a clear path to align teams, rebuild fast, and eliminate the friction holding everything back.” "
– Ali Davachi, Cognativ Founder
What is the RAPID Framework?
RAPID —Research, Analyze, Plan, Implement, Decide— is Cognativ’s transformation methodology, trusted by ecommerce operators and high-growth consumer brands. Outlined in RAPID Transformation: An Outcomes-Based Approach to Drive Results, it helps teams align strategy to systems and deliver outcomes faster—with less waste.
RESULTS OBTAINED
Cognativ stepped in under a Virtual CTO engagement to redesign the platform, remove manual dependencies, and launch new revenue-driving capabilities. Using the RAPID framework and Cognativ’s architecture, the company was able to scale to four additional brands, reduce tech staffing needs, and 4x total revenue—all without increasing headcount or infrastructure spend.
Revenue Growth
With more brands, better inventory, and faster merchandising, the business scaled without bloating overhead.
New Brands Launched
The client can now spin up branded storefronts in weeks—reusing infrastructure and content models.
Tech Staffing Needs
By shifting control to business users and automating backend workflows, the company decreased reliance on engineering without sacrificing innovation.
Inventory Accuracy
Real-time syncing with suppliers reduced errors, improved sell-through, and cut customer service escalations.
IMMEDIATE BENEFITS
- Faster Brand Deployment: Internal teams launched 4 new properties with no net tech headcount increase.
- Clear Ownership: Merchandising and ops teams took control of their tools—reducing developer involvement.
- Improved UX: Clean inventory logic and real-time updates meant customers saw what was actually available.
- Simplified Support: The new platform’s observability and modular design made issue resolution faster.
ONGOING BENEFITS
- The company now supports multiple fulfillment models (drop-ship, warehouse, hybrid) from the same platform.
- New promotions, pricing rules, and UX experiments can be deployed without code changes.
- Revenue per employee has increased, as platform automation enables lean, high-output operations.
- Cognativ remains engaged to help plan roadmap expansion, improve personalization, and support future internationalization.