Etam partners with commercetools on digital rebuild

Etam Group has partnered with commercetools to rebuild its digital commerce platform across the retailer's Etam, Maison 123 and Undiz brands.

The French fashion retailer is replacing its legacy commerce system after an eight-week minimum viable product built by its Digital Factory showed a 70-80% increase in development velocity. The trial used commercetools Sphere, with support from Algolia and Contentstack.

The new setup is intended to simplify Etam's technology environment while giving individual brands more control over their digital commerce operations. The group plans to maintain a shared commerce foundation while allowing separate functions to be updated independently.

Etam's in-house development team is leading the work alongside commercetools. It said this approach will help build internal expertise and give it closer control over the platform's development.

According to the companies, the architecture is designed to connect with Etam's existing IT systems and make it easier to add new functions, support more brands and enter additional markets. It is also intended to support changes in digital and omnichannel customer experiences over time.

"From the outset, our work with commercetools has been about more than replacing technology. We're building a commerce foundation that gives our teams greater speed and our brands more freedom to innovate," said Sébastien Ribeil, Head of Digital Factory at Etam Group.

"The progress we made together in just eight weeks demonstrated what this approach can unlock, significantly increasing development velocity and giving us a way forward in how we can continue to evolve and grow. Just as importantly, it opens the door to new omnichannel experiences, a strategic priority for Etam Group in the years ahead," Ribeil said.

Internal build

The project reflects a wider shift among retailers away from older, tightly coupled commerce systems and towards modular software that can be updated in smaller parts. For Etam, the aim is to reduce reliance on a rigid platform structure that can slow development and make changes across brands harder to manage.

Etam's Digital Factory used AI-assisted development during the minimum viable product phase. The retailer said it will continue to assess how AI can improve engineering productivity and reduce manual development work as the broader transformation progresses.

Commercetools said its platform would also give Etam a base for adding new AI tools to customer-facing commerce services in future. That could include changes to shopping experiences and internal commerce operations as the retailer expands into new markets.

The agreement is another example of large retailers using phased implementation to test new architecture before committing to a full migration. By running a short pilot with its own engineering team, Etam was able to assess whether the new structure would deliver faster development without a wholesale switch from the outset.

Retail shift

For commercetools, the deal adds a European fashion group with multiple consumer brands to its customer base. More than 500 brands, retailers and enterprises use its software, with over €100 billion in annualised gross merchandise value processed through the platform, according to the company.

Its pitch to retailers has centred on API-based commerce systems that can be integrated with existing software rather than deployed as a single monolithic stack. That model has gained traction as retailers look for ways to update storefronts, checkout, content and search tools without replacing every part of their technology estate at once.

Etam's use of Algolia and Contentstack in the pilot points to that modular approach. Search, content management and core commerce services can be connected in separate layers, allowing changes in one area without requiring a full rebuild in another.

Dirk Hoerig, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at commercetools, said the project had been structured to prove value quickly and keep control close to the business teams using the technology.

"Etam approached this transformation in exactly the way we believe modern commerce should be built: prove the value quickly, give the people closest to the business the ability to build, and create an architecture that can keep changing with them," said Dirk Hoerig, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at commercetools.

"What we're building together isn't simply a replacement for Etam's existing platform. It's a foundation that gives its teams and brands the freedom to move faster today, while preparing the business for the much bigger changes AI will bring to commerce," Hoerig said.