Inside Belstaff’s unified commerce strategy

Belstaff’s 100 years campaign

British brand Belstaff ’s famous phoenix logo has long been synonymous with its rugged jackets and sense of adventure. It is also a fitting symbol as the company celebrates its 100th anniversary this year – one that captures both its heritage and its willingness to embrace the new.

Starting life as a fabric innovator in the Midlands in 1924, Belstaff ’s focus on quality, comfort and protection led it to rapidly gain a reputation as a leader in motorcycle and outdoor, all-weather clothing.

World-class racers such as Sammy Miller wore Belstaff on and off the track, and soon the brand was taking off – literally in some cases, as famous aviator Amelia Earhart was another proud wearer of the label.

Steve McQueen personified the bridging of the worlds of motorsport, outdoor adventure and Hollywood glamour: the racing driver and actor, who was nicknamed the “King of Cool”, was as comfortable on the red carpet as the racing track’s tarmac – where Belstaff ’s signature jackets regularly joined him.

Few brands have managed this balancing act. Yet, as Belstaff ’s chief brand officer, Jodie Harrison, says, the key has been to nurture a sense of belonging and community: When people see the brand’s phoenix logo, they feel like they belong to a club that represents adventure and a pioneering way of looking at the world.”

Belstaff may have built a community of loyal fans over its 100-year history, but remaining at the forefront of the fashion and retail industry has required persistent innovation – both in its product and its infrastructure.

“That’s the most challenging thing to do, especially as a legacy heritage brand,” admits Harrison. “To appeal to a new customer base while not alienating the loyalists who have been there the whole way along.”

In 2021 Belstaff began rethinking its physical and digital commerce strategies, with the aim of bringing the two together seamlessly in a unified commerce approach.

Belstaff's Regent Street store

That included both a new contemporary vision for its stores, starting with its updated flagship on London’s Regent Street, which reopened in October 2023, as well as a replatforming of its digital channels.

Navid Jilow, Belstaff ’s director of technology, has been spearheading the digital strategy at Belstaff and its shift to unified commerce. Historically, rising costs and a lack of control had created an urgent need for change within the business. Jilow and the team’s task was to fi x it. Their project’s codename? Mission Phoenix.

“We had an expensive IT outsourcing model, the technical debt was building up and the architecture was a black box,” Jilow recalls. The company’s point-of-sale system and ecommerce platform – tools that underpin everything from handling an order for a new jacket on Belstaff ’s website to managing stock levels in store – were monolithic and overly complicated. The result was inefficiencies across the business.

Jilow realised that Belstaff needed to migrate to a single platform that would combine its point of sale in store and ecommerce systems online. His aim was to have the tech stack speaking “one language”, making it simpler to both input data and get accurate real-time output, such as insights on stock levels.

With its point-of-sale and ecommerce features, alongside a roadmap for future innovations, Jilow was drawn to Shopify’s solutions. However, he realised any transformation of a business at this scale is not only technical – it is also cultural.

Belstaff’s 100 years campaign

“Sometimes, you get a level of resistance [from staff ],” says Jilow. It was important, then, that Shopify was also intuitive – to help break down the barriers of change across Belstaff ’s different teams. For Jilow, Shopify fi t the bill: “The user interface was a real highlight. When I looked at it, I was like, ‘OK, I can actually pick this up really quickly.’”

With a unified commerce system, Belstaff is taking the next step on its journey by centralising its data and getting a clear, single-platform view across the business. That means the team can build complete customer profiles to support marketing campaigns, monitor stock levels seamlessly across stores or warehouses and route orders with ease. For Belstaff ’s community and consumers, the result is a more consistent experience in keeping with the brand’s reputation for purpose-led design.

“Belstaff ’s rich history and independent spirit are qualities to be treasured,” says Deann Evans, Shopify’s managing director, EMEA. “We’ve been thrilled to support the business as it moves forward, honouring its unique heritage while offering a modern experience to new and old customers alike. The unified commerce strategy Belstaff has implemented will provide a future-proof foundation for its next chapter.”