Samsonite — A New Commerce Channel Inside an Existing Architecture
The first Costco Next storefront on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. What it taught us about adding a channel without adding a foundation.
Executive summary
Samsonite needed to launch a Costco Next storefront — both to meet a partnership requirement with Costco and to open a new revenue channel. The instinct in commerce work is to reach for a new platform. The discipline here was the opposite: we added a channel without adding a foundation, integrating into the existing Salesforce Commerce Cloud ecosystem and Order Management System rather than standing up something parallel.
The organization
Samsonite is an established brand with an existing SFCC ecosystem and an operational Order Management System (OMS). Unlike a greenfield engagement, most of the architecture already existed — the question was how to extend it, not how to create it.
The problem
Costco required a storefront that met its partner standards and integrated with its systems. Samsonite needed that storefront to behave like part of their existing operation — the same order management, the same fulfillment — not a disconnected island that staff would have to reconcile by hand.
Constraints
- Meet Costco's partner requirements and integrate with Costco's systems.
- Work within the existing Salesforce Commerce Cloud ecosystem.
- Maintain compatibility with the existing Order Management System.
- Avoid introducing new platforms or operational complexity.
- Deliver on a tight timeline — this was the first Costco Next storefront on SFCC, with no prior template.
Architecture
Read against SKF-001, Samsonite already had the lower layers in place — a business model, an operational data layer anchored by the OMS, and commerce applications on SFCC. Our work lived in the upper layers: a new channel and its experience. The governing rule was to treat the OMS as the source of truth and let the new storefront consume it, never duplicate it.
Implementation
| Choice | Why |
|---|---|
| Salesforce Commerce Cloud | Extend the platform already in production rather than introduce a competing one. |
| Salesforce Order Management | Keep a single source of truth for orders and fulfillment across channels. |
| React + composable frontend | Decouple the new channel's experience from the shared commerce backend. |
| CyberSource | SOC-compliant, secure transactions without expanding compliance scope. |
| Klaviyo | Channel-appropriate customer messaging on top of existing operations. |
Because this was the first storefront of its kind on SFCC, the Costco integration carried the most unknowns. We de-risked it early rather than late, so that the parts with no precedent were proven before the timeline tightened.
Results
- 6 mo
- Timeline to launch
- 1st
- Costco Next on SFCC
- 13%
- Costco members clicked through
- 4.9k
- Bags shipped, first week
Samsonite launched the Costco Next storefront in six months — the first of its kind on SFCC. The storefront consumed the existing OMS and SFCC ecosystem rather than standing up parallel infrastructure. Post-launch support was ongoing.
Tradeoffs
A composable frontend adds moving parts compared with a single monolithic storefront. We accepted that cost because the new channel's experience needs differed from the core storefront, and isolation let each evolve without destabilizing the other. On a channel with identical requirements to the core, the simpler monolith would have been the right call.
Lessons learned
- Adding a channel is not the same as adding a foundation. Reuse the operational base you already trust.
- "First of its kind" work concentrates risk in the integration — prove that part first.
- A composable frontend isolates channel-specific experience from a shared backend.
- Restraint — choosing not to add a platform — is itself an architectural decision worth defending.
Related knowledge
- SKF-001 — The Summit Architecture Pyramid (framework applied here)
- SKC-001 — ParkPro, the greenfield counterpart
- SKC-004 — DataExpandr, positioning and experience-layer work