Meet the Brand
Lemlem is an artisan-driven brand of beautiful women’s resort wear made entirely and responsibly in Africa, with a core mission of preserving the local art of weaving in Ethiopia and inspiring economic growth on the continent.
Founded by supermodel Liya Kebede in 2007, Lemlem was born to help preserve the ancient art form of weaving to create a fashion label of love, celebrating women and nature.
The Challenge
Lemlem found the majority of their workload and processes being undertaken manually by a limited-sized team. While this allowed for tight controls, they reached a point where this was no longer sustainable. Seamless integration between ApparelMagic and Cymbio’s platform allowed them to not only save time and money – it also helped improve data quality, streamline metrics, reduce errors and lift employee morale.
The Solution
Since 2017, Lemlem used ApparelMagic’s apparel management software to centralize their operations. ApparelMagic’s software offers leading apparel accounting, inventory control and logistics solutions. Due to Lemlem’s growth and success with ApparelMagic, they were also able to extend their wholesale business with J.Crew and Farfetch. Commencing in 2020, Cymbio provided automated, integrated support to help manage and process orders associated with J.Crew, Madewell plus many more retailers, which has been essential for growth.
This upgraded eCommerce platform elevated the user experience for consumers with an improvement in the ability to personalize their shopping journey. It also allowed Lemlem to enjoy growth in other significant areas, such as design and strategy, given that they had more time.
Only with the effective technology offered by Cymbio was this possible. Cymbio worked closely with Lemlem, maintaining the same team, to support their niche product integration into the eCommerce market.
Recipe for Success
With excellent product quality, inspired by the unique Ethiopian hand-woven patterns and the vibrant, colorful combinations in the streets of Africa, Lemlem is all about happy colors and stripes, creating new casual and chic pieces that are easy to wear on all occasions.
The brand’s products are made entirely and responsibly in Africa inspiring economic growth on the continent.
Lemlem understood the importance of partnering with eCommerce platforms in order for their niche product to reach a global market. Moreover, given their relatively small team, they needed successful retail connections and automation to ensure systems ran smoothly with very little hands-on effort.
“Onboarding with Cymbio has been key to securing our partnership with J.Crew and the ability to manage the increase in orders. Without Cymbio, this just would not have been possible.”
Janise Vargas, Sales Assistant, Lemlem
“We enjoy the ease with which we are able to collaborate and integrate systems with Cymbio. Collaboration isn’t just a strategy but essential for long-term business success, which we feel defines what we have with Cymbio.”
Nicoll Leighton, Operations & Strategy, ApparelMagic
The Results
The successful integration of Cymbio’s eCommerce automated solutions to ApparelMagic’s powerful ERP offered significant growth for Lemlem. This included:
- % GMV change YoY (21/20)- 112% growth
- % Orders change YoY (21/20) – 106% growth
- % GMV Q1 22 vs Q1 21- 167% growth
In addition, the upgraded platform increased the quality of the customer experience (by segmenting and personalizing offers) while simultaneously allowing Lemlem to prioritize and allocate time for other more important tasks such as designing, strategizing and sourcing more (or better) suppliers.