Customer Case Study

Footgear: Click & collect tripled. Then something unexpected happened.

Customer Footgear — one of Australia’s leading comfort footwear retailers, nearly 20 years in business
Footprint 8 retail stores across South East Queensland
Platforms Retail Express POS, Shopify, SAAS Integrator middleware, SAAS Click and Collect
Project Implement SAAS Integrator’s purpose-built multi-store integration for Retail Express and Shopify
Footgear retail store showing the brand wordmark above shelves of comfort footwear

John Harrison knew click & collect was underperforming.

Footgear — the Australian comfort footwear retailer he founded with his wife Victoria nearly 20 years ago — has eight stores across South East Queensland. Customers wanted to buy online and pick up in-store. With eight stores, Footgear needed Shopify to see each location individually and to handle click & collect natively. The standard setup pools inventory into a single Shopify location, which works for single-store retailers but limits what a multi-store business can offer customers online.

When Footgear switched to SAAS Integrator, John expected the click & collect experience to improve.

He didn’t expect it to triple.

“It’s at least tripled or quadrupled.”
— John Harrison, Owner, Footgear

And he definitely didn’t expect the website to get faster.

The standard setup hitting its ceiling

Before moving to SAAS Integrator, Footgear ran the standard Retail Express to Shopify connector. With eight stores, all stock was pooled into a single Shopify location — which meant per-store visibility wasn’t possible, click & collect required custom workarounds, and most of the Shopify apps Footgear wanted to use weren’t compatible.

“There’s not a lot of information that passes between the two systems. It’s just the bare basic bones.”
— John Harrison

Click & collect was technically running, but only because custom code had been written around Shopify to split the eight stores back out at the presentation layer. The checkout experience was clunky as a result. Customers who wanted to check stock at their local store, select it, and pick it up didn’t get the seamless experience modern shoppers expect.

“The presentation before was quite clunky. Even when you got to the checkout, it was very clunky.”
— John Harrison

For a retailer with eight stores in tier-one shopping centres — and a customer base that values the convenience of checking availability before they drive — this was leaving money on the table.

The switch

SAAS Integrator's purpose-built multi-store integration exposed all eight Footgear stores as separate Shopify locations with real-time stock levels. Customers could finally see what was available where, select their preferred store, and check out without friction.

Click & collect became a native part of the experience rather than something built on top.

3–4× more click & collect orders

The growth has been dramatic — three to four times the volume Footgear was seeing before the switch.

Early indicators from the first 30 days post-switch showed orders up 6%, items ordered up 5%, orders fulfilled up 11%, and order fulfilment time 22% faster.

John attributes the lift to one thing: customer experience.

“It is a much, much better, cleaner, better presented experience now for the customer. That must be the sole reason.”
— John Harrison

Behind the counter, store teams have settled into the new procedures. The flow is smoother, there’s less coordination required from head office, and orders move faster.

The surprise: site speed

Here’s what nobody saw coming.

The site got faster. Dramatically faster.

Footgear’s website had been slow for years. It was an issue John had tried to fix before — contractors had been engaged, investigations had been run. Nothing worked. The slowness wasn’t a Shopify problem and it wasn’t a theme problem. It was something deeper.

“It has been an issue for a long time. We’d get on our website and say, why is our website so slow? Sometimes you’d even think, why would customers stick on our website for so long?”
— John Harrison

When SAAS Integrator’s connector went live, the site speed changed dramatically.

“As soon as we went to SAAS Integrator, the speed level is just through the roof and it’s normal what it should be.”
— John Harrison

The previous setup required product and inventory data to pass through a translation layer before reaching Shopify. SAAS Integrator’s connector writes directly to Shopify’s native data model. The product and inventory pathways are built specifically for Shopify rather than adapted from another platform — which is why the site got faster.

John knows what slow sites cost. He talks about his own behaviour as a consumer — if a site is slow, he leaves. Footgear’s customers were doing the same.

“It would make a huge difference to customer retention on our website.”
— John Harrison

This wasn’t a benefit anyone planned for. It’s become the thing John is most excited about.

“We went into this not thinking that the speed would increase. I’m so excited that our speeds on Shopify has increased.”
— John Harrison

The working relationship

Since going live, Footgear has worked closely with the SAAS Integrator support team.

“It’s good working with the team because the guys are based here in Australia. The response times are quick and they know the product really well.”
— John Harrison

Issues are typically resolved within a few hours — 24 to 48 hours in the worst case. And the pace of product updates has been notable:

“The updates have been rapid. They just keep coming. These guys seem to be on the ball with looking at how they can keep improving things.”
— John Harrison

Local expertise has been critical. For a retailer running Retail Express, finding a partner who actually understands the platform is harder than it should be.

“REX is not known by many other apps, unfortunately. When you mention REX, no one seems to know about it because most of them are based overseas. So having someone local that understands REX is probably the most critical part for us.”
— John Harrison

What’s next

With all eight stores now exposed to Shopify with real-time stock, Footgear is evaluating fulfilment apps — including Australia Post integrations — that would let individual stores manage their own order fulfilment rather than head office coordinating it centrally.

“That will ultimately be able to give more control for each of our stores to be able to fulfill orders rather than us manage those procedures in our head office.”
— John Harrison

It’s a capability that wasn’t possible under the previous setup — and it’s the kind of roadmap unlocking that SAAS Integrator is designed to support.

In one sentence

Asked to summarise why the switch was worth it:

“We went into this not thinking that the speed would increase, but that would probably be the primary thing. The click & collect was probably underestimated from my point of view.”
— John Harrison

Key metrics at a glance

3–4× growth Click & collect orders
+11% Orders fulfilled
22% faster Fulfilment speed
“Through the roof” Site performance

Running multiple stores on Retail Express and Shopify?

Footgear didn’t transform their operation through a feature list. They added a layer between Retail Express and Shopify built specifically for multi-store Australian retailers — and got two wins, one they didn’t even ask for.

If you’re scaling a multi-store retail business and want more from your Retail Express and Shopify setup, let’s talk. Troy Netreba has spent over a decade helping Australian retailers like Footgear unlock more from their tech stack. Thirty minutes. No pitch deck. Just a conversation about what’s possible.

Book a discovery call

About Footgear

Footgear is an Australian comfort footwear retailer with eight stores across South East Queensland and a growing online business. Founded by John and Victoria Harrison, the business is positioned as one of Australia’s leading comfort shoe retailers and one of the country’s largest Birkenstock retailers.

footgear.com.au

About SAAS Integrator

SAAS Integrator transforms how businesses operate by connecting their entire tech ecosystem seamlessly.

While others see us as just another integration platform, we look at every connection through a revenue lens. How can this help generate more leads? Drive more sales? Deliver exceptional customer experiences?

That mindset is why multi-store Australian retailers running Retail Express and Shopify trust us to unify their in-store and online operations — across click & collect, B2B pricing, location-based inventory, store-level reporting, and the next initiative on their roadmap.

www.saasintegrator.com