Case study
Judith Williams Cosmetics switches to Channable without a single day of downtime
How Cura Cosmetics moved the Judith Williams brand to Channable: listings matched instead of re-created, Amazon and Douglas without a single day of downtime.
Cura Cosmetics (Judith Williams)
- 0 days downtime
Results
- Middleware switch to Channable without a single day of downtime on Amazon DE and Douglas
- Existing listings matched instead of re-created: rankings and reviews were preserved
- 90% of product data now comes straight from Shopify, maintained once
A middleware switch while everything kept running: Cura Cosmetics moved the marketplace integration for the Judith Williams skincare products from its previous enterprise middleware to Channable. Without a single day of downtime on Amazon DE and Douglas.
The starting point: the old middleware no longer fit
Cura Cosmetics distributes the Judith Williams skincare products: creams, facial cleansers, lip care, serums, masks. They were already selling on Amazon DE and the Douglas Marketplace, connected through one of the big enterprise middlewares in the DACH region. We’re leaving out the name at the customer’s request; if you work in the marketplace business, you know the model: a high base fee plus revenue share, long contract terms.
Why the switch? The team puts it most clearly themselves:
“Our previous middleware was no longer the right long-term solution for our requirements. On the one hand, the costs were no longer in proportion to the functionality offered; on the other, we were missing a native Shopify integration. The manual maintenance effort was high, the time until new products went live on the marketplaces was sometimes very long, and support could not always meet our expectations in terms of speed and solution focus. That’s why we looked for a more modern and more efficient alternative.”
Valentina Huter, Solution Architect, Cura Cosmetics The goals for the switch were correspondingly clear:
- A transition without downtime, so ongoing sales aren’t affected
- Low maintenance effort and faster time-to-market for new products
- Predictable, fair costs
The solution: match instead of relisting
Shopify straight to Channable
Shopify is now connected natively to Channable. 90% of the product data comes straight from there: maintained once, it flows to the marketplaces automatically. The remaining 10% are the marketplace-specific elements Shopify doesn’t know: Amazon titles, item highlights, bullet points, optimized images. They’re kept cleanly separate in a Google Sheet.
The most important step: keeping existing listings
We exported the existing listings on Amazon and Douglas and merged them with the Shopify data. Not created from scratch.
This is exactly where integrator switches go wrong: if you relist instead of matching, you start from zero again on rankings and reviews.
The results
“The implementation was structured and collaborative. Although we are currently still in a transition phase and our product data will soon be fully consolidated in a PIM, we are already benefiting from leaner processes and a much more personal working relationship. In the long term, we expect both time and cost savings from the native Shopify integration, the simplified data structures and the reduced manual maintenance effort.”
Valentina Huter, Solution Architect, Cura Cosmetics In short:
- Not a single day of downtime on Amazon DE and Douglas during the migration
- Rankings and reviews were fully preserved
- Leaner processes already during the transition phase; next, the product data moves entirely into a PIM
Why Unhooked?
“Unhooked Marketing was recommended to us directly by Channable. The deciding factors were the experience with Channable projects, the competent consulting and the personal impression from the very first conversations. We felt we had found a partner who doesn’t just know the tool, but also understands our processes.”
Valentina Huter, Solution Architect, Cura Cosmetics What other brands can take away from this
Cura Cosmetics has now switched marketplace integrators for the second time and knows the challenges of such a changeover firsthand:
“That makes an experienced implementation partner all the more important. Our advice is also to rely on native interfaces and standard solutions wherever possible, and to actively involve the future key users in the project from day one. That makes the rollout considerably easier and ensures lasting adoption. With Channable we found a powerful solution that combines many functions at an attractive price, and together with Unhooked Marketing it was implemented successfully.”
Valentina Huter, Solution Architect, Cura Cosmetics How we connect Amazon and Douglas is on our pages about Amazon and Douglas. This case study is also available as a post on LinkedIn (in German).
