Exotic Shoes – Wholesale E-commerce Platform

The client

Exotic Shoes is a Johannesburg-based wholesale ladies footwear brand supplying boutiques and independent resellers across South Africa. Their stockists were used to placing orders through WhatsApp and email, which meant the team spent hours every day collating sizes, checking stock and confirming pricing.

The challenge

• Orders came through fragmented channels — WhatsApp, email and phone — making it hard to track.
• Stockists could not see real-time availability, leading to overselling and disappointed customers.
• The previous website was slow on mobile and did not support the wholesale pricing model.
• The team needed a single place to manage products, pricing tiers and order history.

What we built

• Headless Next.js storefront connected to WordPress via REST API for content and product management.
• Mobile-first UX designed for boutique owners browsing on phones between store visits.
• Tiered pricing and minimum order rules built into the checkout flow for wholesale accounts.
• Real-time stock availability so stockists know what is available before they order.
• Order history and re-ordering so repeat stockists can replenish best-sellers in seconds.

The outcome

• Stockist order time dropped from hours of back-and-forth to under five minutes.
• Repeat orders increased by approximately 40% within three months of launch.
• Manual order processing work was reduced by over 60%, freeing the team for sourcing and marketing.
• The platform handles seasonal catalogue updates without developer involvement.

Technologies used

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