Would focus on building top-of-funnel experiences using Orium’s Accelerator for commercetools and Contentstack, modernizing homepage and static pages while integrating with existing ATG components such as the header, navigation, and checkout systems.
Case Study – Destination XL
Maximizing Time to Value with Composable Commerce
A phased migration from Oracle ATG to a composable architecture to minimize risk, enhance performance, and deliver scalable results.
Destination XL is a leading retailer of Men’s big and tall apparel, operating 290 retail and outlet stores across the United States. Facing both scalability and innovation roadblocks with their Oracle ATG platform, Destination XL teamed up with Orium to transform their digital ecosystem, adopting composable commerce to pave the way for long-term growth.
The Challenge
As digital commerce evolved rapidly around them, Destination XL’s Oracle ATG platform was beginning to show its age. While it had served the business well for years, its aging architecture was becoming increasingly limiting in the face of modern retail demands. With Oracle discontinuing support in 2022, maintaining the platform was becoming more resource-intensive, and adapting it to support seamless omnichannel experiences proved challenging. To stay competitive and future-ready, Destination XL recognized the need to transition to a scalable, flexible architecture that could grow alongside their business without disrupting their existing operations.
The Strategy
To address these challenges, Orium developed a comprehensive, phased approach to Destination XL’s digital transformation. By dividing the migration into three strategic releases, Orium aimed to minimize risk, deliver early value, and establish a strong foundation for future innovation. The first release would focus on building the top-of-funnel experiences using Orium’s Accelerator for commercetools and Contentstack. This would allow Destination XL to modernize their homepage and static pages while integrating seamlessly with existing ATG components, such as the header, navigation, and checkout systems.
The phased approach also included extensive planning to enhance content management capabilities. By leveraging commercetools Frontend’s page-building tools alongside Contentstack’s workflows, Orium would be able to empower Destination XL’s marketing and content teams to manage dynamic content without relying on developers. These foundational updates would lay the groundwork for future releases focusing on improving search functionality, product pages, and bottom-of-funnel experiences. It was a deliberate strategy, ensuring that Destination XL could begin reaping the benefits of composable commerce quickly while gradually transitioning off their legacy systems behind the scenes.
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PHASE ONE - LAYING THE FOUNDATION
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PHASE TWO - STREAMLINING WITH DATA AUTOMATION
With core functionality established, phase two would focus on backend processes and improved product listing pages (PLPs) and product description pages (PDPs) with a new data fabric and enhanced search capabilities to ensure accurate inventory data and streamlined operations.
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PHASE THREE - SEAMLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
The third phase would address key improvements including checkout, cart management, account features, and loyalty program integration— critical for a seamless end-to-end customer experience.
This phased approach would allow Destination XL to balance short-term wins with long-term scalability, providing confidence to their leadership team while gradually transitioning off their legacy systems.
The Solution
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PHASE ONE - LAYING THE FOUNDATION
In the first phase, Orium established a scalable composable framework while ensuring a seamless integration with legacy systems. The homepage and static pages were completely revamped using Contentstack, providing content editors with intuitive tools for content creation, layout management, and publishing. This transformation allowed Destination XL to deliver a dynamic, high-performance customer experience while maintaining their existing ATG systems for navigation, search, and checkout during the transition.
Additionally, Orium enhanced commercetools Frontend with custom features to improve the content authoring experience. These included drag-and-drop components for intuitive page building, autosuggest filters for streamlined content selection, and advanced layout controls for grid-based spacing and breakpoints. These updates enabled Destination XL’s content teams to deliver tailored, optimized experiences across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
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PHASE TWO - STREAMLINING WITH DATA AUTOMATION
With phase one complete and the core components of a composable platform in place, the team moved on to phase two. The goal was clear: reduce manual effort and streamline processes. Orium and Destination XL focused on optimizing the product listing pages (PLPs) and product description pages (PDPs).
The primary objective of this phase was to improve backend efficiency by replacing manual ETL (extract, transform, and load) processes with a more streamlined, event-driven data fabric. For instance, the new system now pulls category assignments directly from the Product Information Management (PIM) system. This automation reduces manual work and minimizes inconsistencies between the PIM and their new commercetools commerce system.
Once reliable data was flowing into the commerce layer, the team extended the data fabric to Algolia, ensuring the PLPs and search pages displayed up-to-date results. Additionally, Orium ensured that Destination XL's inventory data remained synced with commercetools, providing accurate availability messaging to customers.
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PHASE THREE - SEAMLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
As dependencies locked into place, the team was able to move onto phase three, which ushered in changes to checkout, cart management, and account features to deliver a seamless customer experience while fully transitioning off the ATG platform.
Beginning with cart management, the team moved Destination XL from a hybrid commercetools/ATG solution to solely using commercetools with Orium’s Accelerator for commercetools. Promotion management capabilities were updated next, which enabled support for cart-level and product-level promotions, discount codes, and loyalty-specific promotions, with backend customizations and UI updates.
Navigation updates came next, which enhanced the website header with a My Account login and drawer, alongside comprehensive profile management pages for order history, rewards, saved addresses, and more. Checkout enhancements iterated on existing features to ensure the end-to-end customer flow fully leveraged the Orium Accelerator and commercetools. Shipping and payment integrations introduced dynamic shipping methods based on cart value, loyalty tier, and cart contents, while incorporating CyberSource, PayPal, and gift card payment methods.
Third-party integrations added functionality for tax calculations, fraud detection via Forter, order submission to internal systems, and coupon clearing APIs to prevent misuse across channels. Loyalty program integration with Marigold connected loyalty accounts with customer groups in commercetools, enabling users to access rewards, tier status, and redemption history. BOPIS (Buy Online Pick-Up In-Store) functionality was enhanced across product pages, cart, and checkout flows, while analytics integrations via Tealium provided robust tracking for cart and checkout processes.
Finally, customer accounts were seamlessly migrated from the ATG platform to commercetools, completing the transition to a fully modernized platform.
Outcomes & Next Steps
Revamped content management workflows from phase 1 have empowered marketing teams to make real-time updates without developer support, further improving operational efficiency and phase two saw a significant reduction in manual effort, improving product page engagement and conversion with a streamlined data fabric and optimized search capabilities. In phase three robust cart, checkout, and loyalty functionality were introduced, setting a new standard for customer experience and operational efficiency.
By adopting a phased approach, Destination XL has successfully balanced short-term wins with long-term scalability, setting a new standard for their digital commerce operations. With scalability and flexibility at its core, the new platform positions Destination XL for ongoing innovation and growth in the competitive retail landscape.
