A Critical Deadline for a Beloved Enterprise Brand

When Dream On Me acquired buybuy BABY in 2023 amid Bed Bath & Beyond’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they faced an enormous challenge. buybuy BABY's 130+ stores had shuttered and its eCommerce site had gone offline. With $1.5B in projected sales for FY23, a fast digital relaunch was crucial to restoring customer trust and capturing revenue.
buybuy BABY would need an entirely new, on-brand eCommerce experience built from scratch—complete with a complex migration to Shopify Plus—within 31 days.

This timeline would be near-impossible for any enterprise retailer, let alone one with millions of customer records, 30,000+ SKUs, and the need to go live expeditiously. Platform migrations of this scale take 6 months to 1 year, but the clock was ticking. And Dream On Me had no room for error.

Milestones

Massive Data Transfer

Successfully migrated 30,000+ SKUs and 8.3 million customer records from Oracle ATG to Shopify Plus in 31 days.

"Default to Default”

Anatta’s extensive experience working on Shopify Enterprise allowed Anatta to understand what Shopify Themes and solutions were best-fit for buybuy BABY’s unique use case while eliminating risk for scope creep.

TESTIMONIALS

What Our Clients Are Saying

“We went through a website retheme and saw incredible growth in terms of our eCommerce conversion rate. We went from 4% to 6%, which is insane in the eCommerce industry, which also helped improve our customer acquisition cost by almost half.”

Tran Ngo

Vice President Digital & Growth, True Botanicals

Anatta’s website retheme helped us see incredible growth in conversion rate.

“Anatta is truly a professional web agency that's all-encompassing. They can do everything from user experience to A/B test, to getting your site functional, to really taking your site to that next level. Anatta will take your website essentially from any stage to that next top level.”

Anatta will take your website to the next level.

Daniel James

CTO, Aventon

“I feel very proud that we have a customer-centric site that has greatly improved conversion. We wanted to make it a great experience for consumers: they can find everything they need, without friction. And it's happy. It's still fun. It's still SmartyPants.”

Thanks to Anatta, we have a website that’s converting and on-brand.

Eleah Portillo

Direct to Consumer Marketing Director, SmartyPants Vitamins

buybuy BABY Achieves Innovative Retail Moonshot as First Steps in New Chapter of Success

Amit Malhotra

CTO, buybuy BABY

$1.5B Enterprise Retailer buybuy BABY Launches Premium Shopify Experience in Record Time

Industry

Infant & childcare goods

Before Anatta Partnership

130+ stores closed
Dated eCommerce experience
DTC website lived on complex legacy technology

After Anatta Partnership

4 stores were reopened with Shopify POS enabled before BFCM 2023
Fresh desktop & mobile experience on Shopify with omnichannel capabilities
ERP, OMS, Marketplace integrations
Lower TCO

Technology Stack

Shopify
Gorgias
Klaviyo
CommerceHub
Salsify

GET IN TOUCH WITH ANATTA

Bazaarvoice
ShipperHQ
Avalara
Deposco
Zoho

Optimized User Experience

buybuy BABY’s new site was optimized for both desktop and mobile, offering frictionless shopping with omnichannel integrations, a conversion-optimized checkout process, and a familiar, branded experience.

Seamless Integrations

Implemented 14 key integration points, including ERP, OMS, Marketplace, and Shopify POS. Third-party apps for customer rewards, fraud protection, product reviews, and fulfillment were also functional from launch.

Foundation for Success

The new Shopify Plus store was designed to scale, accommodating buybuy BABY’s high traffic and sales volume from Day 1.

The Solution: Anatta's Custom Project Management Framework Backed By 8+ Years Leading Enterprise Shopify Implementations

Once the migration was underway, Anatta prioritized transferring buybuy BABY’s essential data. Second, Anatta mapped out user experience features like customer support chat, onsite search, and product reviews. In addition, Anatta began assessing the third-party integrations buybuy BABY would need on Day 1 of the site going live.

Throughout the intense buybuy BABY sprint, Anatta’s agile project management framework allowed fast pivots, addressing risks and challenges as quickly as they came up. Anatta also worked closely with Shopify to overcome technical challenges, including modifying Matrixify API constraints to speed up the large data transfer.

Results That Defied Expectations: buybuy BABY's Swift Relaunch in eCommerce & Physical Retail

On September 1st, 2023, buybuy BABY's CTO, Amit Malhotra, showcased the new buybuy BABY website to Dream On Me investors and Anatta in a momentous conference call. Malhotra navigated the site, chatted with customer support, and then successfully placed the first customer order since buybuy BABY went offline. The call erupted in cheers.

Against all odds, buybuy BABY was back in business, ready to serve its customers with a state-of-the-art digital storefront just 31 days after the project began. The full public launch of buybuybaby.com followed shortly after.

Following the successful launch, buybuy BABY leaned on Anatta’s expertise to design and launch a new baby registry feature, a key offering in the childcare product space.

Anatta also continued to play a pivotal role in the reopening of the first 4 buybuy BABY stores. With Anatta’s Shopify POS integration, buybuy BABY’s brick-and-mortar locations opened their doors with enhanced interoperability and buybuy BABY’s classic membership experience accessible online and in-store.

The successful relaunch of buybuy BABY's eCommerce platform marked more than just a technical achievement—it signaled the brand's resurgence in digital retail and beyond. The new Shopify store enabled buybuy BABY to reconnect with its loyal customer base across various channels. Now, buybuy BABY could begin a new chapter well-positioned to drive growth, innovate, and continue its legacy as a trusted name in children's retail.

In the 6 months after buybuybaby.com went public, Dream On Me was able to turn on an additional 6 retail stores leaning on Anatta’s technical support.

Throughout 2024, buybuy BABY has continued to gain traction on the retail and digital front. The brand hosts monthly in-store events for new and expecting parents and is launching collaborations with social media influencers on Instagram and TikTok.

Getting Back to Retail—Fast

With Anatta’s Shopify POS integrations, buybuy BABY was able to quickly turn on 4 retail stores before the 2023 holiday shopping season with 6 additional stores opening in the following 6 months after buybuybaby.com relaunched.

Anatta’s approach was innovative, pragmatic, and developed over Anatta’s 8+ years of leading Enterprise implementations on Shopify. The framework established by Anatta supported rapid iterating but also baked-in processes for securing stakeholder alignment quickly.

"Deliberate the Difficult"

Think through decisions with large downstream impacts, such as choosing a 3PL provider, in a matter of days to keep sprint momentum but allow enough time for thoughtful deliberation.

"Make ALL other decisions very fast"

buybuy BABY’s 31-day moonshot left no room for stakeholder misalignment. Anatta established a frequent cadence between stakeholders and the sprint team to remove roadblocks fast. Anatta understood critical decisions needed to be made within hours.

Smooth, Fast, and Scalable: Confidently Migrate to Shopify with Anatta

DISCOVER HOW

buybuy BABY Charts a Daring 31-Day Platform Migration Alongside Fresh eCommerce Experience Modernization

Dream On Me’s acquisition of buybuy BABY on July 21, 2023, came with an unprecedented challenge. How could the buybuy BABY brand regain consumer trust after its 130+ locations just closed and its website was now offline?

To restore core pillars of the business, Dream On Me first publicly announced plans to reopen 11 buybuy BABY stores. The team further determined getting buybuybaby.com back online was a leading priority.

A DTC website would enable previous buybuy BABY customers to begin shopping from the brand again regardless of whether an open buybuy BABY store was nearby. An online presence could also support the momentum buybuy BABY needed to recover market standing.

After meeting with several major platform players, Dream On Me began talks with Shopify to decide if Shopify Plus could serve as buybuy BABY’s new eCommerce solution. But Dream On Me came with an ambitious goal.

Dream On Me wanted to launch buybuy BABY's new Shopify experience and reopen 4 storefronts in just 31 days—open for business before the critical 2023 holiday shopping period. The timeline for an enterprise migration like buybuy BABY's would take 6 months to 1 year. The goal of an updated digital storefront and POS integration for buybuy BABY’s first 4 stores added another layer of complexity.

With no margin for error and every second counting, buybuy BABY needed a partner who could turn their moonshot into reality.

The scale of the buybuy BABY project was staggering:

Migrate 30,000+ SKUs and millions of customer records from a legacy platform
Design and develop a branded, optimized Shopify Plus store with omnichannel capabilities
Integrate a 3PL provider and map out fulfillment flows (This included a separate OMS for omnichannel)
Implement a new checkout experience with third-party payment options, customer rewards, and product review functionality
Integrate with an ERP out the gate to ensure proper accounting and financial reporting
Integrate security measures, fraud protection, Marketplace, and additional third-party applications
Shopify POS integrated and ready for the reopening of the first 4 and future buybuy BABY stores
Ensure the new website could handle buybuy BABY's projected $1.5B in FY23 sales

Shopify turned to Shopify Partner, Anatta, recognizing that Anatta’s expertise and flexible operational model were crucial for buybuy BABY’s high-stakes project. While Anatta understood the risky nature of the timeline, equipped with over 15 years of Shopify and DTC experience, Anatta knew their team could deliver.

Following the first discovery call with buybuy BABY and Shopify, Anatta immediately put together an exhaustive roadmap to make the 31-day sprint achievable.